(This piece originally appeared on the website of The American Interest magazine, as a contribution to the StratBlog of Bard's course in Grand Strategy)
When I told my Uncle that I was reading Garrett Mattingly’s The Armada, he said, “Do you know what the biggest mistake of the Spanish Armada was? They left port!” He meant it as a joke, but the assertion that the Armada was doomed before it even set sail is more accurate than not. King Philip of Spain, in the impatience that characterized his nature for many months following the death of Mary Stuart, dispatched a fleet whose ships, guns, and crew simply could not match up with those of its opponent, which enjoyed a crucial advantage in fighting so close to its own shores. Although Mattingly briefly mentions the failure of the Armada to cut off the Ark Royal along the coast of Torbay as one mistake that could conceivably have swung the war in Spain’s favor, he largely shares the opinion that whatever blame is to be assigned for the Spanish defeat should not be placed on Medina Sidonia, the Armada’s commander. With the hastily put together, ill-equipped and under-trained fleet he was given, Sidonia did the best he could. If the general is not to blame, then who is? All the evidence points to King Philip.
Philip could not claim ignorance regarding the state of his fleet; his generals begged him for more time and supplies before and during the war. Compounding the lack of material preparation was a failure to fully think through many critical stages of the conflict, which was equally detrimental to the Spanish mission. For starters, Philip’s insistence on the full mobilization of his fleet during the winter months while it was waiting to reach its full capacity led to the serious deterioration of the ships and crews that were ready. Additionally, the plan to protect Parma’s flotilla as it made its way across the English Channel was critically flawed. The Spanish ships drew deeper than those of its enemy along the Dutch coastline – so much deeper, in fact, that they would be unable to provide any protection for the barges until they were several leagues off the coast. That unguarded interval would prove too dangerous to close, and as a result, Parma’s ships could never have reached the Armada. Here too, however, the King was fully aware of these difficulties, and yet, far from providing any instructions on the matter to his Captain General, he failed even to mention this weakness. When seemingly insurmountable difficulties arose in the campaign, Philip’s message to his generals appears to have been, “I don’t care how you do it, just do it.” What made the King so sure that they could?
Philip genuinely believed that Spain, under his rule, was the executor of God’s will on Earth. He was certain that the Spanish were God’s chosen people, whose destiny it was to unite all of Europe under the Catholic faith. In this conception, the interests of Spain and the will of God were one and the same, and every Spanish victory was seen as a triumph of God over the forces of evil. And even for a less pious individual than Philip, the idea that Spain enjoyed a special relationship with history made a lot of sense, for reasons that Mattingly sums up nicely:
If King Philip was willing to entrust his fortune to God, so too were his commanders, one of whom, when asked if he thought the Spanish would win, replied in the affirmative:
It is not impiety to suggest that there are some problems with a strategy predicated on the belief that God will intervene where the strategy would ordinarily fail. This is a lesson King Philip learns the hard way, when he later remarks, “It is impiety, and almost blasphemy, to presume to know the will of God. It comes from the sin of pride. Even kings […] must submit to being used by God’s will without knowing what it is. They must never seek to use it.” Moreover, this lack of strategic planning had the adverse effect of convincing the Duke of Parma that victory could not be achieved; as a result, he carried out his duties half-heartedly, going through the motions without truly preparing for battle. One could argue, perhaps, that Parma was truly a believer, and, like Philip, fully expected God to arrange things in his favor. But this is a stretch, and even if true would only further serve the point: faith in Providence is not a strategy—it is a gamble.
