Battle of Dahlen The Battle of Dahlen was fought on April 23 , 1568 , between a Dutch rebel army led by Joost de Soete , Lord of Villers , and a Spanish army commanded by Sancho Dávila y Daza . As a part of William of Orange ' s planned invasion , the Dutch rebels were trying to conquer the town of Roermond when the arrival of the Spanish force compelled them to withdraw . Dávila pursued the retreating force and inflicted a defeat upon Villers near the small town of Dahlen ( today known as Rheindahlen ) . The survivors of this encounter sought refuge under the walls of Dahlen , where the Spanish infantry finally defeated them . This battle is sometimes considered the official start of the Eighty Years ' War . Background . In 1568 , William I of Orange , stadtholder of Holland , Zeeland and Utrecht , and other noblemen dissatisfied with the Spanish rule in the Netherlands , the Geuzen , were determined to expel Fernando Álvarez de Toledo , 3rd Duke of Alba , and his Spanish troops from the country . William , based in Dillenburg , designed a triple attack upon the Netherlands by his rebel followers and foreign mercenary forces . An army of Huguenots and Netherlander refugees would attack Artois across the French border ; another , under William ' s brother Louis , would try to raise the province of Friesland in arms against the Spanish ; and a third one , under Antoine II de Lalaing , Count of Hoogstraten , would operate in the Meuse - Rhin area . The first force to be put in arms was that of Hoogstraten , though he had to be replaced by Joost de Soete , Lord of Villers , who crossed the frontier of the Jülich - Cleves County on April 20 accompanied by William II de La Marck , Lord of Lumey , and in charge of about 3 , 000 men , both cavalry and infantry , amongst them French Huguenots and German cavalry recently dismissed from Spanish service . Villers was expected to raise the country and to take an important city to serve as a base for a large offensive . The city selected was Roermond , a fortified town of considerable size situated at the confluence of the Meuse and Rur rivers . Prelude . As soon as he received news of the invasion , Alba organized an improvised army to secure Maastricht and prevent the junction of the Dutch rebels with his French fellows . He ordered the maestre de campo don Sancho de Londoño to move his tercio from the village of Lier up to Maastricht and its neighborhood . To blockade the route linking northern France with the valley of the Meuse , the Duke mobilized most of the cavalry under his illegitimate son , Fernando de Toledo , Grand Prior of Castile , who sent his men from Tournai up to the neutral Bishopric of Liège under the command of his lieutenant , don Lope de Acuña . Alba ordered the captain of his guard , don Sancho Dávila y Daza , to go after the rebel army with his own company of Spanish lances and those of Albanese lances under captain Nicolò Basta , and of horse arquebusiers under Pedro Montañés . 300 horse in all , which were later reinforced with the tercio of Londoño , Lope ' s cavalry , and four companies of German pikemen , numbering 300 men , from Colonel ' s Count of Eberstein regiment , from the Maastricht garrison . In all the small Spanish army numbered about 1 , 600 men . While being searched by the Spanish , Villers and his army passed through Eijsden and advanced upon Roermond . There , they tried to enter the town pretending to be soldiers of the King of Spain , but the town ' s inhabitants were not fooled . Then the rebels resorted to their weapons and attempted to seize the town ' s gates , only to be driven off . Fearing that they would be caught by the Spanish , Villers decided to withdraw , taking the road to the Guelders exclave of Erkelenz . There were some doubts on the Spanish side about what to do then . Londoño advised caution , but Dávila decided to pursue the rebels , seeking to gain a victory that would serve as a warning for them . Battle . Sancho Dávila went ahead with his cavalry and was informed by his scouts that the rebels were close to the village of Erkelenz . There Villers found his path cut off because a nearby bridge over the Rur river had been demolished . He decided to take the road to Dahlen , a small walled town in the Bishopric of Liège , while Dávila followed him and soon discovered the rebel army on the road between the two towns . Villers deployed his troops for the battle on a plain with some groves behind and a hollow way covering one of his flanks , and dispatched his baggage towards Dahlen as soon as he learned of Dávila ' s presence nearby . To distract the Spanish general , he sent some of his cavalry against him , but Dávila dispersed it and made his way through the hollow way . After a brief reconnaissance , Dávila , together with the Count of Eberstein and the cavalry companies under captains don Alonso de Vargas and Nicolò Basta , charged across the plain and frontally lunged over the rebel squadrons , which they broke . Villers then lost most of his cavalry and two flags . He and some 1 , 300 men retreated in some order with part of the baggage and managed to reach Dahlen , under whose walls they entrenched in order to withstand a second attack . Villers covered his men behind a ravelin of the wall , which had also a moat , and reinforced his weak flank with some baggage wagons . Sancho Dávila was unable to reach such positions with his cavalry due to the rough groves , so he called Sancho de Londoño to come rapidly with the infantry . By early afternoon , the 300 German pikemen were detached behind the ravelin to prevent any attempt to flee , while 600 Spaniards , organized in five flags and under the personal leadership of Londoño , were ready to make a frontal attack over the fort , which they did shortly thereafter . The fight lasted half an hour , after which the Spaniards took the ravelin . Just a few rebels succeeded in escaping and sought refuge in Dahlen , climbing through scales ; the others were butchered . Aftermath . Joost de Soete was amongst those who escaped inside Dahlen , but was afterwards handed to the Spanish . The Lord of Lumey , on the other hand , evaded capture . All the baggage , seven flags , a large number corslet s , pikes , harquebuses , other weapons and munitions were seized by the victors . Some 2 , 000 rebels , most of whom were French , were killed , as opposed to light Spanish casualties . Shortly thereafter , the Spanish army was split up . Dávila went to Brussels with the foremost captives to execute them , the Count of Eberstein returned to Maastricht with his German pikemen , and Sancho de Londoño lodged his men at Roermond , where he ordered several prisoners – natives of the place – to be hanged . A month later , Louis of Nassau scored an important victory over the Spanish at Heiligerlee . Shortly afterwards , however , the planned rebel invasion of Artois was defeated in the bailiwick of Hesdin . The local Spanish forces under the Count of Roleux drove the rebels across the French frontier . There , in Picardy , at Saint Valery , the French royal army destroyed what remained of the Netherlander force . On July 21 , Alba decisively defeated Nassau at Jemmingen , which put end to the Dutch rebel campaign in Friesland .