Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on May 27, 2015 22:40:22 GMT 1
Talking of programmes on the tele recently, did anybody see the first part of the documentary about the Spanish Armada presented by Dan Snow on BBC2 Monday night.
If things had gone badly in those few days we'd all be talking Spanish now.
It's in three parts altogether and goes through hour by hour the events in July 1588.
We all know that we won in the end but it was more by luck than judgement.
For example the first encounter between the two countries was farcical to the point of the ridiculous.
The Armada 150 ships strong lay in tight formation awaiting the English fleet which decided to attack in a pincer movement.
The Spanish were surprised to see the English not come about and board to attack as was tradition but instead use a new 'revolutionary' naval tactic by which all the ships in turn went about to side on against the Spanish fleet and began a full on assault using cannon fire to bombard the 150 strong Spanish Armada.
2000 cannonballs were fired by the english to the Spanish 750 in a three hour battle.
Surely after all that the Armada would be a smoking mess of sunken and half burnt out vessels.
No, no, no
How many out of the 150 Spanish boats were sunk. ZERO
How could they bloody miss FFS.
Apparently when this information was told to the Queen went she went mental and told Sir Francis Drake or Sir Francis Spencer as he was re-named ' you will get no more ammunition, I can't afford it' .
This you will see is evident in the next episode when the English had to take to floating burning boats into the Armada to cause maximum damage, that unlike Admiral Stevie Wonders cannon squad actually worked.
The Spanish didn't help themselves with some stupid decision making.
Great entertainment especially for those that like history.
|
|
|
Post by thesensationaljt on May 27, 2015 23:05:53 GMT 1
Talking of programmes on the tele recently, did anybody see the first part of the documentary about the Spanish Armada presented by Dan Snow on BBC2 Monday night.
If things had gone badly in those few days we'd all be talking Spanish now.
It's in three parts altogether and goes through hour by hour the events in July 1588.
We all know that we won in the end but it was more by luck than judgement.
For example the first encounter between the two countries was farcical to the point of the ridiculous.
The Armada 150 ships strong lay in tight formation awaiting the English fleet which decided to attack in a pincer movement.
The Spanish were surprised to see the English not come about and board to attack as was tradition but instead use a new 'revolutionary' naval tactic by which all the ships in turn went about to side on against the Spanish fleet and began a full on assault using cannon fire to bombard the 150 strong Spanish Armada.
2000 cannonballs were fired by the english to the Spanish 750 in a three hour battle.
Surely after all that the Armada would be a smoking mess of sunken and half burnt out vessels.
No, no, no
How many out of the 150 Spanish boats were sunk. ZERO
How could they bloody miss FFS.
Apparently when this information was told to the Queen went she went mental and told Sir Francis Drake or Sir Francis Spencer as he was re-named ' you will get no more ammunition, I can't afford it' .
This you will see is evident in the next episode when the English had to take to floating burning boats into the Armada to cause maximum damage, that unlike Admiral Stevie Wonders cannon squad actually worked.
The Spanish didn't help themselves with some stupid decision making.
Great entertainment especially for those that like history.
I believe the Spanish Juan the battle in the end, when we allowed their trawlers to fish the waters off Grimsby.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on May 27, 2015 23:45:50 GMT 1
Sounds like a decent watch, but not sure about the 'we'd all be talking Spanish now'. Spain conquered Netherlands around that time and I didn't hear Benji van den Broek breaking out any Espanyol!
|
|
|
Post by sussexshrew on May 28, 2015 1:05:32 GMT 1
So if things hadn't gone badly for the Armada in the first few days, we'd all be speaking Spanish. And if it hadn't been for Churchill 350 years later we would all have been speaking German.
Or would we all have been speaking Spanish with a German accent.
"Ein paella mit bratwurst por favor...dumm fuhrt
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on May 28, 2015 7:04:54 GMT 1
What's interesting about this period is how the whole fiasco was turned into a myth resulting in a cult of personality.
However from the point of view of an Elizabethan the 'defeat' of a major world power when England was trying to assert itself in the world would have been a major event.
The question is did England as a nation start from this period?
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on May 28, 2015 13:17:26 GMT 1
You forgot to add that the British fought against the combined strength of a Spanish/French fleet under the command of a French Admiral.
It's always the friggin French, the barstewards.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on May 28, 2015 14:53:30 GMT 1
Sounds like a decent watch, but not sure about the 'we'd all be talking Spanish now'. Spain conquered Netherlands around that time and I didn't hear Benji van den Broek breaking out any Espanyol! Maybe not but the changes to the developing culture would have been massive - probably would have lost our fledgling colonies in America so no trade empire, radical catholism would have taken hold and we would have been a puppet of the Spanish Empire.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on May 28, 2015 16:49:25 GMT 1
Spain was already stretched holding on to and governing Central and South America. They may have won the battle, but would they have been able to win the war?
Even if the war had been lost resistance would have made governing impossible.
Spain was a great power, but it only had to defeat technologically backward peoples who succumbed to European disease and were riven with internal conflict. For example the Spanish took advantage of a civil war to conquer the Inca.
England was not like that.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on May 28, 2015 20:21:28 GMT 1
So if things hadn't gone badly for the Armada in the first few days, we'd all be speaking Spanish. And if it hadn't been for Churchill 350 years later we would all have been speaking German. Or would we all have been speaking Spanish with a German accent. "Ein paella mit bratwurst por favor...dumm fuhrt Interesting you say that because after the Norman Conquest in 1066 we ended up speaking a sort of hybrid of French and Anglo Saxon. The Battle of Hastings was of course a monumental turning point in our countries history not to mention a monumental turning point in the availability of cheap car insurance.
|
|
|
Post by stuttgartershrew on May 29, 2015 6:44:22 GMT 1
The Spanish didn't help themselves with some stupid decision making.
I reckon that's why it's wrong to say we won more by luck than judgement. I'm not saying it were good judgement from England that won it, mind. I mean poor judgement from the Spanish.
|
|
|
Post by ThrobsBlackHat on May 29, 2015 7:50:50 GMT 1
"History is always written by the victors"
We somehow made Dunkirk sound good too, when an unprepared and undergunned military force got totally hammered by the Germans, and we were lucky that tens of thousands more were not killed or captured too.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on May 29, 2015 11:11:31 GMT 1
The Spanish didn't help themselves with some stupid decision making.
I reckon that's why it's wrong to say we won more by luck than judgement. I'm not saying it were good judgement from England that won it, mind. I mean poor judgement from the Spanish. An example of the luck I was refering to was the fact that the whole of the English fleet was stuck in Plymouth when the Armada first approached. The whole story about Drake playing bowls and finishing his game before boarding his boat to meet them was a load of bull. The truth was that our fleet couldn't take to sea because the tide was against aswell as the wind and Drake might aswell of had another 21 up because he was going nowhere. The stupidness of the Spanish was apparent because they decided to carry on down the channel instead of attacking us in Plymouth dock. One of the more switched on Spanish captains realised this and wanted to attack our helpless fleet in dock but was overuled by the commander who was akin to the man responsible for our cannon aiming training in the previous mentioned battle. If that Captain had got his way we would have been absolutley hammered and the 16,000 spanish soldiers would have got ashore to run amok. History would of been very much different as Manwell & co would have got to Torquay a long time before Basil opened up Fawlty Towers. Seems to me there were a lot of very good captains involved in this battle who were hampered by a lot of clowns in positions they were not capable of holding them back.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jun 2, 2015 10:33:33 GMT 1
Apologies firstly for bumping my own thread but did anyone see the second instalment last night of '12 days to save England, the Armada'.
Gripping true life events of Spain's near conquest of this country in 1588.
Having slightly ridiculed our fleet last time around , Drake and co really come good in the defence of the realm in this episode.
The Spanish were very close to occupying the port of Weymouth but our fleet bravely sailed in to fight them off. Although the cannon fire again didn't take any of their boats out it was enough to make them retreat to Calais where the French typically welcomed them.
The third episode is where we finished them off with the fire boats.
So no more Sir Francis Spencer and back to Sir Francis Drake.
|
|
|
Post by wimbledonshrew on Jun 2, 2015 13:57:04 GMT 1
Only the fireboats didn't finish them off - the weather did. Much of this series is told more succinctly in the Battlefield Britain series Dan Snow did with his father.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jun 2, 2015 18:28:09 GMT 1
Sounds like a decent watch, but not sure about the 'we'd all be talking Spanish now'. Spain conquered Netherlands around that time and I didn't hear Benji van den Broek breaking out any Espanyol! Maybe not but the changes to the developing culture would have been massive - probably would have lost our fledgling colonies in America so no trade empire, radical catholism would have taken hold and we would have been a puppet of the Spanish Empire. Maybe, but I would say it's unlikely the Spanish could have dominated England to that extent. To cite the Dutch example again, they became about as protestant as you come and managed to have a decent empire of their own for a while. These things are never clear cut
|
|