Camino Español
The Spanish Road was a vital artery for the Spanish war effort during the Eighty Years' War against the Dutch Republic. It would have been much quicker to ship troops and supplies directly from Spain to the Low Countries - a sailing ship of the time could usually cover about a day, whereas the average pace of soldiers marching on the Spanish Road was only a day - but for Spanish vessels sailing up the English Channel meant running a deadly gauntlet of attacks by the French, English and Dutch, all of whom were hostile to Spain throughout this period. It was therefore much safer for Spain to transport its armies across the relatively secure waters of the Western Mediterranean to Italy and then march them overland along the length of the Spanish Road from Milan to Luxembourg. Between 1567 and 1633, some 123,000 men were transported to the Spanish Netherlands by this overland route, compared to only 17,600 transported by sea.