Spanish Road

The Spanish Road (Spanish: Camino Español, German: Spanische Straße) was a military road and trade route in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, linking the Duchy of Milan, the Franche-Comté and the Spanish Netherlands, all of which were at the time territories of the Spanish Empire under the Habsburgs.^[1] It was also known as the Road of the Spaniards (Camino de los Españoles), Road of the Spanish Tercios (Camino de los Tercios Españoles), or Sardinian Corridor (Corredor Sardo) in Spanish.

The Spanish Road was created under Philip II as a vital artery for the Spanish war effort during the Eighty Years' War against the Dutch Republic. For Spain, it would have been much quicker to ship troops and supplies directly from Spain to the Low Countries – a sailing ship of the time could usually cover about 200 kilometres (120 mi) a day, whereas the average pace of soldiers marching on the Spanish Road was only 23 km (14 mi) a day. However, Spanish vessels sailing up the English Channel could have to run a deadly gauntlet of attacks by the French, English and Dutch, all of whom were hostile to Spain for much of this period. It was therefore much safer for Spain to transport its armies across the relatively secure waters of the Western Mediterranean to Italy and then march them overland along the 1,000 km (620 mi) length of the Spanish Road from Milan to Luxembourg, all of which were then Spanish territories.

During the Eighty Years' War, between 1567 and 1633, some 123,000 men were transported to the Spanish Netherlands by this overland route, compared to only 17,600 transported by sea.^[2] The road was eventually cut off for Spanish military use, after the Kingdom of France joined in the Thirty Years' War on the Dutch side and occupied Spanish territories along the route.