|
The Battle of Borgerhout was a battle during the Eighty Years' War, of the Spanish Army of Flanders led by Alexander Farnese, Prince of Parma, upon a fortified camp at the village of Borgerhout, near Antwerp, where several thousand French, English, Scottish and Walloon soldiers in service of the recently created Union of Utrecht were stationed. It took place during the reconquest by the armies of Philip II of Spain of the Burgundian Netherlands, whose different provinces had united in 1576 under the Pacification of Ghent to drive out the foreign troops out and to grant religious liberty to Protestants. Despite the rebel victory at the Battle of Rijmenam in July 1578, much of the Southern Netherlands were lost to the Spanish Army during the autumn; Brussels was menaced, and the States General were moved to the safer Antwerp. Taking advantage of the Dutch rebel army's indiscipline, Farnese decided at the beginning of 1579 to besiege Maastricht. As a feint to distract the Dutch rebels from his goal, but also aiming to scare Antwerp's inhabitants, Farnese moved with his troops to surprise the village of Borgerhout, very close to Antwerp, where a part of the Dutch States Army had its quarters, namely 3,000 or 4,000 infantry which were the backbone of the rebel army and consisted of French Calvinists under François de la Noue, and English and Scottish troops under John Norrey's orders. On 2 March Farnese deployed elements of his army in a plain stretching between his position at the village of Ranst and the Dutch camp at Borgerhout, which Norreys and De la Noue had fortified with moats, palisades and earthworks. The assault was divided into three columns, each one provided with a mobile bridge to pass over the camp's moat. After one of the attacks, undertaken by Walloon troops, succeeded in securing a bridge, the Spanish forces were able to attack the States-General's soldiers inside their camp. Norreys and De la Noue's men opposed a strong defence, but Farnese, throwing his light cavalry to the battle, forced the Dutch troops to abandon Borgerhout and look for shelter under the artillery of Antwerp's walls. William of Orange, leader of the Dutch revolt, and archduke Matthias of Habsburg, Governor-General of the Netherlands appointed by the States General, witnessed the fight from Antwerp's walls. The battle meant the destruction of the villages of Borgerhout and Deurne and saw up to 1,500 men killed between both armies. Farnese then proceeded to besiege Maastricht, which the Spanish Army invested less than a week after the battle and was taken by assault on 29 June of the same year. Farnese's successful campaign opened the way to a nine-year period of Spanish reconquest of much of the Netherlands. ==Background== (詳細はCharles V of Habsburg's original realm, which had passed to his son Philip II of Spain on his abdication in 1556, were in disarray due to religious tensions between Protestants and Catholics and the nobility and cities' unwillingnes of funding Philip's wars and ceding its powers to the Royal administration. In 1567 Philip sent an army to the Netherlands under Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alba, to restore his authority, but Alba's persecution of the religious and political dissenters led William of Orange, the leader of the nobility, to exile into Germany and prepare an invasion of the Netherlands to expel Alba. Orange invaded the Netherlands twice, in 1568 and 1572, but in both occasions Alba defeated him. The second time, however, the revolt spread into the provinces of Holland and Zealand, and Alba was unable of quelling it. In 1576, the lack of an authority due to the death of Alba's successor Luis de Requesens, together with a Spanish general bankruptcy, led the Spanish mutinuous soldiers to sack several towns, including Antwerp. In reaction, the loyal and rebel provinces united to expel the foreign troops under the Pacification of Ghent. John of Austria, the victor of Lepanto and replacement to Requesens, had no choice but to sign the Perpetual Edict in 1577, accepting the Pacification of Ghent, but later, frustrated by the intransigence of Orange and his supporters, he seized the citadel of Namur and recalled his troops. John's striking victory at the Battle of Gembloux in January 1578, was followed by a tactical defeat at Rijmenam in July, and John himself died of plague in October. However, despite the Spanish failure to exploit militarily the victory of Gembloux, it rendered important political benefits to the royal cause in the Netherlands, as it shattered the unity of the Dutch rebels. As a consequence of the battle's outcome, the leaders of the main families of the Southern provinces lost faith in Orange's cause and the promises of aid made by the English queen Elizabeth I, which meant an important setback to Orange. Aiming to restore the military capability of the Dutch rebels, Elizabeth arranged with John Casimir, son to the Calvinist Elector Palatine, the raising of a German Army under English pay to assist the Dutch troops John Casimir brought to the Netherlands 11,000 men, but instead of fighting the Spanish, he sided with the Calvinist extremists at Ghent and widened the gap between the Catholic and Protestant rebels. The States General also called for help Francis, Duke of Anjou, brother and heir of the King of France, who entered Mons in July 1578, but was back in France in a short time. The Catholic nobility and southern provinces' defections, already started in the autumn 1578, expanded further when the provinces of Hainaut and Artois concluded on 6 January 1579, the Union of Arras, which the Walloon Flanders joined soon –the Catholic provinces of Namur, Luxembourg and Limburg were already controlled by the Spanish–. The Union of Arras opened talks in February with Alexander Farnese, who succeeded his uncle John of Austria as the Royal-appointed Governor-General of the Netherlands, to reconcile with Philip II. In response, a meeting took place in Utrecht shortly thereafter between deputies from the northern provinces of Holland, Zealand, Utrecht, Friesland, Gelderland and Ommelanden, which signed an alliance and union on 23 January. In the south, meanwhile, Farnese was planning the capture of Maastricht to use the city with its stone bridge over the Meuse as a base to conquer Brussels and Antwerp in the following campaigns. In November 1578, the Spanish Army left Namur and crossed the Ardennes and Limburg. However, Farnese deemed too risky starting the siege of Maastrich at midwinter and with the John Casimir's numerous cavalry on the countryside. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Battle of Borgerhout」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|