Hi. First of all, I don't know where to open this thread, this probably isn't the section, but I had to open it somewhere, so I opened it here.

The Armada was probably beaten more by the weather than the Queen's navy, but the power was shifted at that point. The Spanish were incredibly wealthy from gold discovered in the Americas, and  British piracy did a good job in stealing every bit of it, while the royal family owed a lot of money in interest to Jєω lenders that they could never catch up on, like today.

But the anglos kept up their attack on Spain here in the New World for centuries with the anglo-americans finishing off the empire in the Spanish-american war.

Britain was built on theft. like most empires.

Also, if you are a student of history, the Dutch had an enormous navy as well that the Brits eliminated almost overnight, perhaps that can be part of your discussion on the other thread.

You do make a good point with Napoleon, a true disaster for Catholic Europe.

This would make for good discussion.

The Spanish Armada was defeated and the invasion of England failed, it's true.

However, the English Armada, which the following year counterattacked trying to invade the Peninsula, was also defeated and that invasion was another resounding failure.

This episode is not so well known, you can read about it here and here

In the first link you have sources on the subject, in the second you have docuмents about the expedition.

The summary is that the English lost almost the same fleet and the same men.

If the defeat of the Armada had been the end of Spain as a great power, the English would have succeeded in their invasion, but they failed, and the Anglo-Spanish war ended with the Status quo ante bellum in the Treaty of London in 1604. So that war ended in a draw.

English piracy looting the Indies fleet, that twice a year (January and June) traveled from Havana to Seville (Cadiz in the 18th century) bringing the "royal fifth" the tax of 20% of the gold and silver that was extracted in America and that was collected by the Crown, -at least from what was declared, because there was also a lot of smuggling- yes they were a problem.

The English and French crown gave them a "letter of marque", which basically made piracy legal. Spain responded by organizing huge fleets guarded by navy ships and fortifying the Caribbean ports, so that the Caribbean became a  great battlefield for English, French and the Netherlands corsairs and pirates against the Spanish.

681 ships has been registered that were sunk, both due to attacks by pirates and corsairs and due to storms, hurricanes and accidents on the high seas. In a period of more than 3 centuries.

Pirates and corsairs weren't defeating the spanish navy but looking for unprotected ships to raid.

Keep in mind that the costs of the pirates were low, they only needed a crew, a ship, a sufficiently broad knowledge of navigation, a great knowledge of the Caribbean Sea and its islands, and determination to risk their lives.

I don't know how much gold and silver they stole, certainly not most of it because the Habsburgs used that gold to pay for the religious wars of the 17th century and the 80 years war. In addition, Spain monopolized European trade with China, the China of the Ming dynasty, which only accepted silver as a means of payment.

In any case, the attacks of the English, French and Low Country pirates were limited to assaulting a neglected ship, looting a coastal town, for example the English corsairs, if they caught a Spanish port unawares, looted it and burned it. But they could not go further and seize territories from Spain.


Militarily, the Tercios remained the best army for a century defeating the French, English, Dutch the Turk and Swedes until the defeat at Rocroi.


Rocroi, 1643, is the first significant success against Spain, despite the defeat, the French could not take advantage of it and the front ended in a stalemate, but the Spanish coffers could not continue to support the war on so many fronts, with the peace of Westphalia in 1648 and the independence from Holland, Spain ceases to be the hegemonic power.

However, Spain retains his peninsular territory and most of his Empire and continues to expand throughout America and dominate trade in America and Asia.

The English, taking advantage of the War of the Spanish Succession, manage to take control of Giblatar and the Balearic Islands. But the Spanish-French alliance -created by family pacts when the Bourbon won the war of succession- support the independence of the 13 colonies and manage to recover the Balearic Islands and England loose the colonies.

At the death of Charles III of Spain in 1788, the Spanish Empire had reached his maximum extension:



So... What caused his fall and Anglo world domination? The same thing that caused the fall of the HRE Habsburg and of France itself: The French Revolution and Napoleon, along with some bad policies of the Bourbons, but those bad policies exploded thanks to Napoleon. But I'll talk about that in another thread.

the collective West, which is a mere extension of those former British and French and Hapsburg Empires from days of old.

The Habsburgs were the last Catholic great power and ceased to exist after the WWI. For WWII there aren't longer great Catholic great powers, none of the Allied or Axis countries were Catholic, and now Europe doesn't even exist directly, in the EU "Germany" rules, which is nothing more than a US protectorate. 

I don't think that the "collective West" is an extension of those powers, it's an extension of the USA, that is the reality, the mentality here is the same as there and we even celebrate the holidays there without any tradition here like Halloween, the Black Friday or Santa Claus -Even though there is a traditional tradition in several European countries, including Spain, exactly the same only with the wise men- We haven't yet adopted Thanksgiving but it's a matter of time 

Hitler would have won the war against the USSR, if only it had been against the USSR,  the problem is that the USSR, received enormous help thanks to the Lend-Lease program. In addition to having other open fronts.

But In 1941 the nαzιs reached at the gates of Moscow and besieged Leningrad. Without the Lend-Lease, both cities, which produced 2/3 of the Soviet war material in 1942, would have fallen. And if in 1942 the Soviet war production is reduced by 66%, the result of the offensive on Stalingrad and the Caucasus would have been obvious.

- In 1943 the nαzιs still had the initiative on the Eastern Front, and at that time the Lend-Lease was supplying and feeding half the Red Army. That without the Lend Lease the Russians would have had 15% fewer tanks and planes is the least of it. The point is that without the Lend Lease the Russians would have been able to keep half the infantry divisions they were keeping.

The combined effects of both factors are evident. By the end of 1943, at the latest, nαzι Germany would have pushed the remnants of the Red Army beyond the Urals, thereby prompting a Japanese attack on the Russian Far East that would have finished the job.

Anyway, Hitler's Germany wasn't a Catholic country, Germany emerged as a Protestant country in the 19th century, it's true that many of the population was catholic, but remember that it's the Protestant Prussia who unified Germany, this is no longer the HRE. And the Third Reich was that mixed with paganism and racial evolutionary theories contrary to faith. Hitler literally analyzes everything based on race. Of course he thought that the war against the USSR was easy because the Slavs were racially inferior and the Bolshevik revolution had wiped out the Russian elite who were racially German.

Today there is nothing, Christianity is dead and buried, some country like Poland survives but it will not last long, without the intervention of Christ Christianity will not resurface.

I don't care who wins the conflict Russia Vs. "Ukraine" (actually USA) because we Europeans and Catholics have already lost and this is Uncle Sam and the Russian bear fighting for dominating the world, like in the Cold War. The Ukrainian nationalists believe that if they win they will be sovereign, but they will be in debt and will be a US puppet; and if they lose the same but from Russia, they are screwed no matter what, and so are we.