Coordinates	8°3′″N34°54′″N
Name	Spanish Empire
Map caption	The areas of the world that at one time were territories of the Spanish Empire.
Footnotes	}}

The Spanish Empire () consisted of the territories and colonies administered directly by Spain in Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania. It originated during the Age of Exploration and was therefore one of the first global empires. At the time of Habsburgs, Spain reached the peak of its world power. It lasted from the 15th century through — in the case of its African holdings — the latter portion of the 20th century.

After the War of the Castilian Succession, Spain had emerged with a personally unified monarchy, by the marriage of the Catholic Monarchs or ''los Reyes Catolicos'': the Queen of Castile and the King of Aragon. Rule was separate but internal and foreign policy was coordinated. In 1492, the Spanish monarchs completed the ''Reconquista'' with the incorporation of Granada to the Kingdom of Castile. That same year Christopher Columbus commanded the first Spanish exploratory voyage west across the Atlantic Ocean, leading to the Discovery of America and Europe's eventual colonial engagement in the New World. The Americas thereby became the focus of Spanish exploration and colonization.

In the 16th century, Spain settled the Greater Antilles in the Caribbean, and took over large areas on mainland North and South America overrunning the Aztecs and Incas. The Spanish expedition of world circumnavigation started by Ferdinand Magellan in 1519, and completed by Juan Sebastian Elcano in 1522, achieved what Columbus had longed for, a westward route to Asia and the sought-after Spice Islands. In 1565 navigator Miguel Lopez de Legazpi arrived in Guam and the Philippine Islands establishing the Spanish East Indies. In addition to the overseas empire in America and Oceania, the Spanish Monarchy controlled several European territories (the Low Countries, the greater part of Italy, and some parts of modern France and Germany), and a number of coastal strongholds in Africa. By the 17th century, Spain controlled an empire on a scale and world distribution that had never been approached by its predecessors.

Spain's European possessions were given up at the conclusion of the War of the Spanish Succession in 1713, but Spain retained its vast overseas empire. In 1741, a massive victory over Britain at the Battle of Cartagena de Indias in modern day Colombia prolonged Spain's hegemony in the Americas until the 19th century. During the late 18th century, Spanish expeditions to the Pacific Northwest reached Canada and Alaska, resulting in a settlement on Vancouver Island and the discovery of several archipelagos and glaciers.

The French occupation of Spain in 1808 under Napoleon cut off its American colonies temporarily, and a number of independence movements between 1810 and 1825 resulted in a chain of newly independent Spanish American republics in South and Central America. The remainder of Spain's then-four hundred year empire, namely Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Spanish East Indies, continued under Spanish control until the end of the 19th century, when most of these territories were annexed by the United States after the Spanish-American War. Spain sold its remaining Pacific islands to Germany in 1899. Therefore, at the turn of the 20th century, Spain only held territories in Africa, namely Spanish Guinea, Spanish Sahara and Spanish Morocco, obtained during the Scramble for Africa, but they were relinquished from the mid 20th century due to the Decolonization of Africa.

Definition

The land of the Iberian peninsula was commonly called Hispania since Roman times and during the Visigothic Kingdom. The process of the Reconquista produced the emergence of four Christian realms: Castile, Aragon, Navarre and Portugal.

The dynastic union between the Crown of Castile (which included the kingdom of Navarre) and the Crown of Aragon, in Catholic Monarchs's time, initiated a political system in force until the beginning of the eighteenth century labelled as Hispanic monarchy: the Spanish sovereign acted as monarch in a unitary manner over all his territories through a polisynodial system of Councils, but his power as king or lord varied from one territory to another one, since each territory retained its own particular administration and juridical configuration. The unity did not mean uniformity. According to this political configuration, independently of the denominations given to the "dynastic union" between 1580–1640, the scholars argue that the Portuguese Empire kept its own administration and jurisdiction over its territory as the other kingdoms and realms ruled by the Spanish Habsburgs. Nevetheless, whereas some historians assert that at that time, Portugal was a kingdom which formed part of the Spanish Monarchy; others draw a clear distinction between the Portuguese Empire and the Spanish Empire.

The Spanish Empire includes Spain's ''overseas'' colonies in the Americas, Asia, Oceania and Africa, but some disputes exist as to which European territories are to be counted. For instance, normally the Habsburg Netherlands are included as they were part of the possessions of the King of Spain, governed by Spanish officials, and defended by Spanish troops. However, authors like the British historian Henry Kamen contend that these territories were not fully integrated into a Spanish state and instead formed part of the wider Habsburg possessions. Some historians use "Habsburg" and "Spanish" almost interchangeably when referring to the dynastic inheritance of Charles V or Philip II.

Origins

During the 15th century, Castile and Portugal fell within territorial and commercial rivalry in the Atlantic western zone. Portugal obtained several Papal bulls which acknowledged the Portuguese control over the discovered territories, but Castile also obtained from the Pope, the safeguard of its rights to the Canary Islands with the bulls ''Romani Pontifex'' dated on 6 November 1436 and ''Dominatur Dominus'' dated on 30 April 1437. The Conquest of the Canary Islands, inhabited by Guanche people, began under the reign of Henry III of Castile in 1402, authorizing under feudal agreement to Norman noblemen Jean de Béthencourt. The conquest only finished when the armies of the Crown of Castille won, in long and bloody wars, the islands of Gran Canaria (1478–1483), La Palma (1492–1493) and Tenerife (1494–1496).

The proclamation of Isabella I of Castile jointly with her husband Ferdinand of Aragon, at that time king of Sicily, as kings of Castile drove to a war with Portugal solved with the Treaty of Alcáçovas (4 September 1479. Portuguese gave up their claims to the Canary Islands but were secured their sovereignty over Madeira, Azores and the Cape Verde islands, and over the trade of Guinea, from the south of the Cape Bojador, and the right to conquer the Kingdom of Fez. This treaty was confirmed in 1481 by the Pope Sixtus IV, in the papal bull ''Æterni regis'' (dated on 21 June 1481).

Seven months before the treaty of Alcaçovas, the king John II of Aragon passed away and his son Ferdinand II of Aragon inherited the thrones of the Crown of Aragon; therefore, it was created with Castile a personal union, each with their own administrations, but ruled by to common monarchy.

After a war of 10 years, the Granada War, in 1492, the ''Reyes Católicos'' drove out the last Moorish king of Granada. After their victory, the Catholic monarchs negotiated with Christopher Columbus, a Genoese sailor attempting to reach Cipangu by sailing west. Castile was already engaged in a race of exploration with Portugal to reach the Far East by sea when Columbus made his bold proposal to Isabella. Columbus instead "inadvertently" discovered the Americas, inaugurating the Spanish colonization of the continent. Spain's expansion and colonization was driven by economic influences, a yearning to improve national prestige, and a desire to spread Catholicism into the New World.

Spain's claim to these lands was solidified by the ''Inter caetera'' papal bull dated on 4 May, 1493, and ''Dudum siquidem'' on 26 September 1493. Since the Portuguese wanted to keep the line of demarcation of Alcaçovas running east and west along the latitude south of Cape Bojador, a compromise was worked out which was incorporated by the Treaty of Tordesillas dated on 7 June 1494, in which the globe was divided into two hemispheres between Spanish and Portuguese claims. These actions gave Spain exclusive rights to establish colonies in all of the New World from Alaska to Cape Horn (except Brazil), as well as the easternmost parts of Asia. The treaty of Tordesillas was confirmed by the Pope Julius II in the bull ''Ea quae pro bono pacis'' on 24 January 1506.

On the other hand, the treaty of Tordesillas and the treaty of Cintra (18 September 1509) established the limits of the Kingdom of Fez for Portugal, and outside of these limits the Castilian expansion was allowed, beginning with the conquest of Melilla in in 1497.

Struggles for Italy

The Catholic Monarchs had developed a marriage politics aiming at isolating their traditional enemy: France. The Monarchs' children got married with the heirs of Portugal, England and the House of Habsburg. Following the same strategy, the Catholic Monarchs decided to support the Aragonese house of Naples against Charles VIII of France in the Italian Wars from 1494. As King of Aragon, Ferdinand had been involved in the struggle against France and Venice for control of Italy; these conflicts became the center of Ferdinand's foreign policy as king. In these battles, which established the supremacy of the Spanish Tercios in the European battlefields, the forces of the kings of Spain acquired a reputation for invincibility that would last until the mid-17th century.

After the death of Queen Isabella, Ferdinand as Spain's sole monarch adopted a more aggressive policy than he had as Isabella's husband, enlarging Spain's sphere of influence in Italy and against France. Ferdinand's first investment of Spanish forces came in the War of the League of Cambrai against Venice, where the Spanish soldiers distinguished themselves on the field alongside their French allies at the Battle of Agnadello (1509). Only a year later, Ferdinand became part of the Holy League against France, seeing a chance at taking both Milan—to which he held a dynastic claim—and Navarre. The war was less of a success than that against Venice, and in 1516, France agreed to a truce that left Milan in its control and recognized Spanish control of Upper Navarre.

First settlements in America

Upon the settlement of Hispanola which was successful in the early 16th century, the colonists began searching elsewhere to begin new settlements. Those from the less prosperous Hispaniola were eager to search for new success in a new settlement. From there Juan Ponce de León conquered Puerto Rico and Diego Velázquez took Cuba. The first settlement on the mainland was Darién in Panama, settled by Vasco Núñez de Balboa in 1512. In 1513, Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama, and led the first European expedition to see the Pacific Ocean from the West coast of the New World. In an action with enduring historical import, Balboa claimed the Pacific Ocean and all the lands adjoining it for the Spanish Crown.

Campaigns in Africa

After the conquest of Melilla in 1497, the Spanish expansionist policy in North Africa was developed during the regency of Ferdinand the Catholic in Castile, stimulated by the Cisneros, once the ''Reconquista'' in the Iberian Peninsula was finished. That way, several towns and outposts in the North African coast were conquered and occupied by Castile: Mazalquivir (1505), Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera (1508), Oran (1509), Algiers (1510), Bugia (1510), and Tripoli (1511). In the Atlantic coast, Spain took possession of the outpost of Santa Cruz de Mar Pequeña (1476) with support from the Canary Islands, and it was retained until 1525 with the consent of the treaty of Cintra (1509).

The Spanish Habsburgs and the Golden Age (1516–1643)

The 16th and 17th centuries are sometimes called "the Golden Age of Spain" (in Spanish, ''''). As a result of the marriage politics of the '''', their Habsburg grandson Charles inherited the Castilian empire in America, the Aragonese Empire in the Mediterranean (including a large portion of modern Italy), as well as the crown of the Holy Roman Empire and of the Low Countries, Franche-Comté, and Austria (this one, along with the rest of hereditary Habsburg domains was almost immediately transferred to Ferdinand, the Emperor's brother). After his defeat of the Castilian rebels (''Comuneros'') in the Castilian War of the Communities, Charles became the most powerful man in Europe, his rule stretching over an empire in Europe unrivalled in extent until the Napoleonic era. It was often said during this time that it was the empire on which the sun never set. This sprawling overseas empire of the Spanish Golden Age was controlled, not from inland Valladolid, but from Seville.

The Castilian Empire abroad was initially a disappointment. It did stimulate some trade and industry, but the trading opportunities encountered were limited. Matters began to change in the 1520s with the large scale extraction of silver from the rich deposits of Mexico's Guanajuato region, but it was the opening of the silver mines in Mexico's Zacatecas and Bolivia's Potosí in 1546 that became legendary. During the 16th century, Spain held the equivalent of US$1.5 trillion (1990 terms) in gold and silver received from New Spain. Ultimately, however, these imports diverted investment away from other forms of industry and contributed to inflation in Spain in the last decades of the 16th century: "I learnt a proverb here", said a French traveler in 1603: "Everything is dear in Spain except silver". This situation was aggravated (though not as much as popular myth asserts) by the loss of much the commercial and artisan classes with the expulsions of the Jews (1492) and Moriscos (1609). The vast imports of silver ultimately made Spain overly dependent on foreign sources of raw materials and manufactured goods.

