Preview

Spanish Armada

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
548 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Spanish Armada
The Spanish Armada
In this essay I will be writing an essay about the Spanish armada and its failure.
Firstly, the most important reason for the failure of the Spanish armada was the poor planning of the Spanish. The Spanish set sail with lack of cannonballs, too many priests and not enough experts. They also failed to provide themselves with enough fresh food and water in case it takes more time to return. So they made many mistakes before they even set sail .any problems that might delay the armada like the weather slowing them down were not planned. This is the most important reason why the Spanish failed because planning is the one thing you must get right to go to the next step.
The second most important reason was the wrong leadership. The leader of the armada was chosen because of medina sidonia wealth and religion, not his ability to lead the fleet. He even asked not to put him in charge because of his lack of experience. He also suffered from sea-sickness. Phillip’s choice of medina sidonia of leading the invasion is an example of poor planning. Failing to defeat the navy led to later disasters for the Spanish. This means that the leader is someone who clearly does not know how to do his job properly. It also shows that king Phillip must take some blame of the failure in choosing medina.
Thirdly, while the Spanish showed bad leadership, the English were led. Queen Elizabeth showed clear leadership in her planning the defence of England and motivated her soldiers and sailors through famous speeches “I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman but I have the heart and stomach of a king and a king of England”. At sea, drake showed a good leadership to chase the armada all the way up to the English Channel. Drake had lots of battle skills. This all gave the English a real advantage.
Fourthly, the Spanish failed because of their weapons. English ships and guns were simply better. The royal navy ships were smaller and more manoeuvrable and the

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    loss of men and ammunition (Geoffrey Parker, Why the Armada Failed). When the fleet finally returned to Lisbon it brought the treasure ships back intact but it was clear that the Armada was no longer ready to mount the full scale invasion of England. Drake had given England another year to prepare for the Spanish Armada.…

    • 1106 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Spain was experiencing their Golden Age in the sixteenth century because of their exploration of South America that opened doors for trading and allies. This trade (that included gold) gave their economy budget a boost. However, they were seriously defeated after the English raided their ships. As we know, the Spanish Armada defeat was one of the most tragic defeats in Spanish history under Philip II’s rule. This defeat hurt their economy even more and nearly all their power was gone, until the Treaty of Pyrenees officially gave up Spanish power to…

    • 507 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Spanish Armada- Spain’s HUGE army fleat that sailed against England in attempt to claim North America.…

    • 2391 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    apush chapter 7 study guide

    • 3533 Words
    • 15 Pages

    § At the start of the war Britain had the best-equipped and most disciplined army, along with a navy that was unopposed in American waters…

    • 3533 Words
    • 15 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Spanish Armada failed because of many things, most of them were because of they did not done a proper preparation for the battle. The Spanish was very weak and unorganized, they know that they were, but they still don’t do any preparation, as if they knew that they will lose. They did not done well in the tactics, ship design and choosing their leader. If they can’t do these basic things of winning a battle, it will be very easy to lose.…

    • 774 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Ap U.S. History Notes

    • 30961 Words
    • 124 Pages

    Spanish armada’s defeat 1588 – the English now rule the seas, sir francis drake led the british navy to defeat the Spanish armada, the victory gave England the opportunity to COLONIZE THE NEW WORLD, spain is now on the decline and England is on the rise in regards to world power…

    • 30961 Words
    • 124 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Another factor that contributed to the defeat of the Aztecs was inferior weapons and warring tactics. The Aztecs use of arrows and spears were no match against the Spaniards guns and canons. The superiority of arms provided the Spaniards with the best advantage in their campaign along with their alliances with the Tlaxcaltecas and other tribes.…

    • 471 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    spanish america war

    • 1639 Words
    • 7 Pages

    There were many reasons why the Americans wanted to go to war with the Spanish. There were several reasons to be exact why the Spanish-American War had an outbreak. The Americans wanted an empire and they thought it would put the civil war behind us; the excitement would be great, yellow journalism Valeriano “Butcher” Weyler and finally the Delome letter.…

    • 1639 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Consequently, other European leaders, such as Elizabeth I of England, capitalized on of their economic mistakes. The decline of the Spanish empire transpired because the Spanish government improperly handled their new-found wealth and lost piles of it to piracy, which lead to their eventual bankruptcy and demise as one of the most significant European powers of the era.…

    • 471 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The poor judgment of the Aztec people was their main downfall. The timing of the Europeans arriving towards the end of the fall where harvesting was a main priority of the Aztecs and not warfare this led to the underestimation of the Europeans and their goals.…

    • 239 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    There was the immediate causes for war against Spain, however there were many economic issues that could be taken care of on the long run. The U.S was in the midst of expansion and Spain was making it hard for it to happen. Spain controlled Cuba, and this a nuisance for the U.S. due to the fact Cuba was the largest producer of sugar in the world at the time. (2) Cubans rebelled in hopes of breaking free from Spain’s control and become independent. However the U.S could not let Cuba win this war by themselves.…

    • 373 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    She was able to use it to bring victory to England on the battlefield. Elizabeth was also “taught the art of public speaking, unheard of for women at the time. But the ability to address a large number of people, from ministers in Parliament to troops on the battlefield, stood Elizabeth in good stead for the future. She learnt how to turn the tide of opinion in her favour, and this became one of her most effective weapons” (Briscoe). This became valuable in the 1580s when the war between England and Spain became apparently inevitable. The Spanish Armada was a fleet of 130 ships that King Phillip of Spain planned to sail into the English Channel to meet with an army coming from the Netherlands and simultaneously invade England. However, Elizabeth’s men were maintaining a close watch on the shores of England for the Armada, and when the first ship was spotted fighting erupted. As English soldiers and sailors were fighting for England’s independence, the Queen was headed for Tilbury. “She was not going to sit trembling inside a guarded Palace while her people fought, but was going to go to the coast of the battle and ‘live or die’ with them” (Thomas, “The Spanish Armada”). Here, she made what could be her most famous speech, the Tilbury Speech, where she stated, “I know I have the body of a meek and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a King,…

    • 1619 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The simple explanation as to the cause of the Spanish-American war is that it was due to the way the Spanish were treating the Cuban people. But things are rarely that simple and the war between Spain and America is no exception. Leading up to the war American’s began to feel that we did not have enough room to grow and American journalists fed the desire for foreign adventure by romanticizing it, much the way the frontier had been romanticized. Huge Naval ships were built and Darwinism convinced politicians that the earth belonged to the strongest country.…

    • 335 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Sampson and his naval warships destroyed the Spanish Naval fleet off Santiago, and then on July 17 the Spanish later…

    • 1667 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Spanish Imperial Power

    • 1136 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The discovery of a new world by Christopher Columbus in 1492 opened up new opportunities for trading, conquest, and political success and wealth in the later years. Spain and England found their way to the Americas (by crossing the Atlantic, etc.) and established their own colonies, which were able to give their nations profits. In order to have the imperial power of Spain and England benefit from their colonial establishments, the dependent nations would use their surrounding natural resources which would be then used in trading, selling, and building ships, etc. Although both the British and the Spanish colonies existed for the profit and the power of the core nation, the two nations featured different systems of colonial administration.…

    • 1136 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays