Comments
Perpetual_Doubt t1_ja7t4qt wrote
One of the reasons not to mention it was that England was a second rate power at the time. This is easy to miss given the later strength of the british empire - but back in the 16th century the Spanish Empire was one of, if not the most powerful nation in the world.
If I remember correctly the English Armada was meant to be opportunistic raids, while the Spanish Armada planned to entire subdue the English kingdom. This makes the former's humiliating failure far less significant than that of the Spanish Empire's.
RikikiBousquet t1_ja82klh wrote
If I know something of English history, is that no defeat is a real defeat, but luck or not important, and that all victories are unique and ingenious, solely due to genius planing.
ThunderKingdom00 t1_ja85223 wrote
Ah yes, the Art of English History...
Alexdoh t1_ja85hwr wrote
u w0t m8?
Alexstarfire t1_ja88u1s wrote
Sounds like Marco Inaros.
macksters t1_ja9hq8k wrote
Every state tells fairy tales to its pupils. That's what the history lectures are all about.
Gisschace t1_ja9y5nb wrote
Yes in English history defeats are actually glorious and heroic victories which we venerate for ever.
Frexulfe t1_ja889m2 wrote
I think you are wrong (read it like a person to person comment, not a horrible furious scream in the internet).
AFAIK, there has been a real propagandistic push agains Spain and Catholics from UK and others. The theory is mostly accepted, only aspects of the theory are debated:
Perpetual_Doubt t1_ja8fd52 wrote
Oh yeah I'm familiar with the black legend.
To be sure, nationalism tends to ignore inconvenient truths for the sake of a good story, but common appreciation of history will also ignore the more convoluted or less significant data - so it sometimes becomes hard to distinguish one from the other. Certainly at the time, the propagandists would have been in full swing - after all this was the time of the Wars of Religion. If we think social media today to be reductivist, that has nothing on the early printing press.
English policy in this period swung a bit wildly and without landing any significant blows. They were participants in the French Wars of Religion (for instance the disastrous campaign to try and help La Rochelle under Charles I) and bizarrely with the Netherlands iirc (despite backing the Netherlands in the wars of religion). I think in the Spanish-French War they didn't know which to back, and their involvement wouldn't have been too important anyway. I think James was criticised for not getting more involved in helping the Palatinate, but England was quite poor after Elizabeth so that was probably prudent.
All of that is fairly messy and doesn't produce an interesting narrative - and certainly not one to be championed by nationalists.
Unleashtheducks t1_ja8jr6s wrote
So it was the English version of what the US did in the War of 1812, “We defeated the world’s greatest superpower, we must be a superpower now. Or not.”
TreesACrowd t1_ja9u9n8 wrote
How so? The U.S. didn't suffer a crushing defeat in the War of 1812. It essentially ended in a draw.
ThatOnePunkEmpath t1_ja6wc3z wrote
Thank you the interesting post, I sourced this from halfway into your article.
The English weirdly, tied 3 missions into one and mopping up the remaining Spanish ships was just a third of an optimistic journey. (It's all in the wiki for more detail.)
"However, the English fleet was completely exhausted and crippled after preventing the Spanish invasion attempt and Elizabeth's coffers were empty.[20] Furthermore, like its Spanish predecessor, the English expedition suffered from unduly optimistic planning, based on hopes of repeating Drake's successful raid on Cadiz in 1587. There was a contradiction between the separate plans, each of which was ambitious in its own right, but the most pressing need was the destruction of the Spanish Atlantic fleet lying at port in A Coruña, San Sebastián and Santander along the northern coast of Spain, as was directly ordered by the Queen."
Glancing-Thought t1_jaehzg4 wrote
The English have actually managed some really good propaganda in several instances.
Thecna2 t1_ja7kx7f wrote
The reason theyre remembered differently is a bit more complex than 'they only remember stuff that they won'.
The Spanish Armadas specific PLAN was to help invade England and overthrow the monarchy and put a Catholic on the throne. Where Spain was considered more powerful than England and at an advantage.
Defeating this, by whatever means, is going to leave a significant mark in the memory of the people of the time.
