Spanish Road

The conflict between Philip II of Spain and the Dutch rebels in the Spanish Netherlands, culminating in the Eighty Years' War, was part of a broader European power struggle of the 16th century between Catholics and Protestants.

In that same year social, political and religious unrest climaxed with the Compromise of Nobles and the Beeldenstorm, apparently endangering the government of Philip's Regent in Brussels, Margaret of Parma.

Spanish troops under the Duke of Alba were dispatched to restore order and punish the perceived insurrectionists, triggering the Dutch Revolt and the broader Eighty Years' War.

Under the resulting Treaty of Lyon (1601), Savoy was obliged to cede its two northernmost provinces, Bugey and Bresse, to France, which meant that a significant stretch of the Spanish Road now lay on French soil.

With the old route through Bugey and Bresse closed off by the French, the Spanish sponsored an attempt by Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy to conquer the Republic of Geneva.

In the event, however Charles-Emmanuel's attempt to take Geneva by escalade miscarried; the failure of the Savoyard assault, made on the night of 12 December 1602, is still celebrated by Genevans in the l'Escalade festival.

The most straightforward option was to march the troops due north from Milan over the St Gotthard Pass and then down through Central Switzerland to the High Rhine.

The Duke of Feria, Fuentes's successor as Governor of Milan, therefore instigated a Catholic insurrection in the Three Leagues, sparking a religious civil war, the Bündner Wirren (Graubünden Disturbances), within the federation.

The first type of etapé was found only in Savoy, and took the form of a permanent waystation where soldiers and merchant travellers along the Road had access to food and shelter when they passed through.

The second type, found in Franche-Comté, Lorraine and the Spanish Netherlands, was organised on an ad hoc basis through private contractors, who would calculate the payments and quantities of food required based on the expected size and schedule of each individual expedition.

[1] Although the Spanish Road initially had a purely military function, it also became an important trade route linking the Mediterranean to Northern Europe, similar to the mediaeval Via Imperii.

The Road also prompted the Spanish to strengthen their diplomatic contacts in the Alpine region, leading to the establishment of permanent embassies in Savoy and the Swiss Confederacy that were supervised from Milan.

Map of the Spanish Road. Brown arrows are the major routes passing through the Franche-Comté ; blue arrows are the alternative routes alongside the Rhine . Territories of Habsburg Spain are colored in orange; Burgundy , including the Spanish Franche-Comté and Spanish Netherlands , are colored in purple.
Savoy , 1500–1800. Bugey and Bresse are the red shaded areas in the top-left.
The Duchy of Milan – Spanish Netherlands part of the Spanish Road. Marked on this map are the Savoyard and Valtellinese variants of the route.
The botched night assault on Geneva by troops of the Duchy of Savoy , 12 December 1602.
Fort Fuentes , built by the Spanish to intimidate the Three Leagues into reopening the eastern route through the Valtellina .
The Battle of the Downs . The closure of the Spanish Road obliged Spain to send reinforcements to the Low Countries by sea instead.