The wealthy preferred to invest their fortunes in public debt (''juros''), which were backed by these silver imports, rather than in production of manufactures and the improvement of agriculture. This helped perpetuate the medieval aristocratic prejudice that saw manual work as dishonorable long after this attitude had started to decline in other west European countries. The silver and gold whose circulation helped facilitate the economic and social revolutions in the Low Countries, France and England and other parts of Europe helped stifle them in Spain. The problems caused by inflation were discussed by scholars at the School of Salamanca and ''arbitristas'' but they had no impact on the Habsburg government.

The Habsburg dynasty spent the Castilian and American riches in wars across Europe on behalf of Habsburg interests, defaulted on their debt several times, and left Spain bankrupt several times. Tensions between the Empire and the people of Castile exploded in the popular rebellion of the Castilian War of the Communities (1520–22).

The Habsburgs' political goals were several:

Access to the resources of the Americas (gold, silver, sugar) and products of Asia (porcelain, spices, silk)

Undermining the power of France and containing it in its eastern borders.

Maintaining Catholic Habsburg hegemony in Germany, defending Catholicism against the Protestant Reformation. Charles attempted to quell the Reformation at the Diet of Worms but Martin Luther refused to recant his 'heresy.' However, Charles's piety could not stop his mutinying troops from plundering the Holy See in the ''Sacco di Roma''.

Defending Europe against Islam, notably the Ottoman Empire.

To spread religion to the unconverted souls of the new world. With conflict between Catholics and Protestants raging in Europe, the new world was an ideal place for more Catholics to be recruited.

Spanish intervention in Europe

Struggles of Charles V for Italy

With the ascent of the king Charles I en 1516 and his election as sovereign of the Holy Roman Empire in 1519, Francis I of France found himself surrounded by Habsburg territories, invaded the Spanish possessions in Italy in 1521, and inaugurated the second war of Franco-Spanish conflict. The war was a disaster for France, which suffered defeat at the Battle of Biccoca (1522), the Battle of Pavia (1525, at which Francis was captured), and the Battle of Landriano (1529) before Francis relented and abandoned Milan to Spain once more.

King Charles I (Charles V (Holy Roman Emperor) achieved victory at the Battle of Pavia in 1525 and surprised many Italians and Germans and elicited concerns that Charles would endeavor to gain ever greater power. Pope Clement VII switched sides and now joined forces with France and prominent Italian states against the Habsburg Emperor, in the War of the League of Cognac. In 1527, Charles grew exhausted with the pope's meddling in what he viewed as purely secular affairs, and sacked Rome itself, embarrassing the papacy sufficiently enough that Clement, and succeeding popes, were considerably more circumspect in their dealings with secular authorities. In 1533, Clement's refusal to annul the first marriage of King Henry VIII of England was a direct consequence of his unwillingness to offend the emperor and have his capital sacked for perhaps a second time. The Peace of Barcelona, signed between Charles V and the Pope in 1529, established a more cordial relationship between the two leaders. Spain was effectively named the protector of the Catholic cause and Charles was crowned as King of Italy (Lombardy) in return for Spanish intervention in overthrowing the rebellious Florentine Republic.

In 1528, the great admiral Andrea Doria allied with the Emperor to oust the French and restore Genoa's independence, opening the prospect for financial renewal: 1528 marks the first loan from Genoese banks to Charles.

In 1543, the king of France Francis I announced his unprecedented alliance with the Ottoman sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent, by occupying the Spanish-controlled city of Nice in concert with Ottoman forces. Henry VIII of England, who bore a greater grudge against France than he held against the Emperor for standing in the way of his divorce, joined Charles in his invasion of France. Although the Spanish army was defeated at the Battle of Ceresole in Savoy the French were unable to seriously threaten Spanish controlled Milan, whilst suffering defeat in the north at the hands of Henry, thereby being forced to accept unfavourable terms. The Austrians, led by Charles's younger brother Ferdinand, continued to fight the Ottomans in the east. Charles went to take care of an older problem: the Schmalkaldic League.

Religious conflicts in the Holy Empire

The Schmalkaldic League had allied itself to the French, and efforts in Germany to undermine the League had been rebuffed. Francis's defeat in 1544 led to the annulment of the alliance with the Protestants, and Charles took advantage of the opportunity. He first tried the path of negotiation at the Council of Trent in 1545, but the Protestant leadership, feeling betrayed by the stance taken by the Catholics at the council, went to war, led by the Saxon elector Maurice. In response, Charles invaded Germany at the head of a mixed Dutch–Spanish army, hoping to restore the Imperial authority. The emperor personally inflicted a decisive defeat on the Protestants at the historic Battle of Mühlberg in 1547. In 1555, Charles signed the Peace of Augsburg with the Protestant states and restored stability in Germany on his principle of '''', a position unpopular with Spanish and Italian clergymen. Charles's involvement in Germany would establish a role for Spain as protector of the Catholic, Habsburg cause in the Holy Roman Empire; the precedent would lead, seven decades later, to involvement in the war that would decisively end Spain as Europe's leading power.

Defeat of France

Charles V's only legitimate son, Philip II of Spain (r. 1556–98) parted the Austrian possessions with his uncle Ferdinand. Philip treated Castile as the foundation of his empire, but the population of Castile (that was about ⅓ of France's) was never great enough to provide the soldiers needed to support the Empire. When he married Mary Tudor, England was allied to Spain.

Spain was not yet at peace, as the aggressive Henry II of France came to the throne in 1547 and immediately renewed conflict with Spain. Charles's successor, Philip II, aggressively prosecuted the war against France, crushing a French army at the Battle of St. Quentin in Picardy in 1558 and defeating Henry again at the Battle of Gravelines. The Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis, signed in 1559, permanently recognized Spanish claims in Italy. In the celebrations that followed the treaty, Henry was killed by a stray splinter from a lance. France was stricken for the next thirty years by chronic civil war and unrest (see French Wars of Religion) and removed from effectively competing with Spain and the Habsburg family in European power games. Freed from effective French opposition, Spain saw the apogee of its might and territorial reach in the period 1559–1643.

The opening for the Genoese banking consortium was the state bankruptcy of Philip II in 1557, which threw the German banking houses into chaos and ended the reign of the Fuggers as Spanish financiers. The Genoese bankers provided the unwieldy Habsburg system with fluid credit and a dependably regular income. In return the less dependable shipments of American silver were rapidly transferred from Seville to Genoa, to provide capital for further ventures.

European conflicts at the time of Philip II

The time for rejoicing in Madrid was short-lived. In 1566, Calvinist-led riots in the Netherlands prompted the Duke of Alba to march into the country to restore order. In 1568, William of Orange, better known as William the Silent, led a failed attempt to drive Alva from the Netherlands. These battles are generally considered to signal the start of the Eighty Years' War that ended with the independence of the United Provinces. The Spanish, who derived a great deal of wealth from the Netherlands and particularly from the vital port of Antwerp, were committed to restoring order and maintaining their hold on the provinces. According to Luc-Normand Tellier, "It is estimated that the port of Antwerp was earning the Spanish crown seven times more revenues than the Americas." In 1572, a band of rebel Dutch privateers known as the ''watergeuzen'' ("Sea Beggars") seized a number of Dutch coastal towns, proclaimed their support for William and denounced the Spanish leadership.

For Spain, the war became an endless quagmire, sometimes literally. In 1574, the Spanish army under Luis de Requeséns was repulsed from the Siege of Leiden after the Dutch broke the dykes, thus causing extensive flooding. In 1576, faced with the bills from his 80,000-man army of occupation in the Netherlands, the cost of his fleet that had won at Lepanto, together with the growing threat of piracy in the open seas reducing his income from his American colonies, Philip was forced to accept bankruptcy. The army in the Netherlands mutinied not long after, seizing Antwerp and looting the southern Netherlands, prompting several cities in the previously peaceful southern provinces to join the rebellion. The Spanish chose to negotiate, and pacified most of the southern provinces again with the Union of Arras in 1579. In response, the Netherlands created the Union of Utrecht, as an alliance between the northern provinces, later that month. They officially deposed Philip in 1581 when they enacted the Act of Abjuration.

Under the Arras agreement the southern states of the Spanish Netherlands, today in Wallonia and the Nord-Pas-de-Calais (and Picardy) ''régions'' in France, expressed their loyalty to the Spanish king Philip II and recognized his Governor-General, Don Juan of Austria. In 1580, this gave King Philip the opportunity to strengthen his position when the last member of the Portuguese royal family, Cardinal Henry of Portugal, died. Philip asserted his claim to the Portuguese throne and in June sent the Duke of Alba with an army to Lisbon to assure his succession. Though the Duke of Alba and the Spanish occupation, however, was little more popular in Lisbon than in Rotterdam, the combined Spanish and Portuguese empires placed into Philip's hands almost the entirety of the explored New World along with a vast trading empire in Africa and Asia. In 1582, when Philip II moved his court back to Madrid from the Atlantic port of Lisbon where he had temporarily settled to pacify his new Portuguese kingdom, the pattern was sealed, in spite of what every observant commentator privately noted: "Sea power is more important to the ruler of Spain than any other prince" wrote a commentator, "for it is only by sea power that a single community can be created out of so many so far apart." A writer on tactics in 1638 observed, "The might most suited to the arms of Spain is that which is placed on the seas, but this matter of state is so well known that I should not discuss it, even if I thought it opportune to do so."

Portugal required an extensive occupation force to keep it under control, and Spain was still reeling from the 1576 bankruptcy. In 1584, William the Silent was assassinated by a half-deranged Catholic, and the death of the popular Dutch resistance leader was hoped to bring an end to the war. It did not. In 1586, Queen Elizabeth I of England, sent support to the Protestant causes in the Netherlands and France, and Sir Francis Drake launched attacks against Spanish merchants in the Caribbean and the Pacific, along with a particularly aggressive attack on the port of Cadiz. In 1588, hoping to put a stop to Elizabeth's intervention, Philip sent the Spanish Armada to attack England. Favourable weather, more heavily armed and manœuverable English ships, and the fact that the English had been warned by their spies in the Netherlands and were ready for the attack resulted in defeat for the Armada. However the failure of the Drake–Norris Expedition to Portugal and the Azores in 1589 marked a turning point in the on-off 1585–1604 Anglo–Spanish War. The Spanish fleets became more effective in transporting greatly increased quantities of silver and gold from the Americas, while English attacks suffered costly failures.

Spain had invested itself in the religious warfare in France after Henry II's death. In 1589, Henry III, the last of the Valois lineage, died at the walls of Paris. His successor, Henry IV of Navarre, the first Bourbon king of France, was a man of great ability, winning key victories against the Catholic League at Arques (1589) and Ivry (1590). Committed to stopping Henry of Navarre from becoming King of France, the Spanish divided their army in the Netherlands and invaded France in 1590.

The pacification at the time of Philip III

Faced with wars against England, France and the Netherlands, each led by capable leaders, the bankrupted empire found itself competing against strong adversaries. Continuing piracy against its shipping in the Atlantic and the costly colonial enterprises forced Spain to renegotiate its debts in 1596. The crown attempted to reduce its exposure to the different conflicts, first signing the Treaty of Vervins with France in 1598, recognizing Henry IV (since 1593 a Catholic) as king of France, and restoring many of the stipulations of the previous Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis. The Kingdom of England, suffering from a series of repulses at sea and from an endless guerrilla war by Catholics in Ireland, who were supported by Spain, agreed to the Treaty of London, 1604, following the accession of the more tractable Stuart King James I.

Castile provided the Spanish crown with most of its revenues and its best troops. The plague devastated Castilian lands between 1596 and 1602, causing the deaths of some 600,000 people. A great number of Castilians went to America or died in battle. In 1609, the great majority of the Morisco population of Spain was expelled. It is estimated that Castile lost about 25% of its population between 1600 and 1623. Such a dramatic drop in the population meant the basis for the Crown's revenues was dangerously weakened in a time when it was engaged in continuous conflict in Europe.

Peace with England and France gave Spain an opportunity to focus its energies on restoring its rule to the Dutch provinces. The Dutch, led by Maurice of Nassau, the son of William the Silent and perhaps the greatest strategist of his time, had succeeded in taking a number of border cities since 1590, including the fortress of Breda. Following the peace with England, the new Spanish commander Ambrogio Spinola, a general with the ability to match Maurice, pressed hard against the Dutch and was prevented from conquering the Netherlands only by Spain's latest bankruptcy in 1607. In 1609, the Twelve Years' Truce was signed between Spain and the United Provinces. At last, Spain was at peace — the ''''.

