Today is May 19, and on this date in history, in 1643, we witness the Battle of Rocroi, on the border of France and Belgium. Historians up until recently were unified in calling this a decisive French victory that hastened the end of Spanish miliatary dominance and a brought on the more modern linear tactics that would dominate the battlefield for the next several decades if not centuries.
The battle itself was part of the conclusion of the Thirty Years War that started as a religious conflict and ended as an imperialist struggle.
Recent analyses of the battle call it a tactical victory for the French that was exploited by propaganda to support a weak French regime and the further the fame of the future Duke of Conde, the French commander.
In any event it was the first battlefield loss of the Spanish Army in over a century, and the long struggle that Spain had fighting, what in essence was a world war, wore it down so that it lost the predominace it had gained with the discoveries of Columbus.
The stand of the veteran Spanish Tercios at Rocroi is legendary, and the last two units were given the honors of war and allowed to leave the field by the victorious French army.
