Siege of Breda (1637)

Siege of Breda (1637)
Part of the Eighty Years' War
Surrender of Breda by Johannes Hinderikus Egenberger.
Date July 21, 1637 – October 11, 1637 Location Breda (present-day the Netherlands) Result Dutch victory
Belligerents
Dutch Republic	Spain
Commanders and leaders
Frederick Henry	Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand Gomar de Fourdin
Strength
18,000	2,000
Casualties and losses
850 dead 1,300 wounded	?

The Fifth Siege of Breda (21 July – 11 October 1637) was an important siege in the Eighty Years' War in which stadtholder Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange retook the city of Breda, which had last changed hands in 1625 when the Spanish general Ambrogio Spinola conquered it for Spain. Hereafter, the city would remain in the hands of the Dutch Republic until the end of the war.

In 1635 France and the Dutch Republic formed an alliance against Spain with the objective of conquering and partitioning the Spanish Netherlands. They invaded on two fronts in June 1635, but soon the Spanish forces regained the initiative against the combined Franco-Dutch army, which was ignominiously driven to the Dutch border. There Spain managed to capture the strategic fortress of Schenkenschans by surprise. This forced the Dutch to enter upon a long and costly siege of that fortress that occupied the Dutch army for nine months.

After the recapture of Schenkenschans in April 1636, the Spanish commander, the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand of Spain, shifted his focus to France. This required that the Army of Flanders move away from the Dutch border; therefore the military threat Spain posed to the Dutch Republic lessened. In the summer of 1636 the Cardinal-Infante reached as far as Corbie, but this city was retaken by the French in November, and at the end of the year Spain had lost most of its gains. For the campaign of 1637 Olivares planned a renewed offensive against France. In Brussels the Cardinal-Infante actually would have preferred an offensive against the Dutch, but reluctantly agreed to take part in the three-pronged invasion of France that summer (the other invasions would come from Catalonia and Lombardy). He therefore started to mass his forces on the French border when word came that the Dutch had suddenly invested the city of Breda with a besieging army of 18,000.

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