Palatinate campaign

Palatinate campaign
Part of the Thirty Years' War
Coat of arms of Frederick V, Elector Palatine as King of Bohemia.
Date 1620–1622 Location Electorate of the Palatinate, Holy Roman Empire (present-day Germany) Result Decisive Imperial-Spanish victory Imperial conquest of the Upper Palatinate Spanish conquest of the Electorate of the Palatinate
Belligerents
Electorate of the Palatinate Brunswick-Lüneburg German Protestant Union  England  United Provinces	Holy Roman Empire Spain Catholic League
Commanders and leaders
Frederick V Joachim Ernst Christian of Brunswick Ernst von Mansfeld Horace Vere Gerard Herbert † John Burroughs Maurice of Nassau Henry of Nassau	Ambrosio Spinola Marquis of Leganés Count of Tilly Carlos Coloma Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba Maximilian I of Bavaria
Strength
25.000–30.000 men (Mostly German and English troops)	25.000–30.000 men 11.000 Under general Córdoba in the Lower Palatinate in 1621

Decisive Imperial-Spanish victory

The Palatinate Campaign, or the Spanish conquest of the Palatinate, were a series of sieges, battles and conquests of the Palatinate Phase of the Thirty Years' War, that were carried out by Spain's Tercios of the Army of Flanders, under Don Ambrosio Spinola, and the Imperial-Spanish troops under Johan Tzerclaes, Count of Tilly and Don Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba. The Spanish troops took advantage of Frederick's predicament by invading the German Protestant Palatinate in 1620 and conquering it by the end of 1622.

The Thirty Years' War began in 1618 with the Bohemian Revolt, when the authorities of this kingdom offered their throne to the Protestant Frederick V of the Palatinate, who accepted, initiating a conflict between the Protestant Union led by Frederick and the House of Habsburg. Two years after the outbreak of the war the situation had apparently stalled, but in reality the Habsburgs through diplomatic maneuvers, were able to politically isolate Frederick, between whose hits highlighted Spain's entry into the conflict.

In August, 1620, Spinola and 25,000 soldiers from the Army of Flanders began their march from Brussels, and in early September they entered the Lower Palatinate, taking Kreuznach, Oppenheim, and the Bergstrasse district, and on 1 October Bacharach. Tilly and the army of the "League", along with the other Spanish army under Córdoba soon followed, after joining at Wimpfen. It was not until late 1622, that both Heidelberg and Mannheim, the two leading cities in the Lower Palatinate, fell to the Imperial-Spanish army.

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