Spain made a fair recovery during the truce, putting its finances in order and doing much to restore its prestige and stability in the run-up to the last truly great war in which she would play a leading part. Philip II's successor, Philip III, was a man of limited ability, uninterested in politics and preferring to delegate management of the empire to others. His chief minister was the capable Duke of Lerma.

The Duke of Lerma (and to a large extent Philip II) had been uninterested in the affairs of their ally, Austria. In 1618, the king replaced him with Don Balthasar de Zúñiga, a veteran ambassador to Vienna. Don Balthasar believed that the key to restraining the resurgent French and eliminating the Dutch was a closer alliance with Habsburg Austria. In 1618, beginning with the Defenestration of Prague, Austria and the Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand II, embarked on a campaign against the Protestant Union and Bohemia. Don Balthasar encouraged Philip to join the Austrian Habsburgs in the war, and Spinola, the rising star of the Spanish army in the Netherlands, was sent at the head of the Army of Flanders to intervene. Thus, Spain entered into the Thirty Years' War.

The road to Rocroi

In 1621, Philip III was succeeded by the considerably more religious Philip IV. The following year, Don Balthasar was replaced by Gaspar de Guzmán, Count-Duke of Olivares, a reasonably honest and able man who believed that the center of all Spain's woes rested in the Netherlands. After certain initial setbacks, the Bohemians were defeated at White Mountain in 1621, and again at Stadtlohn in 1623. The war with the Netherlands was renewed in 1621 with Spinola taking the fortress of Breda in 1625. The intervention of Christian IV of Denmark in the war worried some (Christian was one of Europe's few monarchs who had no worries over his finances), but the victory of the Imperial general Albert of Wallenstein over the Danes at Dessau Bridge and again at Lutter (both in 1626), eliminated that threat.

There was hope in Madrid that the Netherlands might finally be reincorporated into the Empire, and after the defeat of Denmark the Protestants in Germany seemed crushed. France was once again involved in its own instabilities (the famous Siege of La Rochelle began in 1627), and Spain's eminence seemed clear. The Count-Duke Olivares stridently affirmed, "God is Spanish and fights for our nation these days".

Olivares was a man out of time: he realized that Spain needed to reform, and to reform it needed peace. The destruction of the United Provinces of the Netherlands was added to his list of necessities, because at the root of every anti-Habsburg coalition there was Dutch money. Dutch bankers financed the East India merchants of Seville, and everywhere in the world Dutch entrepreneurship and colonists were undermining Spanish and Portuguese hegemony.

While Spinola and the Spanish army were focused on the Netherlands, the war seemed to go in Spain's favor. But 1627 saw the collapse of the Castilian economy. The Habsburgs had been debasing their currency to pay for the war and prices exploded, just as they had in previous years in Austria. Until 1631, parts of Castile operated on a barter economy owing to the currency crisis, and the government was unable to collect any meaningful taxes from the peasantry and had to depend on revenue from its colonies. The Spanish armies, like others in German territories, resorted to "paying themselves" on the land.

Olivares had backed certain taxation reforms in Spain pending the end of the war, but was blamed for another embarrassing and fruitless war in Italy. The Dutch, who during the Twelve Years' Truce had made increasing their navy a priority, (which showed its maturing potency at the Battle of Gibraltar 1607), managed to strike a great blow against Spanish maritime trade with the capture of the treasure fleet by captain Piet Hein, on which Spain had become dependent after the economic collapse.

Spanish military resources were stretched across Europe and also at sea as they sought to protect maritime trade against the greatly improved Dutch and French fleets, while still occupied with the Ottoman and associated Barbary pirate threat in the Mediterranean. In the meantime the aim of choking Dutch shipping was carried out by the Dunkirkers with considerable success. In 1625 a Spanish-Portuguese fleet, under Admiral Fradique de Toledo, regained the strategically vital Brazilian city of Salvador da Bahia from the Dutch. Elsewhere, the isolated and undermanned Portuguese forts in Africa and the Asia proved vulnerable to Dutch and English raids and takeovers or simply being bypassed as important trading posts.

In 1630, Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, one of history's most noted commanders, landed in Germany and relieved the port of Stralsund, the last continental stronghold of German forces belligerent to the Emperor. Gustavus then marched south and won notable victories at Breitenfeld and Lützen, attracting more Protestant support with every step he took. The situation for the Catholics improved with Gustavus's death at Lutzen in 1632, and a key victory at Nordlingen was won in 1634. From a position of strength, the Emperor approached the war-weary German states with a peace in 1635: many accepted, including the two most powerful, Brandenburg and Saxony. Then France entered the equation, and diplomatic calculations were thrown in to confusion.

Cardinal Richelieu of France had been a strong supporter of the Dutch and Protestants since the beginning of the war, sending funds and equipment in an attempt to stem Habsburg strength in Europe. Richelieu decided that the recently signed Peace of Prague was contrary to French designs and declared war on the Holy Roman Emperor and Spain within months of the peace being signed. In the war that followed, the more experienced Spanish forces scored initial successes. Olivares ordered a lightning campaign into northern France from the Spanish Netherlands, hoping to shatter the resolve of King Louis XIII's ministers and topple Richelieu. In the ''""'', 1636, Spanish forces advanced as far south as Corbie, and such was the threat to Paris that the war came close to a conclusion on Spanish terms.

After 1636, however, Olivares halted the advance, fearful of provoking another crown bankruptcy. The hesitation in pressing home the advantage proved fateful; French forces regrouped and pushed the Spanish back towards the border. The Spanish army would never again penetrate so far. At the Battle of the Downs in 1639 a Spanish fleet carrying troops was destroyed by the Dutch navy, and the Spanish found themselves unable to supply and reinforce their forces adequately in the Netherlands. The Army of Flanders, which represented the finest of Spanish soldiery and leadership, faced a French assault led by Louis II de Bourbon, Prince de Condé in northern France at Rocroi in 1643. The Spanish, led by Francisco de Melo, were beaten by the French. This battle was not a slaughter by any means, however; it was a closely fought battle but the Spanish were forced to surrender with honorable terms. The high reputation of the Army of Flanders was broken at Rocroi, and with it, the grandeur of Spain.

Africa and the Mediterranean

By the 16th century, the Ottomans had become an existential threat to Europe. Ottoman conquests in Europe made significant gains with a decisive victory at Mohacs. Charles had preferred to suppress the Ottomans through a considerably more maritime strategy, hampering Ottoman landings on the Venetian territories in the Eastern Mediterranean.

The coastal villages and towns of Spain, Italy and the Mediterranean islands were frequently attacked by Barbary pirates from North Africa; the Formentera was even temporarily left by its population and long stretches of the Spanish and Italian coasts were almost completely abandoned by their inhabitants. The most famous corsair was the Turkish Barbarossa ("Redbeard"). According to Robert C. Davis, between 1 million and 1.25 million Europeans were captured by North African pirates and sold as slaves in North Africa and Ottoman Empire between the 16th and 19th centuries.

The reign of Charles V saw a decline in the presence of Spain in the North of Africa, even if Tunis and its port, La Goleta, were taken in 1535. One after the other, most of the Spanish possessions were lost: Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera (1522), Santa Cruz de Mar Pequeña (1524), Algiers (1529), Tripoli (1551), Bujia (1554), and La Goleta and Tunis (1569).

Only in response to Barbary pirates' raids on the eastern coast of Spain did Charles lead attacks against Tunis (1535) and Algiers (1541).

In 1565, the Spanish defeated an Ottoman landing on the strategic island of Malta, defended by the Knights of St. John. Suleiman the Magnificent's death the following year and his succession by his less capable son Selim the Sot emboldened Philip, and he resolved to carry the war to the sultan himself. In 1571, Spanish and Venetian warships, joined by volunteers across Europe, led by Charles's illegitimate son Don John of Austria annihilated the Ottoman fleet at the Battle of Lepanto, in what is perhaps the most decisive battle in modern naval history. The battle ended the threat of Ottoman naval hegemony in the Mediterranean. This mission marked the height of the respectability of Spain and its sovereign abroad as Philip bore the burden of leading the Counter-Reformation.

The Ottomans recovered soon. They reconquered Tunis in 1574, and they helped to restore an ally, Abu Marwan Abd al-Malik I Saadi, in the throne of Morocco, in 1576. The death of the Persian shah, Tahmasp I was an opportunity for the Ottoman sultan to intervene in that country, so, in 1580 was agreed a truce in the Mediterranean with Philip II.

In the first half of the 17th century, Larache and La Mamora, in the Moroccan Atlantic coast, and the island of Alhucemas, in the Mediterranean, were taken, but during the second half of the 17th century, Larache and La Mamora were also lost.

The New World

Explorers and conquistadors

After Columbus, the Spanish colonization of the Americas was led by a series of warrior-explorers called Conquistadors. The Spanish forces, in addition to significant armament and equestrian advantages, exploited the rivalries between competing Indigenous peoples, tribes, and nations, some of which were willing to form alliances with the Spanish in order to defeat their more-powerful enemies, such as the Aztecs or Incas—a tactic that would be extensively used by later European colonial powers. The Spanish conquest was also facilitated by the spread of diseases (e.g. smallpox), common in Europe but never present in the New World and so no immunities, which reduced the indigenous populations in the Americas. This sometimes caused a labour shortage for plantations and public works and so the colonists informally and gradually, at first, initiated the Atlantic slave trade. (''see Population history of American indigenous peoples'')

One of the most accomplished conquistadors was Hernán Cortés, who leading a relatively small Spanish force but with local translators and the crucial support of thousands of native allies, achieved the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire in the campaigns of 1519–1521. This territory later became the Viceroyalty of New Spain, present day Mexico. Of equal importance was the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire by Francisco Pizarro, which would become the Viceroyalty of Peru. After the conquest of Mexico, rumours of golden cities (Quivira and Cíbola in North America and El Dorado in South America) motivated several other expeditions. Many of those returned without having found their goal, or finding it much less valuable than was hoped. Indeed, the New World colonies only began to yield a substantial part of the Crown's revenues with the establishment of mines such as that of Potosí (Bolivia) and Zacatecas (Mexico) both started in 1546. By the late 16th century, silver from the Americas accounted for of Spain's total budget. In the 16th century "perhaps 240,000 Europeans" entered American ports.

Further Spanish settlements were progressively established in the New World: New Granada in the 1530s (later in the Viceroyalty of New Granada in 1717 and present day Colombia), Lima in 1535 as the capital of the Viceroyalty of Peru, Buenos Aires in 1536 (later in the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata in 1776), and Santiago in 1541.

Florida was colonized in 1565 by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés when he founded Saint Augustine and then promptly defeated an attempt led by the French Captain Jean Ribault and 150 of his countrymen to establish a French foothold in Spanish Florida territory. Saint Augustine quickly became a strategic defensive base for the Spanish ships full of gold and silver being sent to Spain from its New World dominions.

The Portuguese Ferdinand Magellan died while in the Philippines commanding a Castilian expedition to circumnavigate the globe in 1522. Juan Sebastián Elcano would lead the expedition to success. Therefore, Spain sought to enforce their rights in the Moluccan islands, which led a conflict with the Portuguese, but the issue was resolved with the Treaty of Zaragoza (1525), settling the location of the antimeridian of Tordesillas, which would divide the world into two equal hemispheres. Thenceforth, maritime expeditions led to the discovery of several archipelagos in the South Pacific as the Pitcairn Islands, the Marquesas, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands or New Guinea.

On April 27, 1565, the first permanent Spanish settlement in the Philippines was founded by Miguel López de Legazpi and the service of Manila Galleons was inaugurated. The Manilla Galleons shipped goods from all over Asia across the Pacific to Acapulco on the coast of Mexico. From there, the goods were transshipped across Mexico to the Spanish treasure fleets, for shipment to Spain. The Spanish trading post of Manila was established to facilitate this trade in 1572. The control of Guam, Mariana Islands, Caroline Islands, and Palau was later, from the end of the 17th century, and remained under Spanish control until 1898.

