Spain (disambiguation)

Spain and Spanish may refer to any of the following:
==Rise of the Moderns==
*Empire of Spain, a faction in Rise of the Moderns;
*Spain , a faction in Rise of Napoleon: Ultima Ratio; or
==The Age of Conquest==
*Spanish, a faction in The Age of Conquest; or
=History=
Through perseverence, luck and a good strategic position, Spain would become the world's first superpower, being active throughout almost every known continent on the world, but a combination of economic pressures and and military defeats would signal the downfall of Spanish influence, and eventually the loss of her overseas empire by the beginning of the 20th century, while sociopolitical unrest would eventually result in a spate of armed conflict, culminating in civil war in the 1930s. Although Spain's imperial influence has dwindled away, the legacy of its colonial past, both for good and for evil, continues to shape the world we live in.
==Mediaeval Spain: The Reconquista and the Habsburgs==
For centuries since the fall of the Romans, the Iberian peninsula came under the dominion of the Goths, who were then driven all the way to the north coast by Muslim invaders from Africa, but survived and managed to thrive. The descendents of the Goths eventually overthrew their Muslim occupiers, and subsequently coalesced into several political entities, of which Castile and Portugal would become prominent.
One thing a person needs to keep in mind is that Spain was more like a federation than a unified state, like France. Each of the large Spanish provinces, acted as though it was an independent state. The states of Aragon, Castile, Granada, all of them had there own history, peoples, culture, and language even. Spain had experienced an invasion by the Moors and it was not until 1492 that they were driven out of Spain, ending in the final conquest of Granada. It was as late as 1479 that Spain was finally united, under one crown: Ferdinand II. It was Ferdinand II and Isabella who held court and sent Columbus out West with some Spanish ships and finances to cover his expedition. With the discovery of the New World, Spain immediately began claiming the lands therein. A dozen expeditions were launched, each made up of explorers, missionaries, and troops sent over to explore and conquer these vast lands in the name of God and Spain. Such men as Hernando Cortes, Ponce de Leon, Narvaez, de Vaca, and Pizarro led expeditions covering the domains from the southwestern United States to central South American mountains. In this New World they found minerals in abundance. Ships by the dozens carried loads of gold and silver from the Americas to Spanish ports.
Meanwhile, Spanish influence in Europe was also growing. In 1516, Charles I became the King of Spain. Charles I was from the Habsburg royal family line. His father, Emperor Maximilian I, had arranged his marriage into Spanish royalty. He began what was known as the Spanish Habsburg line and Charles I wa soon made Holy Roman Emperor after Maximilian died, making him Charles V. For a while, Habsburg influence was dominant in both Western and Central Europe, but wars with the Turks ensued and conflict developed between the German Lutherans and Catholics. By 1556, he had had enough, and abdicated his Spanish throne to his son Philip II, the Holy Roman Empire and the Austrian domains were passed onto Ferdinand I, his brother. Charles V moved into a monastery were he lived until his death in 1558.
For all the gold and silver and minerals brought in from her colonies and empire, Spain itself remained largely poor. The government, run by the landowner's and those who had run the trading with the colonies, were fabulously rich. The Spanish court was one of the wealthiest in Europe. However, such extravagant spending of wealth on palaces, the court, and diplomatic bribery was wasteful and unproductive. The majority of the population was poor and never saw the benefits of the vast quantities of gold and silver shipped in from the Americas. The unity of the Spanish was not by blood, or by wealth, or social status, it was by religion. Almost every citizen was a Catholic. The Jews and Muslims were driven and exiled from Spanish soil, or converted. The staunch Catholicism of the Spanish was the single factor unifying their nation. The Catholic religion remained in power for many years to come.
Furthermore, the near to spectacular mineral wealth of Spain soon meant that European leaders became jealous - and sometimes resentful - of Spanish influence. France, the newly established United Provinces of the Netherlands and the English crown soon founded colonies of their own in the New World, and even sent privateers to intercept and loot the Spanish treasure galleons moving across the Atlantic to Spain. After Charles V, the Spanish empire eventually began to unravel. Although it wasn't going to be evident until the 19th century, the downfall started with the fall of the Habsburgs. Charles' successor Philip II was far less brilliant. He launched several campaigns of his own, but almost all of them proved to be dismal failures. Of all these, the most infamous of all his failures was the loss of the Spanish Armada to invade England in 1588, in which not a single ship sent to invade England ever reached London. Philip also encouraged the Inquisition to Christianise the entire Spanish population and condemn any who would profess a faith contrary to that of the Roman Catholic Church. Perhaps his worst move was his lack of understanding for the Dutch, whose lands were under Spanish authority (the Netherlands). In 1581, they revolted and declared their independence. Philip's army was unable to prevent the rebellion or stop their independence but managed to retain the southern provinces, which later became the Spanish Netherlands. This territory was under Spanish rule until 1713, when it was ceded to the Austrian Habsburgs.
