A few months after the Twelve Years' Truce between the Dutch Republic and the Spanish Monarchy expired, the Spanish Army of Flanders, led by the Genoese nobleman Ambrogio Spinola, went on the offensive against the Republic and approached the Rhine river to mask its true intentions: laying siege to the town of Jülich, which the Dutch States Army had occupied in 1610 during the War of the Jülich Succession.

After the conclusion of the three-year long Siege of Ostend in 1604, the Spanish Army of Flanders under Ambrogio Spinola, who had assumed command one year before, went on the offensive against the United Provinces for the first time since 1599.

[6] While the demobilitzation was ongoing, a succession crisis broke in the states of the late Duke Johann Wilhelm of Jülich, which, besides that duchy, included those of Cleves and Berg, the counties of Mark and Ravensberg, and the Lordship of Ravenstein.

However, since they were both Lutherans and Johann Wilhelm had been Catholic, the Imperial authorities claimed that the compromise breached the Augsburg Interim, and an army under Archduke Leopold V of Tirol, bishop of Strasbourg and Passau, was sent to occupy Jülich.

[8] While Spain refused to intervene as it was dealing with the Expulsion of the Moriscos, the Dutch Republic and France did it and dispatched troops to join the armies of Brandenburg and the Palatinate-Neuburg to besiege Jülich.

Spinola moved out from Maastrich in late August and, in a swift campaign, occupied the rebellious Free Imperial City of Aachen, supported by Brandenburg, 10 towns and villages in Cleves, including Wesel, 28 in Jülich, and 24 in Berg and Mark.

In 1616, Spinola occupied Soest, while in 1620, Maurice, who had sized power in the Republic after toppling the pro-peace Grand Pensionary Oldenbarnevelt in 1618, sent troops up the Rhine to seize and fortify an island on the confluence of the said river and the Sieg.

[14] Since Spain was already heavily involved in the Thirty Years' War, on January Archduke Albert persuaded Philip III about the need of renewing the truce, and was authorized to open talks with Maurice.

[15] This were conducted through Bartholda van Swieten, a relative of the Count of Tilly, commanding general of the Army of the Catholic League, who lived at The Hague and was close to Maurice.

The prospect of renewing the war was popular in Holland and, specially, in Zeeland, since it would allow their elite to benefit from trade with the Indies and privateering on the high seas.

Cristóbal Benavente, veedor general of the Army of Flanders, argued for the conquest of Cleves and a limited thrust in the Arnhem region, combined with embargoes in Spain and its Italian viceroyalties, and a river blockade in the Netherlands and north-west Germany.

[18] In March 1621, Maestre de Campo Carlos Coloma, whom Spinola had sent to the Spanish court, made a similar proposal, arguing for 'put the war on them on the Betuwe by crossing the Waal, or in the Veluwe by going over the IJssel'.

[20] The Brussels court was convinced that the Dutch too would make the first moves in the Rhineland and, once the truce expired on 9 April, Albert advised the Elector of Cologne to mobilize 2,000 infantry and 300 cavalry to protect its states.

Albert also feared Dutch offensives over Münster, Paderborn and, notably, Liège, where Maurice had inherited the enclave of Herstal –just 5 km from Liège– from his elder brother Philip William.

The States' Army camp was flooded with water up to mid-leg, which forced Maurice to bring more than 30,000 wooden plates to be laid over the wet ground, while the forage for the horses became extremely scarce.

[30] The lawyer ask to be released because of this status as a subject of a neutral prince, but he ended up being sent back to the castle with a written order for Tytfort to surrender, which he did on 30 August.

That day, the Spanish troops seized over 500 cows, oxen, horses and sheep belonging to the inhabitants of Jülich, which were grazing outside the town and which Van den Bergh ordered to be brought to the castle of Breitenbend, near Linnich.

When completed in 1580, the fortress was considered one of the strongest in Europe, yet the Dutch, after its capture in 1610, deemed it vulnerable and bolstered it with a number of hornworks and ravelins in front of the bastions and the ramparts of the citadel.

[39] On 26 September, 200 musketeers and 100 cavalrymen fell upon a redoubt of the circumvallation line, but they were promptly rebuffed with the loss of 50 men by its defenders with the help of Van den Bergh himself, who rushed the post in command of 100 cavalry soldiers.

[1] Since the Spanish were in control of Wesel, Geldern and Venlo, plus advanced positions in Cleves, Maurice deemed a direct attempt at relieving Jülich too risky.

He therefore conceived a plan in late November to sneak a number of infantry aboard 40 boats up the Meuse to land in the vicinity of Gennep, where they would be joined by 15 cavalry companies, and then take by surprise the small town of Maaseik, in the Prince-Bishopric of Liège, to open a way to Jülich.

[42] On 17 January, Pithan opened negotiations for the surrender and sent to the Spanish camp a commission of three captains, one of each nationality of the States' troops in the garrison, namely German, French and English.

Spinola would respect the Protestant cult in Jülich, allow the officials of the Elector of Brandenburg to stay at the town, let the garrison to leave with its weapons, flags and baggage, and escort it to Nijmegen.

[49] On the other hand, the blockade led to difficulties in the supplying of the Spanish garrisons in the Low Countries and Germany and disrupted the Flemish commerce and much of Antwerp's insurance business in the Republic.

[51] As the first major triumph of Spain in the Netherlands following the Twelve Years' Truce, the Siege of Jülich was depicted in a painting commissioned by the Spanish Crown to Jusepe Leonardo in 1634 to decorate the Salón de Reinos in the Buen Retiro Palace.

[52] Ambrogio Spinola is shown in the foreground, accompanied by the Diego Felipez de Guzmán, 1st Marquess of Leganés, while he receives the keys of Jülich from the commander of the Dutch garrison.

Jülich is accurately depicted, with the town on the right with the round towers of the Hexenturm gate and the spire of the Mariä Himmelfahrt church, and the citadel with the palazzo in fortezza in the left.

Giovanni Battista's son Gio Filippo Spinola, following his father's steps, commissioned the Flemish artist Mattheus Melijn in 1636 to produce five silver reliefs depicting his uncle's victories to decorate a wooden cabinet.

[60] Verhoeven was likely patronized by Spinola himself, who promoted his reputation through the publication of books emphasizing his abilities and achievements, like Delle guerre di Fiandra (1609) by his chief of staff Pompeo Giustiniano, or the Obsidio Bredana (1626) by his confessor, the Jesuit Herman Hugo.

Nicolas van Geelkercken, a journalist who followed the States' Army as it marched on campaign, produced detailed illustrated broadsheets about the siege, as he had done when Jülich had been besieged by the Dutch in 1610.