In 1599, the Spanish Empire suffered one of its greatest setbacks in the Americas when native Mapuches destroyed the Spanish army of Chile and killed the governor Martín García Óñez de Loyola in the Battle of Curalaba. This event led to a generalized rebellion that ended in the Destruction of the Seven Cities, and established the Bío-Bío River as frontier. This led to the prolonged war called the War of Arauco, and southern Chile received the name of ''Flandés Indiano'' (Indian Flanders) due to the resistances of the Mapuches. In a case unique for America, the Spanish established a professional army in Chile financed through the Real Situado by the Viceroyalty of Peru.

Organization and administration

The Laws of the Indies resulted in the Laws of Burgos, 1512–1513, which were the first codified set of laws governing the behavior of Spanish settlers in the Americas, particularly with regards to treatment of native Indians. They forbade the maltreatment of natives, and endorsed the Indian Reductions with attempts of conversion to Catholicism. Upon their failure, they were replaced by the New Laws (1542)

Spain passed some laws for the protection of the indigenous peoples of its American colonies, the first such in 1542; the legal thought behind them was the basis of modern international law. Taking advantage of their extreme remoteness, the European colonists revolted when they saw their power being reduced, forcing a partial revoking of these New Laws. Later, weaker laws were introduced to protect the indigenous peoples but records show their effect was limited. The restored '''' increasingly used native Indian workforce.

The Last Spanish Habsburgs (1643–1700)

Traditionally, historians mark the Battle of Rocroi (1643) as the end of Spanish dominance in Europe, but the war was not finished. Supported by the French, the Catalans, Neapolitans, and Portuguese rose up in revolt against the Spanish in the 1640s. With the Spanish Netherlands caught between the tightening grip of French and Dutch forces after the Battle of Lens in 1648, the Spanish made peace with the Dutch and recognized the independent United Provinces in the Peace of Westphalia that ended both the Eighty Years' War and the Thirty Years' War. War with France continued for eleven more years. Although France suffered from a civil war from 1648–1652 (''see Wars of the Fronde'') the Spanish economy was so exhausted that it was unable to effectively cope with war on so many fronts. Yet the decline of Spanish power in this period has often been overstated. Spain retook Naples in 1648 and Catalonia in 1652, but the war came to an end at the Battle of the Dunes (1658) where the French army under Viscount Turenne defeated the remnants of the Spanish army of the Netherlands. Spain agreed to the Peace of the Pyrenees in 1659 that ceded to France Roussillon and Artois.

Portugal had rebelled in 1640 under the leadership of John of Braganza, a pretender to the throne. He had received widespread support from the Portuguese people, and Spain—which had to deal with rebellions elsewhere, along with the war against France – was unable to respond adequately. John mounted the throne as King John IV of Portugal and the Spanish and Portuguese co-existed in a de facto state of peace from 1644-1656. When John died in 1656, the Spanish attempted to wrest Portugal from his son Alfonso VI of Portugal but were defeated at Ameixial (1663) and Montes Claros (1665), leading to Spain's recognition of Portugal's independence in 1668.

Spain still had a huge overseas empire, but France was now the superpower in Europe and the United Provinces were in the Atlantic.

The Great Plague of Seville (1647–1652) killed up to 25% of Seville's population. Sevilla, and indeed the economy of Andalucía, would never recover from so complete a devastation. Altogether Spain was thought to have lost 500,000 people, out of a population of slightly fewer than 10,000,000, or nearly 5% of its entire population. Historians reckon the total cost in human lives due to these plagues throughout Spain, throughout the entire 17th century, to be a minimum of nearly 1.25 million.

The regency of the young Spanish king Charles II was incompetent in dealing with the War of Devolution that Louis XIV of France prosecuted against the Spanish Netherlands in 1667–68, losing considerable prestige and territory, including the cities of Lille and Charleroi. In the Franco-Dutch War of 1672–1678, Spain lost still more territory when it came to the assistance of its former Dutch enemies, most notably Franche-Comté. In the Nine Years' War (1688–1697) Louis once again invaded the Spanish Netherlands. French forces led by the Duke of Luxembourg defeated the Spanish at Fleurus (1690), and subsequently defeated Dutch forces under William III of Orange, who fought on Spain's side. The war ended with most of the Spanish Netherlands under French occupation, including the important cities of Ghent and Luxembourg. The war revealed to Europe how vulnerable and backward the Spanish defenses and bureaucracy were, but the ineffective Spanish Habsburg government took no action to improve them.

The final decades of the 17th century saw utter decay and stagnation in Spain; while the rest of Western Europe went through exciting changes in government and society — the Glorious Revolution in England and the reign of the Sun King in France — Spain remained adrift. The Spanish bureaucracy that had built up around the charismatic, industrious, and intelligent Charles I and Philip II demanded a strong and hardworking monarch; the weakness and lack of interest of Philip III and Philip IV contributed to Spain's decay. Charles II was mentally retarded and impotent. He was therefore childless, and in his final will he left his throne to the Bourbon prince Philip of Anjou, rather than to a fellow Habsburg, albeit from Austria. This resulted in the War of the Spanish Succession.

The Bourbon Spanish Empire: reform and recovery (1700–1808)

Under the Treaties of Utrecht (April 11, 1713), the European powers decided what the fate of Spain would be, in terms of the continental balance of power. The new Bourbon king Philip V retained the Spanish overseas empire, but ceded the Spanish Netherlands, Naples, Milan, and Sardinia to Austria; Sicily and parts of Milan to Duchy of Savoy; and Gibraltar and Minorca to the Kingdom of Great Britain. Moreover, Philip V granted the British the exclusive right to slave trading in Spanish America for thirty years, the so-called ''asiento'', as well as licensed voyages to ports in Spanish colonial dominions, openings, as Fernand Braudel remarked, for both licit and illicit smuggling (Brudel 1984 p 418).

Spain's economic and demographic recovery had begun slowly in the last decades of the Habsburg reign, as was evident from the growth of its trading convoys and much more rapid growth of illicit trade during the period, though this growth was slower than in its northern rivals who had gained increasing illicit access to its empire's markets. Critically, this recovery was not translated into institutional improvement because of the incompetent leadership of the unfortunate last Habsburg. This legacy of neglect was reflected in the early years of Bourbon rule in which the military was ill-advisedly pitched into battle against the Quadruple Alliance (1718–1720).

Following the war, the new Bourbon monarchy would take a much more cautious approach to international relations, built upon a family alliance with Bourbon France, and continuing to follow a program of institutional renewal.

Bourbon Reforms

At the beginning of the Philip V's reign and due to the War of the Spanish Succession, the Spanish king Philip V initiated organizational reforms headed for a government more executive, giving priority to the direct decision of the monarch, opposite to the deliberative way of the polisynodial system of Councils.

The Spanish Bourbons' broadest intentions were to break the power of the entrenched aristocracy of the ''Criollos'' in America (locally born colonials of European descent), and, eventually, loosen the territorial control of the Society of Jesus over the virtually independent theocracies of Guarani '''': the Jesuits were expelled from Spanish America in 1767. In addition to the established '''' of Mexico City and Lima, firmly in the control of local landowners, a new rival '''' was set up at Vera Cruz.

Immediately, Philip's government set up a ministry of the Navy and the Indies (1714) and created first a Honduras Company (1714), a Caracas company, the Guipuzcoana Company, (1728) and—the most successful one—a Havana Company (1740). In 1717–1718, the structures for governing the Indies, the '''' and the '''' that governed investments in the cumbersome escorted fleets were transferred from Seville to Cádiz, which became the one port for all Indies trading (see flota system). Individual sailings at regular intervals were slow to displace the old habit of armed convoys, but by the 1760s there were regular packet ships plying the Atlantic between Cádiz and Havana and Puerto Rico, and at longer intervals to the Río de la Plata, where an additional viceroyalty was created in 1776. The contraband trade that was the lifeblood of the Habsburg empire declined in proportion to registered shipping (a shipping registry having been established in 1735).

Two upheavals registered unease within Spanish America and at the same time demonstrated the renewed resiliency of the reformed system: the Tupac Amaru uprising in Peru in 1780 and the rebellion of the'''' of New Granada, both in part reactions to tighter, more efficient control.

18th century prosperity

The 18th century was a century of prosperity for the overseas Spanish Empire as trade within grew steadily, particularly in the second half of the century, under the Bourbon reforms. Spain's crucial victory in the Battle of Cartagena de Indias against an extraordinary British fleet, in the Caribbean port of Cartagena de Indias, one of a number of successful battles, helped it secure Spain's dominance of the Americas until the 19th century.

With a Bourbon monarchy came a repertory of Bourbon mercantilist ideas based on a centralized state, put into effect in America slowly at first but with increasing momentum during the century. Rapid shipping growth from the mid-1740s until the Seven Years' War (1756–1763), reflecting in part the success of the Bourbons in bringing illicit trade under control. With the loosening of trade controls after the Seven Years War, shipping trade within the empire once again began to expand, reaching an extraordinary rate of growth in the 1780s.

The ending of Cádiz's trade monopoly with America brought about a rebirth of Spanish manufactures. Most notable was the rapidly growing textile industry of Catalonia which by the mid-1780s saw the first signs of industrialisation. This saw the emergence of a small, politically active commercial class in Barcelona. This isolated pocket of advanced economic development stood in stark contrast to the relative backwardness of most of the country. Most of the improvements were in and around some major coastal cities and the major islands such as Cuba, with its plantations, and a renewed growth of precious metals mining in America. On the other hand most of rural Spain and its empire, where the great bulk of the population lived, lived in relatively backward conditions by 18th century West European standards, reinforced old customs and isolation. Agricultural productivity remained low despite efforts to introduce new techniques to what was for the most part an uninterested, exploited peasant and labouring groups. Governments were inconsistent in their policies. Though there were substantial improvements by the late 18th century, Spain was still an economic backwater. Under the mercantile trading arrangements it had difficulty in providing the goods being demanded by the strongly growing markets of its empire, and providing adequate outlets for the return trade.

Overseas expansion

The Bourbon institutional reforms were to bear some fruit militarily when Spanish forces easily retook Naples and Sicily from the Austrians in 1734 (War of the Polish Succession) and thwarted British campaigns attempting to seize the strategic cities of Cartagena de Indias and Cuba during the War of Jenkins' Ear (1739–1742). Moreover, though Spain lost territories to greatly improved and successful amphibious British forces towards the end of the Seven Years' War (1756–1763), she was to recover these losses and seize the British naval base in the Bahamas during the American Revolutionary War (1775–83).

The greater part of what is the territory of today's Brazil had been claimed as Spanish when exploration began with the navigation of the length of the Amazon River in 1541–42 by Francisco de Orellana. Many Spanish expeditions explored large parts of this vast region, especially those areas close to the main areas of Spanish settlement. During the 16th and 17th centuries, Spanish soldiers, missionaries and adventurers also established pioneering communities, primarily in Paraná, Santa Catarina, São Paulo and forts on the northeastern coast threatened by the French and Dutch. As Portuguese-Brazilian settlement expanded, following in the trail of the Bandeirantes exploits, these isolated Spanish groups were eventually integrated into Brazilian society. Only some Castilians who were displaced from the disputed areas of the Pampas of Rio Grande do Sul have left a significant influence on the formation of the gaucho, when they mixed with Indian groups, Portuguese and blacks who arrived in the region during the 18th century. The Spanish were barred by their laws from slaving of indigenous people, leaving them without a commercial interest deep in the interior of the Amazon basin. The Laws of Burgos (1512) and the New Laws (1542) had been intended to protect the interests of indigenous people. While in spirit they were often abused, as through forced exploitative labour of locals, they did prevent widespread formal enslavement of indigenous people in Spanish territories. The Protuguese-Brazilian slavers, the Bandeirantes, had the advantage of access from the mouth of the Amazon River, which was on the Portuguese side of the line of Tordesillas. One famous attack upon a Spanish mission in 1628 resulted in the enslavement of about 60,000 indigenous people. In time, there were in effect a self funding force of occupation. By the 18th century, much of the Spanish territory was under defacto control of Portuguese-Brazil. This reality was recognised with the legal transfer of sovereignty in 1750 of most of the Amazon basin and surrounding areas to Portugal in the Treaty of Madrid. This settlement sowed the seeds of the Guarani War in 1756.