The English Armadas plans were a lot more modest, kick the Spanish fleet, grab a few random islands in the Atlantic, (the Azores), cause some local fuss by creating a rebellion in Portugal and maybe grab some Spanish treasure. These were, to the English at the time, far more vague and ephemeral goals than the Spanish Armadas, and the subsequent failure of it would have led to loads of grumbling in the local press for 6months and then everyone would move on.
The names, Spanish Armada vs English Armada may seem co-equal in nature, but the potential risk vs success were quite different in the way they would imprint on the people of the time.
I dont have a Spanish education but I bet that the failure of the English Armada doesnt come up much in Spanish History either, at least not to the extent that the Spanish Armada is mentioned in English History.
AiladeC t1_ja9ul6i wrote
I'm a Spaniard and this is the first time I ever heard about the English Armada. And the Spanish Armada story is pretty much common knowledge around here.
vibrant_crab t1_ja6ui8p wrote
Damn. They love to talk about the defeat of the Spanish Armada but they never mention the second half of that story.
demostravius2 t1_ja6wlew wrote
Tbf one was a great victory, saving the country from subjugation and lot's of death.
The other was a waste of money, and ultimately not important.
I do find it funny we just skim past it though.
[deleted] t1_ja6wsq3 wrote
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demostravius2 t1_ja6x2ix wrote
It was an invasion force, they were not sailing over for scones.
A large invasion force landing would have opened a beachhead, allowing more troops to be shipped over from the Netherlands.
Buttered_Turtle t1_ja763km wrote
Quite commonly known that’s what it was about
the_dudeNI t1_ja7oqk1 wrote
Read a book.
PrettyText t1_ja78q3f wrote
The UK managed to get their version of history taught in the entire west, for some reason:
- The Spanish armada's failure is known, this isn't known
- Everyone knows about the devastating English longbow and Agincourt, even though England, you know, lost that war.
- The Irish potato famine and the Bengal famine, if they're known about at all, are mostly seen as a tragic accident and not the fault of the Brits at all. Conversely, for example the Holodomor is seen as a malicious and intentional genocide. I'm not saying those situations are the exact same, but it still seems a bit skewed to say that the Brits were 0% at fault for their famines while the Soviets were 100% at fault for their famines.
- While obviously the UK was important in WW2, frankly its role is a bit overstated while the Soviet Union's role is a bit understated.
- Even though the Brits had the largest empire ever, they're still thought of as polite, cultured people as opposed to people who ran an empire.
- India's colonization is seen as quasi-positive in the west.
IronicBread t1_ja7ohpz wrote
> The Irish potato famine and the Bengal famine, if they're known about at all, are mostly seen as a tragic accident and not the fault of the Brits at all. Conversely, for example the Holodomor is seen as a malicious and intentional genocide. I'm not saying those situations are the exact same, but it still seems a bit skewed to say that the Brits were 0% at fault for their famines while the Soviets were 100% at fault for their famines.
Lmao what? Anytime Churchill gets mentioned someone mentions it...the Irish very much mention it and most in the UK are FULLY aware. As for nations abroad, England is not responsible for your education.
Diligent_Affect8517 t1_ja7bpc5 wrote
They also conveniently forget about the Mau Mau rebellion.
[deleted] t1_ja7jwzp wrote
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HobgoblinKhanate1 t1_ja7iov1 wrote
What makes you think the Irish potato famine might not been known about at all? Or that it was wholly a tragic accident? I don’t know anyone that thinks this
In school in the 90’s, all we were taught was that the British Empire was a bad thing. I don’t ever remember being taught the empire was glorious at all
A good example (because I know someone is going to bring it up) is Oliver Cromwell. We learned about him in school as basically a dictator. He banned Christmas (probably didn’t personally) and was a Puritan. We’re taught that life under him wasn’t very good at all. In fact, after he died, the English exhumed his body and cut his head off. But, there is the article people get giddy over of “top 100 Britons” that they love to link. This gets twisted by people on the attack as “Brits see Cromwell as a hero”. In fact, people are just stupid and simply don’t know more than 10 historical Britons and that’s how he made the list.
Who is understating the role of the Soviet Union? What decade are you referring to, the 1950’s?
marioquartz t1_ja8pp1d wrote
>What makes you think the Irish potato famine might not been known about at all?
Im from Spain. Is not learned. Im only watch about it in Internet. And in very few times.
