The Wichita Daily Eagle

Many Wars of Spain.

"No man is braver than a Spaniard," said Sir Richard Grenville of Devon. The history of Spain is a history of incessant struggle, incessant warfare and incessant cruelty.

Spain, as we understand the name, came into being with the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella. By this union two great provinces were made one and others came in to make the whole. Under Ferdinand and Isabella began the voyages of discovery which were to give Spain control of nineteenths of the new world. Being the initiative reign of Spain as a nation it was, of course, a war-like reign. Three men out of four when asked to name the leading events of Ferdinand's occupancy of the throne will say that Columbus made an egg stand up for his delectation, and discovered America, and stop there. Yet in that reign the Moors were driven from Spain; the inquisition was established; Torquemada was a power second only to the pope himself; the Jews were expatriated; there were many wars in Italy; there was a war with France to recover Cerdagne and Roussillon, which had been mortgaged to France by Ferdinand's father; there was the rise and world-filling fame of Gonsalvo de Cordova, the great soldier; there was the utter defeat of the French on Italian soil, there was successful wars in Africa and the wars of the so-called Holy League.

In the days which followed Hernando Cortez fought and conquered Mexico and Francisco Pizarro under contract fought and conquered Peru. This man gave to Spain a territory which extended through thirty-nine degrees of latitude and included all of these countries now known as Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia and Chile. Every day of Pizarro's adventurous life in the west was a day of warfare, and every main actor in the drama of the Incas died a violent death. These possessions poured into the coffers of the conquering country a steady stream of gold and silver. Within fifty years the Spanish navigators made of Spain the greatest empire the world had ever known. The Atlantic and Pacific oceans became Spanish lakes, and became so through constant wars. Every foot of this vast western holding, with the exception only of Cuba and Porto Rico, has been lost by war or through the direct consequences of war. Since the dethronement of Ferdinand VII., and enthronement of Joseph Bonaparte, revolutions have cost Spain nearly all of her transatlantic colonies. Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Ecuador went in 1824. Venezuela went in 1823. Mexico achieved independence in 1829, and the isthmus republics in 1823.

In 1519 the Frankfort diet gave the crown of Germany to Charles V., who was a Hapsburg, and Spain leaped at once into prominence and power in the wide field of European politics. For eighty years it dominated the nations of Europe, always at war and always ruling, when it ruled, with an iron hand. At that time facing each other were four of the greatest kings of history. They were Charles V. of Spain, Francis I. of France, Henry VIII. of England and Solyman the Magnificent. The ablest of them was Charles. During all of his reign his people had small breathing time between his wars. For thirty years he was engaged in what are called the Italian wars. He was really behind the Constable de Bourbon's sacking of Rome in 1527, because Pope Clement had absolved Francis from a truce, and that merry monarch had immediately begun fighting again. In the eight years between 1527 and 1535 he had his usual war with Francis, a war with the Florentines, assailed the Barbary pirates and captured Tunis. In 1536 he invaded Provence, and in that year whipped the rebellious burghers of Ghent. He had an African war in 1541, and another war with France from 1542 to 1544. In 1543 he began his savage attacks on Protestantism. In 1547 he took Maurice of Saxony prisoner, and fought him again in 1552. He followed this with one more war with his old foe-man of France. At this time Spain was mistress of Mexico, Peru, Franche-Comte, the Netherlands, Naples, parts of Germany, and a dozen of other principalities. During his reign Charles rolled back the Turks from Europe, fought for Christians in Tunis and Algiers, had traveled over Italy, France, England, Germany and Flanders forty times in war and peace. He had fought every one who disagreed with him on any subject, and when he resigned his crown to Philip and retired to a monastery, was the most potent and dreaded monarch of his day.

Philip, who came to the throne when 29 years old, fought the pope; fought France; fought long wars with the Protestant Netherlands; fought the Turks viciously; made one of the Holy League which forever shattered the Turkish dream of an empire in Africa, and in which Cervantes, a private soldier, lost the use of his left hand; fought Henry of Navarre, maintained a perpetual sea of war with England after the accession of Elizabeth. He sent the invincible armada in 1588, and of the 30,000 men who manned his ships only 10,000 returned. He sent another armada in 1596-7. Mexico was coined into ducats for these wars—English, French and Dutch. Philip was royally Spanish or Spanishly royal. He lived and breathed murder. He attempted to assassinate Elizabeth, Henry of Navarre and John of Olden-Barneweld, the great burgher, and he did assassinate Egmont, Hoorne, William the Silent, Don Carlos, at that time his only son, his illegitimate son, Don Juan, millions by one edict in the Netherlands, and his private secretary, Escovedo, who knew too much. For many years of Philip's reign the skull of the chief justice of Aragon adorned a Spanish market place. Here is what he governed: Peru, Mexico, Brazil, the Antilles, seventeen Netherland provinces, twelve kingdoms of Spain and Portugal, the two Sicilies, Milan, parts of Tuscany, Barbary, Guinea, the African coast southwest, the Indian Sea peninsulas and archipelagoes, the Philippine and Mulucca Islands, the Grand Duchy of Florence and the Republic of Geneva. He was titular king of England through his marriage with Mary and a claimant to the throne of France through his daughter.

Under Philip III., Philip IV., and Charles II., the great empire rapidly retrograded. Under Philip II. there were thirty years of war. Philip IV. reigned forty four years, which were of almost uninterrupted war with the Netherlands, Italy and France under Richelieu. Philip V., who was a Bourbon, and Ferdinand VI. were comparatively quiescent. Charles III. was guilty of two foolish wars with England, in both of which he was worsted. In the Spanish war with England in 1762 the English took Havana, with $5,000,000 in plunder, and also Trinidad and Manila. Spain bought them back with Florida. In 1795 Spain warred with France, a war which was ended by disgraceful concessions of Spanish territory. In 1797, Spain then being once more embroiled with England, the battle of St. Vincent was fought. It resulted in the practical annihilation of the Spanish marine. This was followed by her lengthy troubles with France under Napoleon, in all of which she lost strength and prestige. Finally came the successful revolutions of her American dependencies and the civil wars of Don Carlos. Spain today, after four centuries of steady warfare, has but little more territory than was here when Aragon and Castile joined hands, but Spanish steel has flashed in all lands, and the Spanish gentleman has graven his name deep into the ages.

The shivering crash of belching cannon; the whittle of flying shrapnel, the moan of larruping grape, glorify, ennoble manhood and make war, not despicable, but a desideratum, a tonic to—" and the Kansas editor raised his pen and yelled: "Maria, for heaven's sake keep that noisy child out of the room. She makes me nervous."