When I was about four years old, somewhere between The Count of Monte Cristo and a biography of Hitler, my father read me The Armada. I have remembered very little from these books, and from The Armada in particular I could remember nothing at all, save for the name of my favorite protagonist—Sir Francis Drake. This early knowledge is admittedly a small source of pride for me, if simply because the only Drake known to most of my generation is the Canadian “Degrassi” star turned hip-hop artist, the lyrical dynamo who so famously exclaims, “I know way to many people here right now that I didn’t know last year—who the [heck] are ya’ll?” (Sir Francis would commend the latter Drake on such a healthy distrust of those around him). But I digress. What was interesting to me, the second time around, is that even in the midst of characters whose decisions had considerably more effect on the outcome of the war, particularly Queen Elizabeth, King Phillip, Lord Admiral Howard and General Sidonia, it is Vice-Admiral Drake who shines the brightest. All throughout Europe in the lead-up to the war, people, “were coming to speak of the naval war between Spain and England as if it were a personal duel between King Philip and Francis Drake. […] Later, when the navies of England and Spain were at grips in the Channel, Germans and Frenchmen, Spaniards and Italians wrote as if the English fleet were merely and extension of Drake’s person […] just as if it the queen’s fleet had no other admiral, and indeed as if it were not the queen’s fleet at all.”
Immediately after the war, the English grumbled about the indecisiveness of the result, and attributed whatever victory had been achieved to Drake rather than Lord Admiral Howard. Though more recent accounts such as Mattingly’s stress that “this was Howard’s war, and he won it,” Drake remains the war’s most colorful figure, and for some, its most iconic. It is Drake’s dynamic persona that leaves such a lasting impression—a fusion of staggering boldness and risible peculiarity. His disdain for the traditions of English naval procedure and etiquette and his willingness to “go it alone” helped make him a maverick in his day. Gruff, daring, and (to the delight of the reader) syntactically challenged, Drake is a character not easily forgotten. It did help, of course, that he pulled off some daring victories, at times bringing the battle right to the Spanish harbors, and he had the remarkable ability (or luck) to come upon and seize many valuable prizes at sea.
Mattingly’s portrayal of Drake is exemplary of his novelistic flair. He does great justice to all his characters, lending each a detailed and lively depiction to imbue the reader with a humanized understanding of their thinking and motivations. Mattingly’s account is masterfully crafted; it is a historical telling of the highest quality. The author is thorough but never boring. Like many novelists, he follows one chain of events for a while, and then circles back to an earlier date to track the same events from another perspective. All the while, the reader is comfortable and entertained, and would be none the more contented to read a great work of fiction. In this, Mattingly does a great service to the work of historians; he roundly dispels any notion that the facts need to be stretched or dishonestly embellished for the readers’ enjoyment.
That is not to say that a historian need only present the facts to make the story worth reading. It is the way that Mattingly puts the pieces together—like a detective solving a mystery—that make the story so compelling. He doesn’t matter-of-factly state things he doesn’t know; he uses reason and logic to propose what is, in his opinion, most likely the case. Any writer of non-fiction should be inspired by this author’s ability to pick through the inconsistencies and mistaken assumptions of previous historical accounts and from there conjecture what in fact is more likely to have happened. One comes away from The Armada with a feeling that they have turned over every stone and seen the puzzle put together with nearly all of its pieces in place and accounted for. I say “nearly” because, just as Mattingly can make his best guesses at what transpired several centuries ago, so can we.
This can be seen in Mattingly’s description of a confrontation between Henry III of France and a group of Parisians. In the tense standoff between the guards of Henry the III and the citizens of Paris on May 12, 1588, it was the shooting of a non-combatant—a shopkeeper—that ignited the violence. Mattingly leaves open the question of who fired the first shot, but by employing some basic logic we can say that it was more likely fired by a Leaguer or a citizen than by one of the guards. The guards were in the process of carefully withdrawing to the Louvre, and they were under strict orders against engaging in any violence against the citizens. The citizens, meanwhile, were eager for a fight, and the Leaguers knew that “the king might have to be prodded into some rash act of violence which would incite a popular uprising.” Seeing the guards retreating peacefully to the Louvre, the Leaguers probably felt like a window was closing. They needed to do something to spark the violence, and the apparent killing of a shopkeeper might provide the incitement they needed. No one would suspect the Leaguers guilt in the murder. This is just a conjecture, but it is plausible, and certainly more devious actions have been taken in war.
