WARS and BATTLES
From Ancient Greece - to modern day.

After the consolidation of the great kingdoms, they for some time kept each other in mutual check. During the first half of the sixteenth century, the balancing system was successfully practiced by European statesmen.

But when Philip II, reigned, France had become so miserably weak through her civil wars, that he had nothing to dread from the rival state which had, so long curbed his father, the Emperor Charles V.

In Germany, Italy, and Poland he had either zealous friends and dependents, or weak and divided enemies. Against the Turks he had gained great and glorious successes; and he might look round the continent of Europe without discerning a single antagonist of whom he could stand in awe. Spain, when he acceded to the throne, was at the zenith of her power.

The hardihood and spirit, which the Aragonese, the Castilians, and the other nations of the peninsula had acquired during centuries of free institutions and successful war against the Moors, had not yet become obliterated. Charles V. had, indeed, destroyed the liberties of Spain; but that had been done too recently for its full evil to be felt in Philip's time.

A people cannot be debased in a single generation and the Spaniard under. Charles V. and Philip II proved the truth of the remark that no nation is ever so formidable to its neighbors for a time, as a nation, which, after being trained up in self-government, passes suddenly under a despotic ruler. The energy of democratic institutions survives for a few generations, and to it are added the decision and certainty, which are the attributes of government when all its powers are directed by a single mind.

It is true that this preternatural vigor is short-lived: national corruption and debasement gradually follow the loss of the national liberties; but there is an interval before their workings are felt, and in that interval the most ambitious schemes of foreign conquest are often successfully undertaken.

Philip bad also the advantage of finding himself at the head of a large standing- army in a perfect state of discipline and equipment, in an age when, except some few insignificant corps, standing armies were unknown in Christendom.

The renown of the Spanish troops was justly high, and the infantry in particular was considered the best in the world. His fleet, also, was far more numerous, and better appointed than that of any other European power; and both his soldiers and his sailors had the confidence in themselves and their commanders which a long career of successful warfare alone can create.

Besides the Spanish crown, Philip succeeded to the kingdom of Naples and Sicily, the duchy of Milan, Franche-Compte, and the Netherlands. In Africa he possessed Tunis, Oran, the Cape Verde, and the Canary Islands; and in Asia, the Philippine and Sunda Islands, and a part of the Moluccas.

Beyond the Atlantic he was lord of the most splendid portions of the New World, which Columbus found "for Castile and Leon," The empires of Peru and Mexico, New Spain, and Chili, with their abundant mines of the precious metals, Hispaniola and Cuba, and many other of the American islands, were provinces of the sovereign of Spain.

Philip had, not indeed experienced the mortification of seeing the Inhabitants of the Netherlands revolt against his authority, nor could he succeed in bringing back beneath the Spanish scepter all the possessions, which his father had bequeathed, to him. But he had reconquered a large number of the towns and districts that originally took up arms against him.

Belgium was brought more thoroughly into implicit obedience to Spain than she had been before her insurrection, and it was only Holland and the six other northern states that still held out against his arms. The contest had also formed a compact and veteran army on Philip's side, which, under his great general, the Prince of Parma, had been trained to act together under all difficulties and all vicissitudes of warfare, and on whose steadiness and loyalty perfect reliance might be placed throughout any enterprise, however difficult and tedious.