Relief of Goes

Relief of Goes
Part of the Eighty Years' War
The Siege of Goes, 1572, by Petro Le Poivre.
Date October 20, 1572 Location Goes (present-day Netherlands) Result Spanish victory
Belligerents
Dutch Rebels England	Spain
Commanders and leaders
Jerome de Tseraarts Thomas Morgan Humphrey Gilbert	Cristóbal de Mondragón
Strength
7,000	3,000
Casualties and losses
800+ killed	Low

In August of 1572, during the course of the Eighty Years' War, the Spanish city of Goes, in the Netherlands, was besieged by Dutch forces with support of English troops sent by Queen Elizabeth I. This supposed a menace to the safety of the nearby city of Middelburg, also under siege. Given the impossibility of rescue Goes by sea, 3,000 soldiers of the Spanish Tercios under the command of Cristóbal de Mondragón waded across the river Scheldt at its mouth, walking 15 miles overnight in water to chest height. The surprise arrival of the Tercios forced the withdrawal of the Anglo-Dutch troops from Goes, allowing the Spanish maintain the control of Middelburg, capital of the Walcheren Island.

Background

Map of Zeeland (in green) at the end of the XVI century, by Heyns Ortelius.

By 1566, in the Netherlands, at that time belonging to the Spanish Monarchy, emerged a series of revolts against the Spanish authorities, mainly caused by religious and economic impositions of these to the Dutch population. In 1567 the hostilities increased, leading to the War of the Eighty Years'.

In April 1572, the Sea Beggars, Dutch rebels opposed to Spain, took Brielle, being this the first city conquered during the war. Other cities in the province of Zeeland soon join the rebels, and by mid-1572 only Arnemuiden and Middelburg, on the island of Walcheren, and Goes (also called Tergoes), on the island of Zuid-Beveland, remained under Spanish control, all them besieged and threatened by the Dutch forces under Stadtholder William of Orange with the support of English troops sent by Elizabeth I.

Jerome Tseraarts, governor of Flushing in command of the Dutch forces on the island of Walcheren, had tried to capture Goes shortly before, having been repelled by the garrison of the city, commanded by Isidro Pacheco.^[1] On August 26 of 1572, in command of 7,000 soldiers^[2] among which were 1,500 English under Thomas Morgan and Humphrey Gilbert,^[1] and a fleet of 40 ships,^[3] Tseraarts returned to besiege the city. The Spanish garrison of Goes, much inferior in number, would not withstand the siege for a long time without receiving reinforcements.

Don Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alva and Governor of the Netherlands on behalf of Philip II of Spain, ordered Sancho Dávila, Governor of Antwerp's citadel stationed with his troops in North Brabant, to send reinforcements to Goes by sea. The presence in the area of the fleet of the Sea Beggars under Peterson Worst prevented it.^[4]

Relief of Goes

Engraving of Don Cristóbal de Mondragón, 1599.

The river Scheldt was divided into two branches flowing in different directions before it disembogues into the North Sea: the Oosterschelde flowed to the north, the Westerschelde to the west. Between these two arms there were the islands of Walcheren and Zuid-Beveland, at north of which was Goes. The area between Brabant and Zuid-Beveland was a plain permanently flooded and exposed to the tides of the North Sea and the river currents because of the flat terrain of the Scheldt. When the tide went down the river had between 1 and 1.5 meters of depth, and when it raised the depth reached 3 meters.

Captain Plomaert, a Flemish loyal to Spain, accompanied by two locals who well knew the field, studied the possibility of the Spanish troops fording the Oosterschelde on foot taking advantage of hours of low tide. Plomaert’s plan was presented to Sancho Dávila and Cristóbal Mondragón, who accepted it as viable. For its execution Mondragón assembled a force of 3,000 Spanish, Walloon and German pikemen of the Tercios at Woensdrecht (near Bergen op Zoom).^[2]

On the evening of October 20, Mondragón and his men, preceded by Plomaert and his guides, went into the river, each one equipped with a bag of gunpowder and provisions that should hold over the head or at the tip of his pike throughout the voyage. During the night they crossed the 15 miles that separated them from the opposite bank with water up to the chest, sinking into the muddy bottom, supporting the waves and currents of the river mouth, and pressed by the imminent rising tide.

Map of Goes and Kloetinge in 1572.

Shortly before dawn they reached the riverbank of Zuid-Beveland near Yerseke, about at 20 km of Goes, having lost only nine men drowned during the crossing of the river (a minimum number of casualties compared to the danger of the task).^[2] Then they moved toward Goes. The Anglo-Dutch troops besieging the city, surprised by the unexpected arrival of the Tercios, which they expected to see arriving at any port of the island, abandoned the siege and began a hurriedly retreat to their ships, being pursued by the soldiers of Mondragón, which reached their rear inflicting them over 800 casualties.^[5]

Consequences

The withdrawal of the Anglo-Dutch forces from Goes’s outskirts allowed the Spanish troops to relieve temporally Middelburg, capital of Zeeland, which withstand the Dutch siege until its surrender in February 1574. At the end of 1572, Goes, Arnemuiden, Middelburg and Rammekens remained under Spanish control. The island of Schouwen, including Zierikzee, was held by the Dutch forces until his recapture in 1576 by Luis de Requesens.

Notes

References

• Fissel, Mark Charles (2001). English warfare, 1511–1642; Warfare and history. London, UK: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-21481-0. 
• Motley, John Lothrop. The Rise of the Dutch Republic, Entire 1566–74 . http://ia341328.us.archive.org/2/items/jm23v/jm23v10.txt. 
• Davies, Charles Maurice (1841). History of Holland, from the beginning of the tenth to the end of the eighteenth century. 1. London, UK: J.W. Parker. 
• (Spanish) de Mariana, Juan (1820). Historia general de España. XV. Madrid, Spain: Imp. de D. Leonardo Nuñez de Vargas. 
• (Spanish) de Rustant, José Vicente (1751). Historia de don Fernando Alvarez de Toledo, (llamado comunmente El Grande) primero del nombre, duque de Alva: Escrita, y extractada de los mas veridicos autores. 2. Madrid, Spain: En la imprenta de don P.J. Alonso y Padilla.