Defendiendo España

No one doubts that for three centuries Spain dominated the known world and was the object of numerous attacks of all kinds by rival powers, but how did it defend itself against the attacks of its enemies? "For these battles that threaten us", Don Quixote explained to Sancho Panza, "it will be necessary to be well maintained". And Spain, certainly, was "well maintained": the resources to which it had access were greater than those of any other nation, since they did not come only from the Peninsula, but from all corners of the planet. The explorers, adventurers, soldiers, and financiers who made their power possible were not just Spanish and Portuguese, but came from every nation under the sun. The armies were not exclusively Catholic, but, in times of crisis, thousands of Protestant soldiers were willing to join their ranks. This is the story of how a nation cultivated friends and allies both in war and in peace, and how, beyond the anti-Spanish legend, the unquestionable fact is that there were illustrious foreign personalities who defended their character, their culture, their reputation , its historical heritage or its customs, and they worried about preserving a country that they loved and admired.