The Second Papal-Austrian War
The Spanish victory in the second Papal-Venetian War showed to the new ruler of Spain, María Eugenia I, how effective the Tercio formation was in battle. In 1558, Spain enlisted the army reformer Ramiro de Alarcón to incorporate the use of the Tercios as the main infantry force of the Spanish army. Throughout 1558, the infantry were trained how to use the Tercio formation based on the Sicilian model, and by the end of the year, the army had gone from using northern Italian Condotta to the more modern Tercios.
The victorious Tercio army, stationed in Tunis after the Papal-Venetian War.
In 1558, the Spanish government adopted the Tercio formation after the success of the Sicilian Tercios in the Papal-Venetian War.
The new Tercios would be battle-tested very quickly, for on January 19, 1559, the Papal States declared war on Austria, using the Papal claim on the Austrian region of Modena as an excuse. Spain reluctantly joined in, as they were not sure whether the Spanish forces could handle a war against Austria. Austrian troops began surging south from Modena and Ferrara, using access through Milan to get there from Austria proper. The Papal forces initially stood no match to the Austrian advance and the Habsburgs quickly began sieges of Bologna, Florence, and Pisa. Spain quickly assembled a force of 9000 men in southern Italy and sent them north by land and ship to attack the weak forces at Florence. The 4000 men sent by land routed an Austrian attack on Ancona, but soon afterward the fortress of Bologna fell to the Austrians. The 5000-man army stepped ashore in Siena and arrived in Florence in September 1559, where they engaged the Austrian troops.
With the fall of Bologna, the Austrian army, led by Archduke Maximilian II, set forth to Florence to join the battle there. Upon the arrival of Maximilian, the battle turned bad for the Spanish so the forces were called from Ancona to assist the Spanish. The Spanish forces from Ancona arrived on October 22, 1559. After two more weeks of battle against Maximilian, a leader had not come forward to lead the Spanish troops and they were becoming demoralized. On November 7, the troops began retreating from Florence with only 7000 men left. It seemed like the war with Austria would be a lost cause and many in the Spanish court wondered why the Pope thought he could take on Austria with Spanish help. Pope Pius III valiantly led troops against the Austrian army defending Bologna, but they were outnumbered and to many observers were fighting a losing battle.
A decision in the Spanish government was made that the war had to be ended quickly before the Austrian forces reached Rome and entered Spanish lands on the Peninsula. They also determined that this would be the last time that Spain would honor the Pope’s call to arms against another nation, and some even considered turning against the Pope in the future. Nevertheless, the war had to be finished, so the navy of the Americas was brought back to Europe and loaded up 3000 Tercios and 1000 Latin Knights in Navarra. They disembarked in Utrecht, which had granted the Spanish military access only a month earlier. The army was sent to besiege Amsterdam and take control of the city there, in hopes that it would make the Austrians more eager to accept a peace to return to the status quo.
The walls of Amsterdam crumbled in earl December and by the end of the month the city had been captured and a Spanish flag was raised above the city. Unfortunately, right after Amsterdam fell, so did Pisa. The Spanish army in Siena was sent to Napoli to guard against a possible landing of Austrian troops there. By the start of 1560, all Austrian ports on the North Sea had been blockaded, and the Spanish Mediterranean fleet was sent to the Adriatic to patrol the coast there. The army in Holland moved south along the coast to attack 1000 Austrian infantry in Zeeland. The Austrian army was routed on February 8, 1560 despite the arrival of 2000 more men on the Austrian side. Florence also fell to the Austrians in early February, but then the tiny German state of Munster declared war upon Austria. Their army began to siege Gelre, however, it was only a minor distraction to Austria. Further defensive fortifications began being built in Napoli and Abruzzi to defend against the Austrian forces as they moved south. These would not be needed however, as on March 1, the Pope accepted peace with Austria ceding Pisa and Romagna, and renouncing their claims on Bologna.
Now the war was in Spanish favor. The troops that had been in northern Italy were ferried across the Adriatic to siege Ragusa, while further troops were brought up to the Low Countries from the Spanish border with France. In late August Ragusa fell to Spain and the troops started traveling north to Dalmatia. In early September, the region of Zeeland fell and the army from the Pyrenees arrived in Amsterdam to travel east to Gelre. After a few skirmishes with Austrian forces, the Spanish set up a siege of Zadar, the capital of Dalmatia, on September 29, 1560. A week later, Spanish troops arrived in Gelre and easily defeated the defending force there. Because of the weakened fort from the brief occupation of Gelre by Munster, the city was assaulted immediately and fell within two weeks. The war caused further instability in Austria as they refused to reject a peace treaty offered by the Spanish government that would cede the province of Holland to Spain.
Further skirmishes occurred in Zeeland and Dalmatia for almost two months. The battles in Zeeland almost always led to Austrian armies being utterly destroyed, while the Dalmatian army became gradually overwhelmed by Austrian forces and was forced to abandon their siege and board the ships in the Adriatic. This led to an Austrian siege of Ragusa, which fell later in the year. The war continued to drag on with provinces changing hands until March 13, 1562, when Austria offered a peace with the Spanish government ceding the provinces of Holland and Zeeland to Spain. María Eugenia gladly accepted the Austrian terms as they were what Spain had aspired to gain from the war all along. Finally peace had returned to Spain and the Spanish gained an important foothold in the Low Countries.