Philip could not claim ignorance regarding the state of his fleet; his generals begged him for more time and supplies before and during the war. Compounding the lack of material preparation was a failure to fully think through many critical stages of the conflict, which was equally detrimental to the Spanish mission. For starters, Philip’s insistence on the full mobilization of his fleet during the winter months while it was waiting to reach its full capacity led to the serious deterioration of the ships and crews that were ready. Additionally, the plan to protect Parma’s flotilla as it made its way across the English Channel was critically flawed. The Spanish ships drew deeper than those of its enemy along the Dutch coastline – so much deeper, in fact, that they would be unable to provide any protection for the barges until they were several leagues off the coast. That unguarded interval would prove too dangerous to close, and as a result, Parma’s ships could never have reached the Armada. Here too, however, the King was fully aware of these difficulties, and yet, far from providing any instructions on the matter to his Captain General, he failed even to mention this weakness. When seemingly insurmountable difficulties arose in the campaign, Philip’s message to his generals appears to have been, “I don’t care how you do it, just do it.” What made the King so sure that they could?
Philip genuinely believed that Spain, under his rule, was the executor of God’s will on Earth. He was certain that the Spanish were God’s chosen people, whose destiny it was to unite all of Europe under the Catholic faith. In this conception, the interests of Spain and the will of God were one and the same, and every Spanish victory was seen as a triumph of God over the forces of evil. And even for a less pious individual than Philip, the idea that Spain enjoyed a special relationship with history made a lot of sense, for reasons that Mattingly sums up nicely:
“Most important of all was the fact the Spain under Philip had moved from victory to victory. ‘Fate,’ men called it in the sixteenth century, or ‘Divine Providence,’ the irresistible will of God. Centuries later they were to talk about ‘the wave of the future’ or the triumph of objective historical forces, but all they meant really, at either time, was that one success or one failure seems to foreshadow another, because it’s always easier to imagine things going on in the same way than to imagine a change.”
If King Philip was willing to entrust his fortune to God, so too were his commanders, one of whom, when asked if he thought the Spanish would win, replied in the affirmative:
“It’s very simple. It is well known that we fight in God’s cause. So, when we meet the English, God will surely arrange matters so that we can grapple and board them, either by sending some strange freak of weather or, more likely, just by depriving the English of their wits. […] But unless God helps us by a miracle the English, […] will knock us to pieces with their culverins, without our being able to do them any serious hurt. So, we are sailing against England in the confident hope of a miracle.”
It is not impiety to suggest that there are some problems with a strategy predicated on the belief that God will intervene where the strategy would ordinarily fail. This is a lesson King Philip learns the hard way, when he later remarks, “It is impiety, and almost blasphemy, to presume to know the will of God. It comes from the sin of pride. Even kings […] must submit to being used by God’s will without knowing what it is. They must never seek to use it.” Moreover, this lack of strategic planning had the adverse effect of convincing the Duke of Parma that victory could not be achieved; as a result, he carried out his duties half-heartedly, going through the motions without truly preparing for battle. One could argue, perhaps, that Parma was truly a believer, and, like Philip, fully expected God to arrange things in his favor. But this is a stretch, and even if true would only further serve the point: faith in Providence is not a strategy—it is a gamble.
