History

Spanish Armada, it is also called “Great and Most Fortunate Navy” and “Invincible Fleet”, was the Spanish fleet sailed against England under the command of the Duke of Medina Sidonia in 1588. The whole Spanish Armada is an armada that has 150 ships in it. At last, the whole armada had only 43 ships left, and they lost the war.

Why Philip II wants to have a war with the strongest county on ocean, England?

In 1587, Britain's Queen Elizabeth executed believe in the original Catholic Mary Queen of Scots, the Roman Pontiff issued the edict, calling for jihad against the United Kingdom. After the Roman Pontiff said to fight, Philip II had made up a strong junk called “Great and Most Fortunate Navy”, and head to England to fight the war. In each side of the war, there are four big forces are fighting each other. One side is the England and Dutch Republic, the other side is Spain and Iberian Union.

What happened before the war?

At first, Spain was the most powerful marine national of the whole world. At 1545~1560, Spain has almost all of the rich in the whole world, but at that me England is developing the outside world, and they want to have some colony, and this action has distract the Spain’s colony, and Philip II wants to let England to fall down by itself. So it let a Catholic Church force called Mary to be the queen of England, but she failed, and she got killed by Queen Elizabeth. After that, Philip II decided to use war to let England fall. At that time, the strongest power on ocean is still Spain. Spain has much more ships than England. Spain has almost 30000 people, and England doesn’t even have 9000 people. Compare the two forces; Spain is going to win the war. But strangely, England had used the nature and newest weapons win the war. From right now, the strongest force on ocean isn’t Spain, it is England.

Why did Spain lose?

 It is because the way they fight has a big difference. The England army uses weapons that can shot really far, but the Spain cannons can only shot really short. And also, the England ships shots from their side, and the Spain army shots from the head. So the England ship can shot a lot more cannons than the Spain ships.