The California mission planning was begun in 1769. The Nootka Crisis (1789–1791) involved a dispute between Spain and Great Britain about the British settlement in Oregon to British Columbia. In 1791, the king of Spain gave Alessandro Malaspina an order to search for a Northwest Passage.

The Spanish empire had still not returned to first rate power status, but it had recovered considerably from the dark days at the beginning of the 18th century when it was, and particularly in continental matters, at the mercy of other powers' political deals. The relatively more peaceful century under the new monarchy had allowed it to rebuild and start the long process of modernizing its institutions and economy. The demographic decline of the 17th century had been reversed. It was a middle ranking power with great power pretensions that could not be ignored. But time was to be against it. The growth of trade and wealth in the colonies caused increasing political tensions as frustration grew with the improving but still restrictive trade with Spain. Malaspina's recommendation to turn the empire into a looser confederation to help improve governance and trade so as to quell the growing political tensions between the élites of the empire's periphery and centre was suppressed by a monarchy afraid of losing control. All was to be swept away by the tumult that was to overtake Europe at the turn of the 19th century with the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.

Twilight Of The Global Empire (1800–1899)

The first major territory Spain was to lose in the 19th century was the vast and wild Louisiana Territory, which stretched north to Canada and was ceded by France in 1763 under the terms of the Treaty of Fontainebleau. The French, under Napoleon, took back possession as part of the Treaty of San Ildefonso in 1800 and sold it to the United States (Louisiana Purchase, 1803).

The destruction of the main Spanish fleet, under French command, at the Battle of Trafalgar (1805) undermined Spain's ability to defend and hold on to its empire. The later intrusion of Napoleonic forces into Spain in 1808 (see Peninsular War) cut off effective connection with the empire. But it was internal tensions that ultimately ended the empire in the Americas.

Napoleon's sale in 1803 of the Louisiana Territory to the United States caused border disputes between the United States and Spain that, with rebellions in West Florida (1810) and in the remainder of Louisiana at the mouth of the Mississippi, led to their eventual cession to the United States, along with the sale of all of Florida, in the Adams–Onís Treaty (1819). In 1806 Baron Nikolai Rezanov attempted to negotiate a treaty between the Russian-American Company and Viceroyalty of New Spain but his premature death in 1807 ended any treaty hopes.

In 1808, Napoleon forced the abdication of the Spanish monarchy and placed his brother on the throne, however his unpopularity provoked an uprising from the Spanish people and the grinding guerrilla warfare, which Napoleon dubbed his "ulcer", the Peninsular War, (famously depicted by the painter Goya) ensued, followed by a power vacuum lasting up to a decade and turmoil for several decades, civil wars on succession disputes, a republic, and finally a liberal democracy. Spain lost all the colonial possessions in the first third of the century, except for Cuba, Puerto Rico and, isolated on the far side of the globe, the Philippines, Guam and nearby Pacific islands, as well as Ceuta and Melilla, and some islands that later would be part of the Spanish Guinea.

The wars of independence in Spanish America were triggered by a British attempt to seize the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata in 1806. The viceroy retreated hastily to the hills when defeated by a small British force. However when the ''Criollos'' militias and colonial army defeated the now reinforced British force in 1807, and with the example of the North American revolutionaries very much in their minds, they quickly set about the business of winning their own independence and inspiring independence movements elsewhere in America. A long period of wars began which led to the independence of Paraguay (1811) and Uruguay (1815 but subsequently ruled by Brazil until 1828). José de San Martín campaigned for freedom in Argentina (1816), Chile (1818) and Peru (1821). Further north Simón Bolívar led forces that won independence for the area that is currently Venezuela, Colombia (then Nueva Granada), Ecuador, and Bolivia (then Alto Perú) by 1825. In 1810, a free thinking priest, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, declared Mexican independence, which was won by 1821. Central America declared its independence in 1821 and was joined to Mexico for a brief time (1822–23). Panama declared independence in 1821 and joined Nueva Granada, Ecuador and Venezuela to form the Republic of Gran Colombia (from 1821–1903). Santo Domingo likewise declared independence in 1821 and began negotiating for inclusion in Bolivar's Republic of Gran Colombia, but was quickly occupied by Haiti, which ruled it until an 1844 revolution. Then after 17 years of independence, in 1861, Santo Domingo was again made a colony due to Haitian aggressions, yet by 1865 Santo Domingo again declared independence, making it the only territory to be recolonized by Spain. Thus only Cuba and Puerto Rico remained in Spanish hands in the New World after 1865.

In devastated Spain, the post-Napoleonic era created a political vacuum, broke apart any traditional consensus on sovereignty, fragmented the country politically and regionally and unleashed wars and disputes between progressives, liberals and conservatives. The instability inhibited Spain's development, which had started fitfully gathering pace in the previous century. A brief period of improvement occurred in the 1870s when the capable Alfonso XII of Spain and his thoughtful ministers succeeded in restoring some vigour to Spanish politics and prestige, but this was cut short by Alfonso's early death.

An increasing level of nationalist, anti-colonial uprisings in various colonies culminated with the Spanish–American War of 1898, fought primarily over Cuba. Military defeat was followed by the independence of Cuba and the cession, for US$20 million, of Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam to the United States. On June 2, 1899, the last Spanish garrison in the Philippines, located in Baler, Aurora, was pulled out, effectively ending around 300 years of Spanish hegemony in this archipelago. Its American and Asian presence ended, Spain then sold its remaining Pacific Ocean possessions to Germany in 1899, retaining only its African territories.

Territories in Africa (1885–1975)

By the end of the 17th century, only Melilla, Alhucemas, Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera (which had been taken again in 1564), Ceuta (part of the Portuguese Empire since 1415, has chosen to retain its links to Spain once the Iberian Union ended; the formal allegiance of Ceuta to Spain was recognized by the Treaty of Lisbon in 1668), Oran and Mazalquivir remained as Spanish territory in Africa. The latter cities were lost in 1708, reconquered in 1732 and sold by Charles IV in 1792.

In 1778, Fernando Poo Island (now Bioko), adjacent islets, and commercial rights to the mainland between the Niger and Ogooué Rivers were ceded to Spain by the Portuguese in exchange for territory in South America (Treaty of El Pardo). In the 19th century, some Spanish explorers and missionaries would cross this zone, among them Manuel de Iradier.

In 1848, Spanish troops conquered the Islas Chafarinas.

In 1860, after the Tetuan War, Morocco ceded Sidi Ifni to Spain as a part of the Treaty of Tangiers, on the basis of the old outpost of Santa Cruz de la Mar Pequeña, thought to be Sidi Ifni. The following decades of Franco-Spanish collaboration resulted in the establishment and extension of Spanish protectorates south of the city, and Spanish influence obtained international recognition in the Berlin Conference of 1884: Spain administered Sidi Ifni and Western Sahara jointly. Spain claimed a protectorate over the coast of Guinea from Cape Bojador to Cap Blanc, too. Río Muni became a protectorate in 1885 and a colony in 1900. Conflicting claims to the Guinea mainland were settled in 1900 by the Treaty of Paris.

Following a brief war in 1893, Spain expanded its influence south from Melilla.

In 1911, Morocco was divided between the French and Spanish. The Rif Berbers rebelled, led by Abdelkrim, a former officer for the Spanish administration. The ''Battle of Annual'' (1921) was a sudden, grave, and almost fatal, military defeat suffered by the Spanish army against Moroccan insurgents. A leading Spanish politician emphatically declared: "''We are at the most acute period of Spanish decadence''". The statement reflected the mood of the country. The rebellion exposed the utter corruption and incompetence of the military and destabilised the Spanish government, leading to dictatorship. A campaign in conjunction with the French suppressed the Rif rebels by 1925 but at a terrible cost to both sides. In 1923, Tangier was declared an international city under French, Spanish, British, and later Italian joint administration. The African army, led by a veteran of the Moroccan campaign, Francisco Franco, started the Spanish Civil War (1936–39). Between 1926 and 1959, Bioko and Rio Muni were united as the colony of Spanish Guinea. During the Second World War the Vichy French presence in Tangier was overcome by that of Francoist Spain.

Spain lacked the wealth and the interest to develop an extensive economic infrastructure in its African colonies during the first half of the 20th century. However, through a paternalistic system, particularly on Bioko Island, Spain developed large cocoa plantations for which thousands of Nigerian workers were imported as laborers. The Spanish also helped Equatorial Guinea achieve one of the continent's highest literacy rates and developed a good network of health care facilities.

In 1956, when French Morocco became independent, Spain surrendered Spanish Morocco to the new nation, but retained control of Sidi Ifni, the Tarfaya region and Spanish Sahara. Moroccan Sultan (later King) Mohammed V was interested in these territories and invaded Spanish Sahara in 1957 (The Ifni War, or, in Spain, the Forgotten War, ''''). In 1958, Spain ceded Tarfaya to Mohammed V and joined the previously separate districts of Saguia el-Hamra (in the north) and Río de Oro (in the south) to form the province of Spanish Sahara.

In 1959, the Spanish territory on the Gulf of Guinea was established with a status similar to the provinces of metropolitan Spain. As the Spanish Equatorial Region, it was ruled by a governor general exercising military and civilian powers. The first local elections were held in 1959, and the first Equatoguinean representatives were seated in the Spanish parliament. Under the Basic Law of December 1963, limited autonomy was authorized under a joint legislative body for the territory's two provinces. The name of the country was changed to Equatorial Guinea.

In March 1968, under pressure from Equatoguinean nationalists and the United Nations, Spain announced that it would grant the country independence. At independence, Equatorial Guinea had one of the highest per capita incomes in Africa. In 1969, under international pressure, Spain returned Sidi Ifni to Morocco. Spanish control of Spanish Sahara endured until the 1975 Green March prompted a withdrawal, under Moroccan military presion. The future of this former Spanish colony remains uncertain.

The Canary Islands and Spanish cities in the African mainland are considered an equal part of Spain and the European Union but have a different tax system without Value Added Tax.

Morocco still claims Ceuta, Melilla, and '''' even though they are internationally recognized as administrative divisions of Spain (despite Plazas de Soberania which is a territory of Spain). Isla Perejil ('' ("night")) was occupied on July 11, 2002 by Moroccan Gendarmerie and troops, who were evicted peacefully by Spanish naval forces.

Legacy

The Spanish language (now the second most widely spoken language in the world) and the Roman Catholic faith were brought to the Americas, parts of Africa and the Spanish East Indies, by Spanish colonization which began in the 15th century. It also played a crucial part in sustaining the Catholic Church as the leading Christian denomination in Europe when it was under extreme pressure.

The long colonial period in Spanish America resulted in a mixing of peoples. Most Hispanics in the Americas have mixed American Indian and European ancestry, while a substantial proportion also have African ancestry. The only exceptions are Argentina and Uruguay which experienced heavy European immigration in the post colonial period.

In concert with the Portuguese Empire, the Spanish Empire laid the foundations of a truly global trade by opening up the great trans-oceanic trade routes. The Spanish dollar became the world's first global currency.

One of the features of this trade was the exchange of a great array of domesticated plants and animals between the Old World and the New and vice versa. Some that were introduced to the Americas included wheat, barley, apples, cattle, sheep, pigs, horses, donkeys, among many others. The Old World received from the Americas such things as maize, potatoes, chili peppers, tomatoes and tobacco, to name just a few examples. The result of these exchanges was to significantly improve the agricultural potential of not only the Americas, but also that of Europe and Asia.

There were also cultural influences, which can be seen in everything from architecture to food, music, art and law, from Argentina to the Southwest United States. The complex origins and contacts of different peoples resulted in cultural influences coming together in the varied forms so evident today in the former colonial areas.

See also

History of Spain

List of Spanish wars

Panhispanism

Spanish Guinea

Imperator totius Hispaniae

References

Notes

Bibliography

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Further reading

Armstrong, Edward (1902). ''The emperor Charles V''. New York: The Macmillan Company

Black, Jeremy (1996). ''The Cambridge illustrated atlas of warfare: Renaissance to revolution''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-47033-1

Braudel, Fernand (1972). ''The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II'', trans. Siân Reynolds. New York: Harper & Row. ISBN 0-06-090566-2

Fernand Braudel, ''The Perspective of the World'' (part iii of ''Civilization and Capitalism'') 1979, translated 1985.