When I was about four years old, somewhere between The Count of Monte Cristo and a biography of Hitler, my father read me The Armada. I have remembered very little from these books, and from The Armada in particular I could remember nothing at all, save for the name of my favorite protagonist—Sir Francis Drake. This early knowledge is admittedly a small source of pride for me, if simply because the only Drake known to most of my generation is the Canadian “Degrassi” star turned hip-hop artist, the lyrical dynamo who so famously exclaims, “I know way to many people here right now that I didn’t know last year—who the [heck] are ya’ll?” (Sir Francis would commend the latter Drake on such a healthy distrust of those around him). But I digress. What was interesting to me, the second time around, is that even in the midst of characters whose decisions had considerably more effect on the outcome of the war, particularly Queen Elizabeth, King Phillip, Lord Admiral Howard and General Sidonia, it is Vice-Admiral Drake who shines the brightest. All throughout Europe in the lead-up to the war, people, “were coming to speak of the naval war between Spain and England as if it were a personal duel between King Philip and Francis Drake. […] Later, when the navies of England and Spain were at grips in the Channel, Germans and Frenchmen, Spaniards and Italians wrote as if the English fleet were merely and extension of Drake’s person […] just as if it the queen’s fleet had no other admiral, and indeed as if it were not the queen’s fleet at all.”
Immediately after the war, the English grumbled about the indecisiveness of the result, and attributed whatever victory had been achieved to Drake rather than Lord Admiral Howard. Though more recent accounts such as Mattingly’s stress that “this was Howard’s war, and he won it,” Drake remains the war’s most colorful figure, and for some, its most iconic. It is Drake’s dynamic persona that leaves such a lasting impression—a fusion of staggering boldness and risible peculiarity. His disdain for the traditions of English naval procedure and etiquette and his willingness to “go it alone” helped make him a maverick in his day. Gruff, daring, and (to the delight of the reader) syntactically challenged, Drake is a character not easily forgotten. It did help, of course, that he pulled off some daring victories, at times bringing the battle right to the Spanish harbors, and he had the remarkable ability (or luck) to come upon and seize many valuable prizes at sea.
Mattingly’s portrayal of Drake is exemplary of his novelistic flair. He does great justice to all his characters, lending each a detailed and lively depiction to imbue the reader with a humanized understanding of their thinking and motivations. Mattingly’s account is masterfully crafted; it is a historical telling of the highest quality. The author is thorough but never boring. Like many novelists, he follows one chain of events for a while, and then circles back to an earlier date to track the same events from another perspective. All the while, the reader is comfortable and entertained, and would be none the more contented to read a great work of fiction. In this, Mattingly does a great service to the work of historians; he roundly dispels any notion that the facts need to be stretched or dishonestly embellished for the readers’ enjoyment.
That is not to say that a historian need only present the facts to make the story worth reading. It is the way that Mattingly puts the pieces together—like a detective solving a mystery—that make the story so compelling. He doesn’t matter-of-factly state things he doesn’t know; he uses reason and logic to propose what is, in his opinion, most likely the case. Any writer of non-fiction should be inspired by this author’s ability to pick through the inconsistencies and mistaken assumptions of previous historical accounts and from there conjecture what in fact is more likely to have happened. One comes away from The Armada with a feeling that they have turned over every stone and seen the puzzle put together with nearly all of its pieces in place and accounted for. I say “nearly” because, just as Mattingly can make his best guesses at what transpired several centuries ago, so can we.
This can be seen in Mattingly’s description of a confrontation between Henry III of France and a group of Parisians. In the tense standoff between the guards of Henry the III and the citizens of Paris on May 12, 1588, it was the shooting of a non-combatant—a shopkeeper—that ignited the violence. Mattingly leaves open the question of who fired the first shot, but by employing some basic logic we can say that it was more likely fired by a Leaguer or a citizen than by one of the guards. The guards were in the process of carefully withdrawing to the Louvre, and they were under strict orders against engaging in any violence against the citizens. The citizens, meanwhile, were eager for a fight, and the Leaguers knew that “the king might have to be prodded into some rash act of violence which would incite a popular uprising.” Seeing the guards retreating peacefully to the Louvre, the Leaguers probably felt like a window was closing. They needed to do something to spark the violence, and the apparent killing of a shopkeeper might provide the incitement they needed. No one would suspect the Leaguers guilt in the murder. This is just a conjecture, but it is plausible, and certainly more devious actions have been taken in war.
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