In 1665, the crown of Spain passed to the mentally challenged Charles II, who would die in 1700. Charles II left no heir, making him the last Habsburg monarch in the Iberian Peninsula, and sparked off a succession crisis that eventually led to full-blown war in Europe, with an alliance headed by Habsburg Austria supporting an Austrian pretender to the Spanish throne, and another with France supporting a Bourbon one.
==The Bourbon Dynasty==
Although Charles II chose Philippe, Duke d'Anjou to be his successor Philippe was too closely related to Louis XIV to the French monarchy, and his ascension as to the Spanish throne incensed the Austrians, who wanted to install the archduke Charles as the new king, as well as the English and the Dutch. This conflict quickly erupted into the War for Spanish Succession (1701-1714). The war itself was fought almost entirely between the French against the English and Germans. France was unlucky for the most part; Marlborough cleaned them up in his campaigns. However, by 1710, the Allies began to split in interests. Charles's limited conquest of Catalonia failed to establish any respectable power in Spain. Upon his father's passing, he was elected Holy Roman Emperor and Emperor of Austria. The British, seeing that it would be foolish to fight on and make him King of Spain as well, concluded peace with Spain and France. Charles had to give up his claims to the Spanish throne and the Bourbon family replaced the Spanish Habsburgs. The Bourbons would remain in power until 1808, when briefly ousted by Napoleon until 1814 (the Peninsular War).
The Seven Years' War proved to be another territorial shuffling match. The Treaty of Paris (1763) forced the concession of almost all the French territories in America. Spain lost the southern United States lands, but gained Louisiana. Spain carried out little policy with its new acquisition, it tended to concentrate on Florida and its Central and South American dependencies.
==The 19th century: Napoleon and the Civil Wars==
By the close of the eighteenth century, Spain's power in European affairs had declined drastically. Internationally, Spain still had some exertions over her American domains. But even these would be taken away within a few decades. Spain had initially declared war on the French Republic (1793), but she was too weak to wage a war and France came out with several gains in territory by 1795 when peace was made. This uneasy peace would last until 1807. The events that would follow Napoleon's conquest of Spain and the revolution that again freed it, were yet another sad chapter Spain's history. The Peninsular War (1808-1814) directly contributed to the rapid decline ending with the destruction of Spain's colonial empire in the Americas. Initially siding with the Royalists, Spanish colonials would eventually reject their former European patron, and by 1825, Spanish influence in Latin America was nearly extinguished, although it would take 75 more years before the Americans would show them the door.
Internally, Spain too was suffering. When the Spanish elected Ferdinand as king after the Peninsular War, his rule however would be a disaster for Spain. Not only did he revoke the constitution, and reinstate the Inquisition. Spain's colonial possessions in the New World fought for and won their independence. The next century would see Spain struggle between republicanism and absolute monarchy, as the two factions staged a series of revolts and military coups to seize control of the country. The chaos was given a period of respite when the British-educated Alfonso XII ascended to the throne, after a very brief period of republican rule. He satisfied both the conservative monarchists, and the liberals for the King's personal outlook and his willingness to institute a constitutional Monarchy. However, the loss of Spain's rump colonies in the New World in 1898 and the increasing unpopularity led to his successor, Alfonso XIII, being forced into exile.
In the wake of Alfonso's abdication, a republic was established by popular election in 1931, this being the Second Spanish Republic. Although this new regime promised equality of rights and even autonomy to various regions, it however had an anticlerical bent to it, which soon resulted in hostility from the more conservative elements of Spanish society, then rooted in the rural areas of Spain. By 1936, the nation was up in arms against itself as various political factions, either aligned to the political left or the right, plunged Spanish cities into street battles. Military coups in Navarra and Spanish-held Morocco soon ensued. Once more, Spain was embroiled in a brutual civil war which would devastate land and society alike. and in which no quarter was given on either side.
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Category:Disambiguation