Brown, Jonathan (1998). ''Painting in Spain : 1500–1700''. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-06472-1

Dominguez Ortiz, Antonio (1971). ''The golden age of Spain, 1516–1659.'' Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-297-00405-0

Edwards, John (2000). ''The Spain of the Catholic Monarchs, 1474–1520''. New York: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-16165-1

Harman, Alec (1969). ''Late Renaissance and Baroque music''. New York: Schocken Books.

Kamen, Henry (1998). ''Philip of Spain''. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-07800-5

Kamen, Henry (2005). ''Spain 1469–1714. A Society of Conflict'' (3rd ed.) London and New York: Pearson Longman. ISBN 0-582-78464-6

Parker, Geoffrey (1997). ''The Thirty Years' War'' (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-12883-8

Parker, Geoffrey (1972). ''The Army of flanders and the Spanish road, 1567–1659; the logistics of Spanish victory and defeat in the Low Countries' Wars.''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-08462-8

Parker, Geoffrey (1977). ''The Dutch revolt''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-8014-1136-X

Parker, Geoffrey (1978). ''Philip II''. Boston: Little, Brown. ISBN 0-316-69080-5

Parker, Geoffrey (1997). ''The general crisis of the seventeenth century''. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-16518-0

Ramsey, John Fraser (1973) ''Spain: the rise of the first world power.'' University of Alabama Press. ISBN 0817357041 9780817357047

Stradling, R. A. (1988). ''Philip IV and the government of Spain''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-32333-9

Thomas, Hugh (2004). ''Rivers of Gold: The Rise of the Spanish Empire 1490–1522'' Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 0-297-64563-3

Thomas, Hugh (1997). ''The Slave Trade; The History of the Atlantic Slave Trade 1440–1870''. London: Papermac. ISBN 0-333-73147-6

Various (1983). ''Historia de la literatura espanola''. Barcelona: Editorial Ariel

Wright, Esmond, ed. (1984). ''History of the World, Part II: The last five hundred years'' (3rd ed.). New York: Hamlyn Publishing. ISBN 0-517-43644-2.

External links

Library of Iberian Resources Online, Stanley G Payne ''A History of Spain and Portugal'' vol 1 Ch 13 "The Spanish Empire"

The Mestizo-Mexicano-Indian History in the USA

Documentary Film, ''Villa de Albuquerque''

The last Spanish colonies

Category:Colonialism Spain Category:History of Spain Category:History of the Americas Category:Former empires Category:Overseas empires Category:Spanish colonization of the Americas

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Coordinates	8°3′″N34°54′″N
Name	John Joseph Pershing
Nickname	Black Jack
Birth date	September 13, 1860
Death date	July 15, 1948
Birth place	Laclede, Missouri
Death place	Washington, D.C.
Placeofburial	Arlington National Cemetery
Allegiance	United States of America
Branch	United States Army
Serviceyears	1886–1924
Rank
Servicenumber	O-1
Commands	8th BrigadeAmerican Expeditionary ForceFirst United States Army Army Chief of StaffMexican Expedition
Battles	Indian Wars Apache Wars Sioux Wars Spanish-American War Battle of San Juan Hill Philippine-American War Moro Rebellion Russo-Japanese War Mexican Revolution Pancho Villa Expedition World War I Western Front
Awards	Distinguished Service CrossDistinguished Service MedalSilver StarHonorary Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the BathLégion d'honneur
Laterwork	}}

John Joseph "Black Jack" Pershing, GCB (Hon) (September 13, 1860 – July 15, 1948), was a general officer in the United States Army who led the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I. Pershing is the only person to be promoted in his own lifetime to the highest rank ever held in the United States Army—General of the Armies (a retroactive Congressional edict passed in 1976 promoted George Washington to the same rank but with higher seniority). Pershing holds the first United States officer service number (O-1). He was regarded as a mentor by the generation of American generals who led the United States Army in Europe during World War II, including George C. Marshall, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Omar N. Bradley, and George S. Patton.

Early life

John Joseph Pershing was born on a farm near Laclede, Missouri, to businessman John Fletcher Pershing and homemaker Ann Elizabeth Thompson. He also had five siblings: sisters Ann Elizabeth, Margaret, and May; brothers Ward and James. When the Civil War began, John F. Pershing worked as a sutler for the 18th Missouri Volunteer Infantry, but he did not serve in the military.

John J. Pershing attended a school in Laclede that was reserved for precocious students who were also the children of prominent citizens. Completing high school in 1878, he became a teacher of local African American children.

In 1880, Pershing entered the North Missouri Normal School (now Truman State University) in Kirksville, Missouri. Two years later, he applied to the United States Military Academy. Pershing later admitted that serving in the military was secondary to attending West Point, and he had applied because the education offered was better than that obtainable in rural Missouri.

West Point years

Pershing was sworn in as a West Point cadet in the fall of 1882. He was selected early for leadership and became successively First Corporal, First Sergeant, First Lieutenant, and First Captain, the highest possible cadet rank. Pershing commanded ''ex officio'' the West Point Honor Guard that escorted the funeral of President Ulysses S. Grant.

Pershing graduated from West Point in the summer of 1886 and was commended by the Superintendent of West Point, General Wesley Merritt, for high leadership skills and possessing "superb ability."

Pershing briefly considered petitioning the Army to let him study law and delay his commission. He applied for a furlough from West Point, but soon withdrew the request in favor of active Army duty. He was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the United States Army in 1886, at age 26, graduating 30th in a class of 77.

Early career

Pershing reported for active duty on September 30, 1886, and was assigned to Troop L of the 6th U.S. Cavalry stationed at Fort Bayard, in the New Mexico Territory. While serving in the 6th Cavalry, Pershing participated in several Indian campaigns and was cited for bravery for actions against the Apache. During his time at Fort Stanton, Pershing and close friends Lt. Julius Penn and Lt. Richard B. Paddock were nicknamed "The Three Green P's," spending their leisure time hunting and attending Hispanic dances. Pershing's sister Grace married Paddock in 1890.

Between 1887 and 1890, Pershing served with the 6th Cavalry at various postings in California, Arizona, and North Dakota. He also became an expert marksman and, in 1891, was rated second in pistol and fifth in rifle out of all soldiers in the U.S. Army.

On December 9, 1890, Pershing and the 6th Cavalry arrived at Sioux City, Iowa, where Pershing played a role in suppressing the last uprisings of the Lakota (Sioux) Indians. He participated as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Wounded Knee Massacre.

A year later, he was assigned as an instructor of military tactics at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Pershing held this post until 1895. While in Nebraska, Pershing attended law school and graduated in 1893. Additionally, he formed a drill company, Company A, in 1891 that won the Omaha Cup. In 1893, Company A became a fraternal organization and changed its name to the Varsity Rifles. The group changed its name for the last time in 1894, renaming itself the Pershing Rifles in honor of its founder.

On October 1, 1892, Pershing was promoted to first lieutenant and took command of a troop of the 10th Cavalry Regiment (one of the original Buffalo Soldier regiments), composed of African-American soldiers under white officers. From Fort Assinniboine in north central Montana, he commanded an expedition to the south and southwest that rounded up and deported a large number of Cree Indians to Canada.

West Point instructor

In 1897, Pershing was appointed to the West Point tactical staff as an instructor, where he was assigned to Cadet Company A. Because of his strictness and rigidity, Pershing was unpopular with the cadets, who took to calling him "Nigger Jack" because of his service with the 10th Cavalry. During the course of his tour at the Academy, this epithet softened to "Black Jack", although, according to Vandiver, "the intent remained hostile." Still, this nickname would stick with Pershing for the rest of his life, and was known to the public as early as 1917.

Spanish and Philippine-American wars

At the start of the Spanish-American War, First Lieutenant Pershing was offered a brevet rank and commissioned a major of volunteers on August 26, 1898. He fought with the 10th Cavalry (Buffalo Soldiers) on Kettle and San Juan Hill in Cuba and was cited for gallantry. (In 1919, he was awarded the Silver Citation Star for these actions, and in 1932 the award was upgraded to the Silver Star Medal.)

In March 1899, after suffering from malaria, Pershing was put in charge of the Office of Customs and Insular Affairs which oversaw occupation forces in territories gained in the Spanish-American War, including Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam.

When the Philippine-American War began, Pershing was either ordered or requested transfer to Manila. He reported on August 17, 1899 as a Brevet Major of Volunteers and was assigned to the Department of Mindanao and Jolo and commanded efforts to suppress the Filipino Insurrection. On November 27, 1900, Pershing was appointed Adjutant General of his department and served in this posting until March 1, 1901. He was cited for bravery for actions on the Cagayan River while attempting to destroy a Philippine stronghold at Macajambo.

In 1901, Pershing's brevet commission was revoked, and he reassumed his rank as captain in the Regular Army. He served with the 1st Cavalry Regiment in the Philippines. He later was assigned to the 15th Cavalry Regiment, serving as an intelligence officer and participating in actions against the Moros. He was cited for bravery at Lake Lanao. In June 1901, he served as Commander of Camp Vicars in Lanao, Philippines, after the previous camp commander had been promoted to brigadier general.

Rise to General

In June 1903, Pershing was ordered to return to the United States. President Theodore Roosevelt, taken by Pershing's ability, petitioned the Army General Staff to promote Pershing to colonel. At the time, Army officer promotions were based primarily on seniority rather than merit, and although there was widespread acknowledgment that Pershing should serve as a colonel, the Army General Staff declined to change their seniority-based promotion tradition just to accommodate Pershing. They would not consider a promotion to lieutenant colonel or even major. This angered Roosevelt, but since the President could only name and promote army officers in the General ranks, his options for recognizing Pershing through promotion were limited.

In 1904, Pershing was assigned as the Assistant Chief of Staff of the Southwest Army Division stationed at Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. In October 1904, he attended the Army War College, and then was ordered to Washington, D.C. for "general duties unassigned".

Since Theodore Roosevelt could not yet promote Pershing, he petitioned the United States Congress to authorize a diplomatic posting, and Pershing was stationed as military attaché in Tokyo in 1905. Also in 1905, Pershing married Helen Frances Warren, the daughter of powerful U.S. Senator Francis E. Warren, a Wyoming Republican and chairman of the U.S. Military Appropriations Committee. Some have indicated this union helped his military career.

After serving as an observer in the Russo-Japanese War, Pershing returned to the United States in the fall of 1905. President Roosevelt employed his presidential prerogative and nominated Pershing as a brigadier general, a move which Congress approved. In skipping three ranks and more than 835 officers senior to him, the promotion gave rise to accusations that Pershing's appointment was the result of political connections and not military abilities. However, many other officers supported Pershing and believed that, based on his demonstrated ability to command combat forces, the promotion to general, while unusual, was not unprecedented or out of line.

In 1908, Pershing briefly served as a U.S. military observer in the Balkans, an assignment which was based out of Paris. Upon returning to the United States at the end of 1909, Pershing was assigned once again to the Philippines, an assignment which he served until 1912. While in the Philippines, he served as Commander of Fort McKinley, near Manila, and also was the governor of the Moro Province. The last of Pershing's four children was born in the Philippines, and during this time he became an Episcopalian.

Pancho Villa, personal tragedy and the Mexican Revolution

In January 1914, Pershing was assigned to command the Army 8th Brigade (United States) in Fort Bliss, Texas, responsible for security along the U.S.-Mexico border. In March 1916, under the command of General Frederick Funston, Pershing led the 8th Brigade on the failed 1916–17 Punitive Expedition into Mexico in search of the revolutionary leader Pancho Villa. He had met him in 1913 when he invited him to Fort Bliss. During this time, George S. Patton served as one of Pershing's aides.

After a year at Fort Bliss, Pershing decided to take his family there. The arrangements were almost complete, when on the morning of August 27, 1915, he received a telegram telling him of a tragic fire in the Presidio of San Francisco, where a lacquered floor blaze had rapidly spread, resulting in the smoke inhalation deaths of his wife, Helen, and three young daughters. Only his six-year-old son Warren survived. Many who knew Pershing said he never recovered from their deaths. After the funerals at Lakeview Cemetery in Cheyenne, Wyoming, Pershing returned to Fort Bliss with his son, Warren, and his sister Mae, and resumed his duties as commanding officer.

