Strengths and Weaknesses of the Habsburg Bloc Why unproven
Citations (1)
- The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers whole source · open book
As its historian notes, “there is no evidence that any one state fielded more than 30,000 effectives” in the Franco-Spanish struggle for Italy before 1529; but: In 1536–7 the Emperor Charles V mobilized 60,000 men in Lombardy alone for the defense of his recent conquest, Milan, and for the invasion of French Provence. In 1552, assailed on all fronts at once—in Italy, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain, in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean—Charles V raised 109,000 men in Germany and the Netherlands, 24,000 more in Lombardy and yet more in Sicily, Naples and Spain. The emperor must have had at his command, and therefore at his cost, about 150,000 men.
chapter: Strengths and Weaknesses of the Habsburg Bloc