Stelvio Pass
The alternative was for the Spanish to go even further east and march their armies northeast from Milan through the Valtellina, the southernmost territory of the Three Leagues. At the eastern end of the Valtellina was the Stelvio Pass, and on the far side of that was the County of Tyrol, yet another Austrian Habsburg territory from which Spanish forces could proceed northwest via Further Austria to Upper Alsace and then north across Lorraine to the Spanish Netherlands, as described above. Indeed the Spanish Governor of Milan, the Count of Fuentes, had already negotiated a deal with the Three Leagues to use this route as early as 1592.