World War I

At the start of the United States' involvement in World War I President Woodrow Wilson considered mobilizing an army to join the fight. Frederick Funston, Pershing's superior in Mexico, was being considered for the top billet as the Commander of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) when he died suddenly from a heart attack on February 19, 1917. Following America's entrance into the war, Wilson, after a short interview, named Pershing to command, a post which he retained until 1918. Pershing, who was a major general, was promoted to full general (the first since Philip Sheridan in 1888) in the National Army, and was made responsible for the organization, training, and supply of a combined professional and draft Army and National Guard force that eventually grew from 27,000 inexperienced men to two Armies (a third was forming as the war ended) totaling over two million soldiers.

Pershing exercised significant control over his command, with a full delegation of authority from Wilson and Secretary of War Newton D. Baker. Baker, cognizant of the endless problems of domestic and allied political involvement in military decision making in wartime, gave Pershing unmatched authority to run his command as he saw fit. In turn, Pershing exercised his prerogative carefully, not engaging in issues that might distract or diminish his command. While earlier a champion of the African-American soldier, he did not champion their full participation on the battlefield, understanding widespread racial attitudes among white Americans generally, plus Wilson's reactionary views on race and the political debts he owed to southern Democratic law makers.

George C. Marshall served as one of Pershing's top assistants during and after the war. Pershing's initial chief of staff was businessman James Harbord, who later took a combat command but worked as Pershing's closest assistant for many years and remained extremely loyal to Pershing.

After departing from Fort Jay at Governors Island in New York Harbor under top secrecy in May 1917, Pershing arrived in France in June 1917. In a show of American presence, part of the 16th Infantry Regiment marched through Paris shortly after his arrival. Pausing at Gilbert du Motier, marquis de La Fayette's tomb, he was reputed to have uttered the famous line "Lafayette, we are here." The line was in fact spoken by his aide, Colonel Charles E. Stanton. American forces were deployed in France in the autumn of 1917.

Battle of Hamel

For the first time in American history, Pershing allowed American soldiers to be under the command of a foreign power. In late June, General Rawlinson commanding the British Fourth Army suggested to Australian Lieutenant General John Monash that American involvement in a set-piece attack alongside the experienced Australians in the upcoming Battle of Hamel would both give the American troops experience and also strengthen the Australian battalions by an additional company each. On June 29, General Bell, commanding the American 33rd Division, selected two companies each from the 131st and 132nd Infantry regiments of the 66th brigade. However, Monash had been promised ten companies of American troops and on June 30 the remaining companies of the 1st and 2nd battalions of the 131st regiment were sent. Each American platoon was attached to an Australian company. However, there was difficulty in integrating the American platoons (which numbered 60 men) amongst the Australian companies of 100 men. This difficulty was overcome by reducing the size of each American platoon by one-fifth and sending these troops, which numbered 50 officers and men, back to battalion reinforcement camps.

African-American units

Pershing bowed to the racial policies of President Woodrow Wilson, Secretary of War Newton D. Baker, and southern Democrats who promoted the "separate but equal" doctrine. African-American "Buffalo Soldiers" units were not allowed to participate with the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) during World War I, but experienced non-commissioned officers were provided to other segregated black units for combat service—such as the 317th Engineer Battalion. The American Buffalo Soldiers of the 92nd and the 93rd Infantry Divisions were the first Americans to fight in France in 1918, albeit detached from the AEF and under French command. Most regiments of the 92nd and all of the 93rd would continue to fight under French command for the duration of the war.

World War I: 1918 and full American participation

In early 1918, entire divisions were beginning to serve on the front lines alongside French troops. Pershing insisted that the AEF fight as units under American command rather than being split up by battalions to augment British and French regiments and brigades (although the U.S. 27th and 30th Divisions, loaned during the desperate days of spring 1918, fought with the British/Australian/Canadian Fourth Army until the end of the war, taking part in the breach of the Hindenburg Line in October).

In October 1918, Pershing saw the need for a dedicated Military Police Corps and the first US Army MP School was established at Autun, France. For this, he is considered the "founding father" of the MPs.

Because of the effects of trench warfare on soldiers' feet, in January, 1918, Pershing oversaw the creation of an improved combat boot, the "1918 Trench Boot," which became known as the "Pershing Boot" upon its introduction.

American forces first saw serious action during the summer of 1918, contributing eight large divisions, alongside 24 French ones, at the Second Battle of the Marne. Along with the British Fourth Army's victory at Amiens, the Franco-American victory at the Second Battle of the Marne marked the turning point of the war on the Western Front.

In August 1918 the U.S. First Army had been formed, first under Pershing's direct command and then by Hunter Liggett, when the U.S. Second Army under Robert Bullard was created. After a quick victory at Saint-Mihiel, east of Verdun, some of the more bullish AEF commanders had hoped to push on eastwards to Metz, but this did not fit in with the plans of the Allied Supreme Commander, Marshal Foch, for three simultaneous offensives into the "bulge" of the Western Front (the other two being the Fourth Army's breach of the Hindenburg Line and an Anglo-Belgian offensive, led by Plumer's Second Army, in Flanders). Instead, the AEF was required to redeploy and, aided by French tanks, launched a major offensive northwards in very difficult terrain at Meuse-Argonne. Initially enjoying numerical odds of eight to one, this offensive eventually engaged 35 or 40 of the 190 or so German divisions on the Western Front, although to put this in perspective, around half the German divisions were engaged on the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) sector at the time. The offensive was, however, marked by Pershing's failure: his reliance on massed infantry attacks with little artillery support led to high casualty rates in the capturing of three key points. This was despite the AEF facing only second-line German troops after Erich Ludendorff's decision to withdraw to the Hindenburg line on October 3 - and in notable contrast to the simultaneous British breakthrough of the Hindenburg Line in the north. Pershing was subsequently forced to reorganize the AEF with the creation of the Second Army, and to step down as the commander of the First Army.

When he arrived in Europe, Pershing had openly scorned the slow trench warfare of the previous three years on the Western Front, believing that American soldiers' skill with the rifle would enable them to avoid costly and senseless fighting over a small area of no man's land. This was regarded as unrealistic by British and French generals, and (privately) by a number of American generals such as Army Chief of Staff Tasker H. Bliss and his own Hunter Liggett. Even German generals were negative, Ludendorff dismissing Pershing's strategic efforts in the Meuse-Argonne offensive by recalling how "the attacks of the youthful American troops broke down with the heaviest losses". The AEF had done well in the relatively open warfare of the Second Battle of the Marne, but the eventual U.S. casualty rates against German defensive positions in the Argonne (120,000 U.S. casualties in six weeks, against 35 or 40 German divisions) were not noticeably better than those of the Franco-British offensive on the Somme two years earlier (600,000 casualties in four and a half months, versus 50 or so German divisions). More ground was gained, but then the German Army was in worse shape than in previous years.

Some writers have speculated that Pershing's frustration at the slow progress through the Argonne was the cause of two incidents which then ensued. First, he ordered the U.S. First Army to take "the honor" of recapturing Sedan, site of the French defeat in 1870; the ensuing confusion (an order was issued that "boundaries were not to be considered binding") exposed U.S. troops to danger not only from the French on their left, but even from one another, as the 1st Division tacked westward by night across the path of the 42nd (accounts differ as to whether Douglas MacArthur was really mistaken for a German officer and arrested). Liggett, who had been away from headquarters the previous day, had to sort out the mess and implement the instructions from Supreme Commander Marshal Foch, allowing the French to recapture the city; he later recorded that this was the only time during the war in which he lost his temper.

Second, Pershing sent an unsolicited letter to the Allied Supreme War Council, demanding that the Germans not be given an armistice and that instead, the Allies should push on and obtain an unconditional surrender. Although in later years, many, including President Franklin D. Roosevelt, felt that Pershing had had a point, at the time, this was a breach of political authority. Pershing narrowly escaped a serious reprimand from Wilson's aide, Colonel House, and later apologized.

At the time of the Armistice, another U.S.-French offensive was due to start on November 14, thrusting towards Metz and into Lorraine, to take place simultaneously with further BEF advances through Belgium.

In his memoirs, Pershing claimed that the U.S. breakout from the Argonne at the start of November was the decisive event leading to the German acceptance of an armistice, because it made untenable the Antwerp-Meuse line. This is probably an exaggeration; the outbreak of civil unrest and naval mutiny in Germany, the collapse of Bulgaria, Turkey, and particularly Austria-Hungary following Allied victories in Salonika, Syria, and Italy, and the Allied victories on the Western Front were among a series of events in the autumn of 1918 which made it clear that Allied victory was inevitable, and diplomatic inquiries about an armistice had been going on throughout October. President Wilson was keen to tie matters up before the mid-term elections, and the other Allies did not have the strength to defeat Germany without U.S. help, so had little choice but to follow Wilson's lead.

American successes were largely credited to Pershing, and he became the most celebrated American leader of the war. Critics, however, claimed that Pershing commanded from far behind the lines and was critical of commanders who personally led troops into battle. Douglas MacArthur saw Pershing as a desk soldier, and the relationship between the two men deteriorated by the end of the war. Similar criticism of senior commanders by the younger generation of officers (the future generals of World War II) was made in the British and other armies, but in fairness to Pershing, although it was not uncommon for brigade commanders to serve near the front and even be killed, the state of communications in World War I made it more practical for senior generals to command from the rear. He controversially ordered his troops to continue fighting after the armistice was signed. This resulted in 3,500 U.S. casualties on the last day of the war, an act which was regarded as murder by several officers under his command.

Later career

In 1919, in recognition of his distinguished service during World War I, the U.S. Congress authorized the President to promote Pershing to General of the Armies of the United States, the highest rank possible for any member of the United States armed forces, which was created especially for him and one that only he held at the time (General George Washington was posthumously promoted to this rank by President Gerald Ford in 1976). Pershing was authorized to create his insignia for the new rank and chose to wear four gold stars for the rest of his career, which separated him from the four (temporary) silver stars worn by Army Chiefs of Staff, and even the five star General of the Army insignia worn by Marshall, MacArthur, Bradley, Eisenhower, and H. 'Hap' Arnold in World War II (Pershing outranked them all).

There was a movement to make Pershing President of the United States in 1920, but he refused to actively campaign. In a newspaper article, he said that he "wouldn't decline to serve" if the people wanted him, and this made front page headlines. Though Pershing was a Republican, many of his party's leaders considered him too closely tied to the policies of the Democratic Party's President Wilson. The Republican nomination went to Senator Warren G. Harding of Ohio, who won the 1920 presidential election.

In 1921, Pershing became Chief of Staff of the United States Army, serving for three years. He created the Pershing Map, a proposed national network of military and civilian highways. The Interstate Highway System instituted in 1956 bears considerable resemblance to the Pershing map. In 1924, then 64 years old, Pershing retired from active military service, yet continued to be listed on the active duty rolls as part of his commission as General of the Armies.

On November 1, 1921, Pershing was in Kansas City to take part in the groundbreaking ceremony for the Liberty Memorial that was being constructed there. Also present that day were Lieutenant General Baron Jacques of Belgium, Admiral David Beatty of Great Britain, Marshal Ferdinand Foch of France and General Armando Diaz of Italy. One of the main speakers was Vice President Calvin Coolidge. In 1935, bas-reliefs of Pershing, Jacques, Foch and Diaz by sculptor Walker Hancock were added to the memorial. Pershing also laid the cornerstone of the World War Memorial in Indianapolis on July 4, 1927.

On October 2, 1922, amidst several hundred officers, many of them combat veterans of World War I, Pershing formally established the Reserve Officers Association (ROA) as an organization at the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C. ROA is a 75,000-member, professional association of officers, former officers, and spouses of all the uniformed services of the United States, primarily the Reserve and United States National Guard. It is a congressionally chartered Association that advises the Congress and the President on issues of national security on behalf of all members of the Reserve Component.

Pershing served on a committee of the Sons of the American Revolution to establish and recognize Constitution Day in the United States.

During the 1930s, Pershing maintained a private life but was made famous by his memoirs, ''My Experiences in the World War'', which were awarded the 1932 Pulitzer Prize for history. He was also an active Civitan during this time.

