Over the last 20 blogs I mentioned the name of Charles V. numerous times, often in a very specific context. Time to devote a full blog to him. Charles V. was the Head of the House of Habsburg and Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire of German Nations (HREGN). He was also Don Carlos I., King of Spain. Nothing could better illustrate the conflicted nature of his reign. His Holy Empire looked back to the past claiming to be the successor to Rome. His Spanish Kingdom looked to the future - building a global Empire “where the sun never set”
Young Charles V. at the age of 19 years
Born in 1500 in Flanders, Charles V. held an impressive range of titles: Archduke of Austria, King of Spain (including Naples, Sicily and Sardinia), Lord of the Netherlands, Duke of Milan and Duke of Burgundy. It also meant that he owned a wide range of conflicting strategic priorities, which we are going to look at in this blog.
The House of Habsburg in 1556 when Charles V. retired
When we sail this summer, we never leave his realm. Genoa (Liguria) was his key ally in the Mediterranean, Corsica a Genovese colony, Sardinia and Sicily his crown provinces and Tunis one of his fortified strongholds on the coast of North Africa. Whilst we follow Genovese trade routes, we could also label our trip as “sailing in the footsteps of Charles V.”
Ghent in the Netherlands was his home. He loved Flemish culture, dreamt of re-uniting Flanders with the part of Burgundy lost to France and enjoyed the sophisticated lifestyle of his region. Aside from Italy, the Netherlands were the most developed part of Europe with magnificent towns like Bruges, Ghent, Brussels or Antwerp. Charles was raised as a devout Catholic ready to defend the faith against infidels and on the ideals of a chivalrous medieval knight – later in his life he loved to be portrayed in shiny armour on a horse. He was a polyglot and said - according to Wikipedia - “I speak Latin to God, Italian to women, French to men and German to my horse.” Having no permanent capital, Charles V. was constantly on the move. In 1517 he assumed the Spanish thrown. In 1519 he became German Emperor.
As ruler of the various parts of the House of Habsburg and as German Emperor, he inherited a series of deep strategic challenges. He had to
A) Protect the sea lanes of his Mediterranean possessions with their valuable commercial assets from Muslim pirates
B) Appease the French Kings who felt encircled and threatened by Charles V. dreams of re-uniting Burgundy
C) Defend Austria, the crown domain of the House of Habsburg, against the Ottoman Advance from the Balkans
D) Keep the German Empire together which split - after the publication of Martin Luther’s 95 theses in 1517 - into a protestant north and a catholic south
E) Develop his New World possession into a global Empire.
Aragon’s expansion into the Mediterranean from the 13th to the 15th century
Meeting these challenges was a demanding task. During his reign, Charles V. was permanently at war with the French kings. His most tenacious adversary, King Francis I., aligned himself with the Ottoman Sultan and coordinated his military campaigns with Istanbul. The cost of these wars was horrendous. With the Ottomans being skilled in the use of artillery, Charles had to embark on a costly modernisation of all his frontier fortresses. He also needed to upgrade his armies and introduce guns into forces that were dominated by Landsknecht and Swiss Mercenaries. As a Swiss I will never forget how the Swiss infantry was massacred by French artillery at the Battle of Marignano in 1515. Of course and as always, modernisations are expensive.
Charles V.'s upbringing made him a fierce opponent of the protestant reformation. He saw himself in the role of Constantine the Great who unified the Roman Empire in 300 AD after years of civil war. The Holy Roman Empire of German Nations was at the core of his project. Like Constantine the Great, he felt that he was destined by God to rule the lands and people. Logically, he thought that he had the last saying on religious matters (the Popes definitely disagreed with this view). Charles V. would not tolerate any religious dissent, which - in his view - would only weaken the Holy Roman Empire. The Protestants had to be defeated by all means necessary in order to preserve the unity of the German Empire.
Charles V. in 1548 dressed in traditional Flemish garb
Charles last big problem was the relentless advance of the Ottoman Empire on the Balkan. It was powerful and large and could easily overwhelm – one by one – the existing old, but smaller kingdoms. Bulgaria fell first, then came Serbia, followed by Hungary and eventually by Croatia. The defense of Western Europe required a power that could rival the Ottoman’s might. Spain was the only possible candidate and had to take up the job. The wars with the Ottoman Empire on the Balkan and in Hungary were expensive and endless. The strategic initiative lay with the Ottomans, who could choose point and time of attack at will and always raise a new army when another one got defeated. In this respect, the Ottoman Empire was very similar to the Romans – the advantage of being large!
Expansion of the Ottoman Empire to its peak size in 1683
Fighting Ottomans, Protestants and French Kings simultaneously proved to be too much. The House of Habsburg was strategically overstretched and knew it. There are written exchanges between the President of Spain’s Royal Council, Cardinal Tavera, and Charles V. where the President asked his king politely to focus on the fight against Turkey and seek a political arrangement with the Protestants. But to no avail. Charles would stay the course. If he defeated the Protestant first he could then turn the combined power of his Empire against the Ottomans and defeat them – so he thought.
There were, however, never enough resources. Charles V. had to keep too many balls in the air and rushed from crisis to crisis. In this, he was more successful than he is given credit for. The Siege of Vienna in 1532 was a close run but the Turks were beaten. The wars with France ended mostly victorious. The advance of Protestantism in his Empire could be limited. The front line in the Mediterranean more or less kept. But all this was only possible due to the massive inflow of silver from Latin America, which started around 1530. The yearly arrival of the Treasure Fleet from the Caribbean was a big event. If a Treasure Fleet was captured - both the Royal Navy and the Dutch achieved it once - it was a financial catastrophe. But whilst paying for the wars, the massive inflow of silver masked deep structural changes, which were happening in the Habsburg's domains.
Global flow of silver in the 16th century
The vibrant commerce and trade in the Aragon Mediterranean withered away due to the constant harassment by Muslim Corsairs (Barbarossa and Turgut). Sicily's, Sardinia's and Naples' emerging industries went out of business. Spain became an importing country. The monetary expansion from silver caused inflation and eroded productivity. The Netherlands, Habsburg’s richest and most industrialized part, descended into a vicious civil war over religious freedom and eventually separated. As a consequence, global trade and finance moved away from Seville and Lisbon to Amsterdam and London. Last but not least, the colonies in the New World were exploited for the fiscal needs of the mother country, governed by stifling bureaucracy and left with neither investments nor freedom to trade. Tow centuries later, the United States showed what a different government model could achieve.
The world would look different today had Charles V. heeded the advise of the President of his Royal Council, Cardinal Tavera. The gap between Protestants and Catholics was never unbridgeable. The same was true for France whose alliance with the Sultan was fragile. Focusing on the Ottoman threat in the Mediterranean and the Balkan could have checked its fast advance. Trade and commerce in Spain and the Mediterranean may have survived and the colonies could have developed their own economies. But it would have been a pluralist world with multiple power centres. Charles V. understood his role as absolute ruler.
Alternatively, he could have made peace with the Ottoman Empire and agreed on spheres of influence as we have seen it in the Cold War. It would have allowed him to stamp out the Protestant rebellion. But at what cost? Without the Dutch and the English there would be no free trade and no rule of law. Could we have missed the industrial revolution? Like China dit? It is possible.
Speculating about possible outcomes is a bit like conspiracy theories. We never know and can discuss endlessly. It has to be said though: Charles V. applied doctrines of the past to problems of the future. It did not help him nor the Spanish Empire. It accelerated the demise of the House of Habsburg though.
Cardinal Juan Pardo de Tavera, (1472 – 1545) President of the Royal Council in Spain