10 Facts About Spanish Road

Spanish Road was a military road and trade route in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, linking the Duchy of Milan, the Franche-Comte and the Spanish Netherlands, all of which were at the time territories of the Spanish Empire under the Habsburgs.

Spanish Road was created under Philip II as a vital artery for the Spanish war effort during the Eighty Years' War against the Dutch Republic.

However, Spanish Road vessels sailing up the English Channel could have to run a deadly gauntlet of attacks by the French, English and Dutch, all of whom were hostile to Spain for much of this period.

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.

The Spanish Road was thereby cut at two points, in the south between Milan and Tyrol and in the north between Further Austria and Lorraine.

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In 1580, the officers of a Spanish Road tercio occupied a house in Franche-Comte only to find there was no furniture inside, as the occupants of the house had removed it all to preclude the possibility of its being vandalised, burned or stolen.

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

The second type, found in Franche-Comte, Lorraine and the Spanish Road 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.

The Road 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.

One unintended consequence of the Spanish Road was the circulation of the plague by soldiers and merchants travelling along it, notably in Valtellina in the wake of the Valtellina War.