In 1940, Pershing was an outspoken advocate of aid for the United Kingdom during World War II. In 1944, with the creation of the new five star rank General of the Army, Pershing was acknowledged as the highest ranking officer of the United States military. When asked if this made Pershing a six star General, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson commented that it did not, since Pershing never wore more than four stars but that Pershing was still to be considered senior to the present five star generals of World War II.

In July 1944, Pershing was visited by Free French leader General Charles de Gaulle. When Pershing, by then semi-senile, asked after the health of his old friend, Marshal Philippe Pétain (who was heading the pro-German Vichy regime), de Gaulle replied tactfully that when he last saw him, the Marshal was well.

Death

On July 15, 1948, Pershing died of coronary artery disease and congestive heart failure at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., which was his home after 1944. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery, near the grave sites of the soldiers he commanded in Europe, after a state funeral.

Family

It was during his initial assignment in the American West that his mother died. On March 16, 1906, Pershing's father died.

Colonel Francis Warren Pershing (1909–1980), John J. Pershing's son, served in the Second World War as an advisor to the Army Chief of Staff, General George C. Marshall. After the War he continued with his financial career and founded a stock brokerage firm (Pershing & Company). He was father to two sons, Richard W. Pershing (1942–1968) and John Warren Pershing III (1941–1999). Richard Pershing served as a 2nd Lieutenant (O1) in the 502nd Infantry and was killed in action on February 17, 1968, in Vietnam. John Pershing III served as a special assistant to former Army Chief of Staff General Gordon R. Sullivan, also attaining the rank of Colonel (O6). He helped shape Army and Army ROTC programs nationwide. Col. Pershing died of cardiovascular disease in 1999.

Summary of service

Dates of rank

''No Insignia in 1886''

Assignment history

1882: Cadet, United States Military Academy

1886: Troop L, Sixth Cavalry

1891: Professor of Tactics, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

1895: Commanding Officer, 10th Cavalry Regiment

1897: Instructor, United States Military Academy, West Point

1898: Major of Volunteer Forces, Cuban Campaign, Spanish-American War

1899: Officer-in-Charge, Office of Customs and Insular Affairs

1900: Adjutant General, Department of Mindanao and Jolo, Philippines

1901: Battalion Officer, 1st Cavalry and Intelligence Officer, 15th Cavalry (Philippines)

1902: Officer-in-Charge, Camp Vicars, Philippines

1904: Assistant Chief of Staff, Southwest Army Division, Oklahoma

1905: Military attaché, U.S. Embassy, [[Tokyo, Japan">General officer

As there was no prescribed insignia for this rank, General Pershing chose the four stars of a full general, except in gold. The rank has been argued to be equivalent to "6-star" general. According to the biography ''Until the Last Trumpet Sounds'' by Gene Smith, Pershing never wore the rank on his uniform.

Assignment history

1882: Cadet, United States Military Academy

1886: Troop L, Sixth Cavalry

1891: Professor of Tactics, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

1895: Commanding Officer, 10th Cavalry Regiment

1897: Instructor, United States Military Academy, West Point

1898: Major of Volunteer Forces, Cuban Campaign, Spanish-American War

1899: Officer-in-Charge, Office of Customs and Insular Affairs

1900: Adjutant General, Department of Mindanao and Jolo, Philippines

1901: Battalion Officer, 1st Cavalry and Intelligence Officer, 15th Cavalry (Philippines)

1902: Officer-in-Charge, Camp Vicars, Philippines

1904: Assistant Chief of Staff, Southwest Army Division, Oklahoma

1905: Military attaché, U.S. Embassy, [[Tokyo, Japan

1908: Military Advisor to American Embassy, France

1909: Commander of Fort McKinley, Manila, and governor of Moro Province

1914: Brigade Commander, 8th Army Brigade

1916: Commanding General, Mexican Punitive Expedition

1917: Commanding General for the formation of the National Army

1918: Commanding General, American Expeditionary Forces, Europe

1921: Chief of Staff of the United States Army

1924: Retired from active military service

1925: Chief Commissioner assigned by the United States in the arbitration case for the provinces of Tacna and Arica between Peru and Chile.

Awards and decorations

United States decorations

Distinguished Service Cross

Distinguished Service Medal

World War I Victory Medal (with 15 battle clasps)

Indian Campaign Medal

Spanish Campaign Medal (with Silver Citation Star)

Army of Cuban Occupation Medal

Philippine Campaign Medal

Mexican Service Medal

In 1932, seven years after Pershing's retirement from active service, his silver citation star was upgraded to the Silver Star Medal and he became eligible for the Purple Heart. In 1941, he was retroactively awarded the Army of Occupation of Germany Medal for service in Germany following the close of World War I.

Since General Pershing was on permanent active duty when he was promoted to General of the Armies he was also eligible for the American Defense Service Medal, the American Campaign Medal and the World War Two Victory Medal.

International awards

Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (Britain)

Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor (France)

Military Medal (France)

Croix de Guerre with Palm (France)

Grand Cross of the Order of Leopold (Belgium)

Croix de Guerre (Belgium)

Order Virtuti Militari (2nd class - Commander's Cross) (Poland)

Order of the White Lion (1st Class with Sword) (Czechoslovakia)

Czechoslovakian War Cross

Grand Cordon of the Order of the Precious Jade (China)

Order of the Golden Grain (1st Class) (China)

Order of the Redeemer (Greece)

Grand Cross of the Military Order of Savoy (Italy)

Grand Cross of the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus (Italy)

Order of the Rising Sun (Japan)

Medaille Obilitch (Montenegro)

Grand Cross of the Order of Prince Danilo I (Montenegro)

Medal of La Solidaridad (1st Class) (Panama)

Grand Cross of the Order of the Sun (Peru)

Order of Michael the Brave (1st Class) (Romania)

Grand Cordon of the Order of the Liberator (Venezuela)

Grand Cross of the Order of the Star of Karageorge with Swords (Serbia)

Civilian awards

Congressional Gold Medal

Thanks of the United States Congress

Special Medal of the Committee of the city of Buenos Aires

Other honors and miscellany

Since 1930, the Pershing Park Memorial Association (PPMA), headquartered in Pershing's hometown of Laclede, Missouri, has been dedicated to preserving the memory of General Pershing's military history.

On November 17, 1961, the United States Postal Service released an 8¢ Liberty Issue postage stamp honoring Pershing.

Pershing was immensely popular after World War I, and as a result a large number of organization, equipment, streets and buildings are named after him throughout the United States and abroad:

*Organizations:

**The National Society of Pershing Rifles, founded by Pershing, continues on today as America's premier undergraduate military fraternal organization. He also founded the Military Order of the World Wars.

**The 2nd Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division (United States) is nicknamed "Black Jack."

**B Troop (Black Jack Troop) 5/15 Cavalry Regiment at Fort Knox, Kentucky, the home of Armor and Cavalry where brand new 19D Cavalry Scouts are trained. A parade field in front of the B Troop barracks is called "Pershing Field" in honor of the General, and a placard of his works lies in its corner.

*Military ordnance and other equipment:

**The M26 Pershing tank was an American armored vehicle introduced in 1945

**The Pershing ballistic missiles

**In 1938, the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad named a diesel engined streamliner train the ''General Pershing Zephyr''

*Schools:

**Elementary Schools: Berwyn, Illinois, Joliet, Illinois, West Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Muskogee, Oklahoma, Lincoln, Nebraska, Killeen, Texas (Fort Hood)

**Middle Schools: Houston, Texas, Springfield, Missouri, Sunset Park, Brooklyn, New York City

**High Schools: Detroit, Michigan

*College buildings:

**Pershing Arena, Pershing Society, Pershing Hall, and the Pershing Scholarships of Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri (Pershing's former college)

**Pershing Barracks at the United States Military Academy. Completed in 1895 as the Academic Building for West Point, it was renamed the West Academic Building in 1913. It was later converted to a barracks and renamed Pershing Barracks

**John J. Pershing Military and Naval Science Building of University of Nebraska–Lincoln

*Pershing Hall of Montana State University - Northern in Havre, Montana

*Military buildings:

*Pershing Hall on The Presidio of San Francisco in San Francisco, California

**Pershing Hall on Governors Island

*Buildings:

**The Pershing Center, a multi-purpose arena in downtown Lincoln, Nebraska

**The Pershing Building in Kansas City, Missouri, located on Pershing Road

*Streets

**Pershing or General Pershing Road: Chicago (formerly 39th Street), Kansas City, Missouri (the northern border to The Liberty Memorial, the Official National World War I Memorial), Fort Bliss, Texas

**Pershing or General Pershing Street: Hammond, Louisiana, New Orleans (in the Uptown section), Cranston, Rhode Island

**Pershing or General Pershing Avenue: St. Louis, Missouri (previously known as Berlin Avenue), Fort Riley, Kansas, Phoenix, Arizona, San Diego, California, Stockton, California, Orlando, Florida

**Pershing or General Pershing Drive: North Omaha, Florence, Nebraska

**Pershing or General Pershing Boulevard: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (on the Oklahoma State Fairgrounds, formerly part of Main Street), Cheyenne, Wyoming (a main road to Warren AFB)

***Boulevard Pershing on the western edge of Paris, France runs past the Palais des Congrès near the Porte Maillot. Many of the major streets in the area (the XVIe arrondissement) are named after notable French military figures, including Avenue Foch, named after Marshall Foch, and at either end of Boulevard Pershing, streets named after the Marshals of France Gouvion Saint-Cyr and Koenig. It reflects the immense popularity of the American troops who first arrived in the French capital in 1916.

***Boulevard John-Joseph Pershing in Limpertsberg, Luxembourg.

*Squares and plazas:

**Pershing Square in Downtown Los Angeles

**Pershing Square in New York City on 42nd Street at Park Avenue in front of Grand Central Terminal

**Plaza Pershing in Zamboanga City, Philippines

*Parks:

**Pershing Park in Washington, D.C. features the Pershing Memorial

**Pershing State Park, in north-central Missouri between Laclede and Meadville

**Pershing Park in Racine, Wisconsin and Arkansas City, Kansas

**Pershing Field in Fort Carson, Colorado

**Stade Pershing, a baseball park in Paris, France

*Other:

**Pershing County, Nevada

**A riderless horse was named in honor of Pershing, "Black Jack". This horse was used for many years in funerals for heads of state, including President John F. Kennedy.

**The Pershing Division of the Clarence Cannon Conference, a high school athletic conference in Northeastern Missouri in the area where the general lived during his youth. The other division in the conference honors Harry S. Truman.

**The Great Pershing Balloon Derby at Brookfield, Missouri is named in his honor and is held over the Labor Day weekend each year

**General Pershing, a British racehorse that took part in the 1995 Grand National Steeplechase.

*Miscellany:

*Pershing was a Freemason, a member of Lincoln Lodge No.19, Lincoln, Nebraska

References

;Notes

;Sources ;Further reading

Richard Goldhurst, ''Pipe Clay and Drill: John J. Pershing, the classic American soldier,'' (Reader's Digest Press, 1977)

Gene Smith, ''Until the Last Trumpet Sounds: The Life of General of the Armies John J. Pershing'' (Wiley, New York, 1998) ISBN 978-0-471-24693-0

Donald Smythe, ''Guerrilla Warrior: The Early Life of John J. Pershing'' (Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1973) ISBN 0-684-12933-7

Donald Smythe, ''Pershing: General of the Armies'' (Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1986) ISBN 0-253-21924-8

Frank E. Vandiver, ''Black Jack: The Life and Times of John J. Pershing - Volume I'' (Texas A&M; University Press, Third printing, 1977) ISBN 0-89096-024-0

Frank E. Vandiver, ''Black Jack: The Life and Times of John J. Pershing - Volume II'' (Texas A&M; University Press, Third printing, 1977) ISBN 0-89096-024-0

External links

Pershing Museum

Biography of John J. Pershing

''New York Times'' obituary

Black Jack Pershing in Cuba

The National Society of Pershing Rifles

, CHAPTER IV, General of the Armies John J. Pershing, State Funeral, 15-19 July 1948 in The Last Salute: Civil and Military Funeral, 1921-1969 by B. C. Mossman and M. W. Stark, United States Army Center of Military History

John J. Pershing collection at Nebraska State Historical Society

Americans Under British Command, 1918 at Borrowed Soldiers

{{S-ttl|title=Cover of ''Time'' Magazine |years=August 11, 1924}}

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