"Armada 1588 - Judgement of History" Topic

"Though it would take several more decades before the decline of Spain became an apparent and acknowledged fact, the defeat of the Armada would be seen with hindsight as being the beginning of that process. It is worth considering, therefore, whether its failure was inevitable, and indeed how close it came to success.
The problem that dogged Spanish efforts from the early stages of planning was the decision to make the ‘Enterprise of England' a joint operation performed by the Army of Flanders and a fleet from Spain. Coordination would always have been difficult, and communication delays between Medina Sidonia and Parma made matters worse. King Philip must also share a major portion of the blame because of his failure to clarify the confusion over exactly where the rendezvous between Parma and the Armada was to take place – even after the differences in views between his two commanders had become clearly apparent.
Don Francisco de Bobadilla, as a participant, summed up the problem while tactfully avoiding pointing the finger of blame at any of the major participants: ‘I don't know who had the idea that we could join forces in a place with such powerful currents, with a shore so open and liable to cross-winds, and with so many sandbanks… But I believe that it is impossible to control all the things that must be concerted at the same time, in order to bring together forces that are so separated, unless one has a different sort of ship from those we brought, in the place where we were instructed to join.'…"
Full article here
weaponsandwarfare.com/?p=37838

Amicalement
Armand

I would disagree, I don't think that the Armada is the start of Spain's decline, rather I think that it shows that the Spanish were already a fair piece down that road.

I disagree. The Armada was a symptom of a problem that would provoke, in the long run, the decline of Spain as imperial power or, to be more precise, of the Spanish Hapsburg dinasty. The goals were beyond the means that the Spanish monarchs had available, but it took the combined power of a resurgent France, England and the Netherlands, plus two coincident internal rebellions (Portugal and Catalonia) and the constant threat of the Barbary Coast corsaries to finally bring the Spanish Hapsburgs to their knees. Against any of those threats separately, they would have had the means to fight and even to defeat them… but against all of them at the same time, the financial and human resources at their disposal were insufficient. That coincidence of threats didn't occur, though, until the late 30s of the XVIIth Century, and even then it took another 20 years of constant war until the Spanish Hapsburgs were defeated and their dinasty truly decline.

>the Spanish were already a fair piece down that road.

It is hard to see how the English fleet could have stopped the Spanish from landing a land force had they just tried to do this, or how the English would have fought and defeated a force of Spanish veterans from gaining control of the odd harbour.

So IF the Spanish were already down the road of their decline, it was expressed in bad planning.

The weather help too in this case.

Amicalement
Armand