ABSTRACT
The unchallenged assumption of French foreign policy in the sixteenth century was the threat to France from Habsburg power, possessions and influence. Habsburg interests were global and encircled France. The Spanish Habsburgs possessed the territories of Franche-Comté, the Netherlands, and Naples and Milan in Italy as well as numerous claims to territory extending from England to various pockets in the Pyrenean region. The Austrian Habsburgs enjoyed extensive hereditary possessions in Austria, Bohemia and Hungary. The head of the Austrian branch was invariably elected Holy Roman Emperor, which meant that he could claim direct power from the Almighty and some influence over the German empire’s princes and territories. The sense of encirclement increased after the revolt of the Dutch in 1566. The Spanish gained the consent of a string of states in Italy, the Alps and Germany to dispatch and reinforce troops through their lands. There were several alternative routes to this ‘Spanish Road’ (le chemin des Espagnols) as the French christened it. 1 Having crossed the gulf of Lions, the route passed from Genoa through the Spanish fortress city of Milan. From this point, the shortest way to the Netherlands lay through the Little Saint Bernard pass, Savoy, Franche-Comté, the duchy of Lorraine and Luxembourg. A longer route ran from Milan to the Tyrol via the shores of Lake Como and through the Engadine or Valtellina passes to southern Germany and then down to the Rhine, avoiding the hostile Rhine Palatinate and three bishoprics of Metz, Toul and Verdun, which had been ceded to the protection of France in 1559.
