page_title: Siege of Saint-Omer
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Siege of Saint-Omer / Background
caption_attribution_description: Español: Retrato de Gaspar de Guzmán y Pimentel (1587-1645), conde-duque de Olivares y valido del rey Felipe IV de España.
context_page_description: The Siege of Saint-Omer was a siege in the Thirty Years' War in which a French army under Gaspard III de Coligny, Maréchal de Châtillon, laid siege to the Flemish city of Saint-Omer, defended by a small garrison in command of Lancelot II Schetz, count of Grobbendonck. Despite several initial successes in the capture of the minor forts around Saint-Omer, on the night of 8/9 June a Spanish relief army under Thomas Francis, Prince of Carignano surprised Châtillon's troops and established a small fort in the middle of the French lines. An entire army corps under Maréchal de La Force was ordered to move towards Saint-Omer to support Châtillon siege, but on July 12 a further Imperial-Spanish force commanded by Ottavio Piccolomini entered Saint-Omer, resolving the French marshals to withdraw.
context_section_description: In June 1635 the allied armies of the Dutch Republic and France invaded the Spanish Netherlands from two sides and joined forces in the valley of the Meuse while the Spanish field army under the Cardinal-Infante fell back to cover Brussels. The invading armies captured a few smaller places before investing Leuven. The siege was a costly failure due to bad logistics and organization, and because the French army was decimated by the plague. The Cardinal-Infante was then able to counter-attack and pushed the Franco-Dutch army back to the Dutch border in the direction of Cleves, recapturing Diest and Tienen, and surprising the Dutch fortress of Schenkenschans, where a large garrison was put then in. The Duchy of Cleves was occupied during August and September with the aim of linking the fort with the main body of the Spanish Netherlands. while Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange, started the siege of Schenkenschans. The fortress fell after a long and costly siege that lasted even through the winter months. Meanwhile, Cardinal Richelieu took the decision of remove Châtillon from command and focused France's effort in the Rhineland.
  In the first months of 1636, while the French armies suffered further defeats against the Duke Charles of Lorraine and the Imperial generalissimo Matthias Gallas, the Count-Duke of Olivares insisted the Cardinal-Infante to continue concentrating the war effort in exploiting the gains in the Lower Rhine and in northern Brabant rather than in an offensive against France, even after the loss of Schenkenschans. In late May, however, the offensive operations were suspended and a secondary thrust was launched into France, according to the Cardinal-Infante, because of a dramatic change of the circumstances. Philip IV write to his brother on June ordering him to advance into northern Brabant to try to recapture Schenk. Meanwhile, the Emperor, whose position in Germany had strengthened since the Peace of Prague, had projected an invasion of the eastern France, but as his force was not enough larger due to logistical problems, he proposed a joint invasion to the Cardinal-Infante.
  On 4 July the Cardinal-Infante, commanding a lightly equipped army, crossed the frontier via Avesnes and took the fortresses of Le Catelet and La Capelle. Alarmed by this easy advance, the King of France Louis XIII was forced to move to Paris from Fontainebleau. The Spanish army, then led by Thomas Francis of Carignano, the commander of the Army of Flanders, successfully crossed the Somme and invested the vital fortress of Corbie, which surrendered a week later. The Cardinal Richelieu had no other choice but to suspend the offensive against the Franche-Comté, ordering the army under Henri de Bourbon, Prince de Condé and Charles de La Porte de La Meilleraye to withdraw to defend Paris. Another Ferdinand's general, Ottavio Piccolomini, tried to persuade the Cardinal-Infante of advance further into France, but Ferdinand considered that such operation could risk his army and soon retreated to Cambrai, before the Imperialist invasion had begun. The French armies regained most of the lost ground over the following months, including Corbie, an operation that absorbed the entire French army and was led directly by Richelieu.
  Olivares, though distressed for the loss of Corbie, planned a renewed offensive against France for the following year, so Ferdinand began to mass his forces on the French border. In July Frederick Henry of Orange, seizing the moment, invested Breda in command of 22,000 soldiers. Garrisoned by 3,000 Spaniards, Italians, Wallons and Burgundians, Breda was one of the main fortresses of the Spanish Netherlands and a symbol of the Spanish power in Europe. A Spanish force under the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand attempted to relieve the garrison of the city, but failed to dislodge the besiegers. Ferdinand decided move with his army to the valley of the Meuse, where he took Venlo and Roermond in order to distract Frederick Henry. He was, nevertheless, forced to turn back shortly after due to the French advances in Artois, Hainaut an
caption: Portrait of Gaspar de Guzmán, Count-Duke of Olivares, by Diego Velázquez.
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