A Question to Historians: what unit do you think of when you think of Spain?

[TheDuckOfFlanders]

-Duke of Alba

Scrap him of this great leader list pleace.
If it wasn't for him the low country's would probably be united now.

 

[Sodak]

Originally posted by TheDuckOfFlanders
Scrap him of this great leader list pleace.
If it wasn't for him the low country's would probably be united now.

But they were united - except for Luxembourg, I suppose. Alba didn't do anything in 1820, did he?

Vrylakas, a UU does not need to be a land unit. The English UU is a ship, the US' a plane.

 

[Richard III]

Ah, make it a Galleon! Be different! Or spruce up a Caravel.

 

[Vrylakas]

Richard III wrote:

Ah, make it a Galleon! Be different! Or spruce up a Caravel.

Or perhaps this "unit" could be a collection of galleons, an Armada, that could be a particularly potent naval unit although for a very restricted duration.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Scrap him of this great leader list pleace.
If it wasn't for him the low country's would probably be united now.

It seems that the duke of Alba is still alive in Dutches´s and Belgians´s nightmares. They should see the current duchess of Alba, would laugh very much.

 

[Lefty Scaevola]

The Tercio, a combined pike and musket infantry regemint, would seem to be the archtype spanish unit.

 

[TheDuckOfFlanders]

But they were united - except for Luxembourg, I suppose. Alba didn't do anything in 1820, did he?

Th diference is that there was much more cultural unity in the 16 century in the low country's than there were difference's between the french speaking wallon's and dutch speaking hollander's in 1830.If the duke of alba would have never arrived in the low country's he would have never seperated the flemish part of the low country from the new Dutch nation.With securing the flemmish part at the end for the habsburg's Flander's eventually became again a heavily contested area for a lot of great nation's ,and Flanders came under seperate rule of different foreign occupier's.If flander's would have become imediatly a part of the dutch empire at it's origin (in the time of the Duke of Alba) then Flanders and Holland when the cultural difference's were small the Holland and Flander's would have had evolved as one nation.

Maybe if the Dutch had invested some more attention in it's newly annexed southern part of the country in 1815-1830 the area "belgium" wich was a composition of Flemmish and Frensh speaking area's at that part ,where the French part of the society had the mostcapital hence power and a lot of hate against the dutch.The existence of Belgium is mostly due to the rich french speaking poppulation of belgium in that time.
At the 16th century ,most of the low country's still spoke flemmish and dutch.Know that in the 16th century big part's of northern ffrance where flemmisch territory and people there spoke Flemmish ,wherby most people there spek French now ,as it is france now.And different part's of wallonia wheren't considerd ppart of the low country's in that time.

Just take the demarcation line at he end of the War of alba against the Dutch.The border between Flanders and Holland was born at that moment.The area occupied by Alba then is basicly the area of the low country's Holland didn't had under it's control at tat moment.

This is a major factor to why our society has become so fragmentated and diverse.Maybe it had just been bether if Flander's would have just been a part of holland and Wallonia a part of france all along.Flemmish nationalism is a mayor isue nowaday's.

 

[Kryten]

Fernando Alvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alba, was indeed a very nasty man. But then again, so was Ivan the Terrible, Stalin, Ghengis Khan, and so on. Although evil, these people are known as 'Great' not because of their humanity, but because of their effect on history. I don't think that there is a single nation in the world that dosen't have at least one evil but powerful statesman in it's past. Oliver Cromwell for example. While the English reluctantly acknowledge his effect on British history, his name was practically a swear word in Ireland, where he ordered the massacre of many thousands of Irish. The fact is that the Duke of Alba was important to the Spanish cause. To deny his role is to sanitize history.

(one last thing....Galleons and Armada's didn't make the Spanish Empire in europe. Tercios did. But they would look nice!)

 

[yaroslav]

Originally posted by TheDuckOfFlanders


Scrap him of this great leader list pleace.
If it wasn't for him the low country's would probably be united now.

Well, I put "bloody" near his name I know that he was not a good man, but he was a great general


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And, for the galleons, the special unit of Englad in Civ3 is a ship... But I think that Tercios are more acurrate.

 

[Sodak]

Originally posted by TheDuckOfFlanders
Th diference is that there was much more cultural unity in the 16 century in the low country's than there were difference's between the french speaking wallon's and dutch speaking hollander's in 1830.If the duke of alba would have never ...

What about the vague boundary between the protestants and catholics? Today it roughly follows linguistic lines. Is this a product of what you describe, or do you think this would have developed as it did, with our without the influence of Alba? IIRC, the religious split was already underway by the time Willem van Oranje and friends came onto the scene.

While the spaniards were imposing foreign rule, it is understandable that the low countries would be in unity against them. Had they won their complete independence (say, Brussels northward), would they have remained unified? Or would religious/cultural differences have led to a split? I'm not clear in my understanding of whether religious and cultural differences of today were made greater by the political split, or if they would have developed so anyway...