Spank86 t1_ja95aik wrote
Probably because it's not massively relevant to the spanish. It's definitely taught in the uk and not as some sort of accident. When i was at school it was fairly bluntly explained that english landowners exported grain while the irish starved.
HobgoblinKhanate1 t1_ja913nf wrote
Op was talking about British people though
I don’t remember learning about the second naval battle a year later. But most of everything else he said is bullshit
teabagmoustache t1_ja81syd wrote
Where did you learn your history? I must be one of a very few people who was taught a well rounded view of history, going by some of these comments.
Also people don't think we are polite and cultured, any post on here about the UK is full of people shitting on the British.
PrettyText t1_ja825ul wrote
Dutch secondary school system, internet.
reykholt t1_ja8sp5n wrote
How is the Dutch Empire taught? Good, bad, neutral?
CulpableSnail t1_ja9rjhf wrote
No no the Dutch didn't have an empire, their king did but that's not the same as the country, so we don't have to cover that.... /s
carcinoma_kid t1_ja7tugw wrote
>While the UK was obviously important in WW2, frankly its role is a bit overstated while the Soviet Union’s role is a bit understated
I would say ‘a bit’ is an understatement in itself. The British lost 800,000 soldiers. The Americans lost 400,000. The Soviets lost possibly up to 14,000,000. Only one in 5 Russian men born in 1926 lived past 1945. They absolutely won the war for the Allies, and did so with unimaginable losses.
Edit: corrected numbers
Pale__Face t1_ja7vw2o wrote
Eh. Feeding men into machine gun fire is not that impressive.
carcinoma_kid t1_ja7ygmn wrote
Stopping the Nazi war machine dead in its tracks and fighting them tooth and nail all the way back to Berlin is pretty impressive
HoNose t1_ja8n6rd wrote
The Soviets lost 27,000,000 citizens. They lost 8-14,000,000 soldiers.
carcinoma_kid t1_ja8nm95 wrote
Thank you, corrected.
RedTheDopeKing t1_ja7kicx wrote
Because they made the world their bitch back then, probably. The victors write history, right?
slater_just_slater t1_ja7sn30 wrote
History is written by the victors.... and those who speak English
[deleted] t1_ja7fo58 wrote
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Dieg_1990 t1_ja7mli1 wrote
The British were always very focused on the narrative in my opinion. That's why together with the Dutch they created the duality of peaceful settlers vs violent conquistadores. Just check nowadays english-speaking and spanish-speaking countries and see where you see more characteristics of the native (pre-invasion) population. Or number of indigenous individuals.
As a fun story, I was told of the "legends" of the english armada, including Maria Pita or how some army attacks were repelled by literally country people with very little war experience. Quite embarrassing if true, but difficulty to confirm since none of us lived at that time.
RhyminSimonWyman t1_ja89wrj wrote
If you're referring to the discrepancy between the amount of indigenous Americans in Spanish versus English speaking areas as though that provides evidence of a greater propensity for genocide among British settlers that's not a good comparison. There were simply many more native people in areas the Spanish conquered, nothing more to it than that.
You will note that there are still a lot of native people in South Africa and Nigeria, for example. In fact, very few people of British descent in either place. Of course the British committed genocide in all their colonies, but not more than the Spanish did
anonymity_is_bliss t1_ja8y0jv wrote
Not to mention Canada has many more than the United States so it's not even an ex-british colony thing.
Like I'm 90% sure the whole manifest destiny thing skewed the statistics for native population too much to consider. Canada sure hasn't been angels with theirs (shoutout to Saskatoon RCMP), but simply trying to reduce it to Spanish vs English is a vast oversimplification of a complex issue given nearly every country handled it differently.
Also not to mention Argentina, where the native population is minuscule, and India (where they have the biggest native population despite being under the British Raj for a long time).
It's just a stupid notion that Brits were more vicious than conquistadors; they were both awful in their own special ways. The resulting native populations, although decimated by the conquerors, suffered under both.
TheRealVillain666 t1_ja7tqaw wrote
We were taught "the good bits" in school where we explored new worlds, brought civilization to savages, etc but I learned more about English history when I left school than when I was in school.
We stole, plundered and enslaved en route to our explorations.
teabagmoustache t1_ja80vhv wrote
When did you go to school? Because that's not how I was taught. Of course there was focus on victories and proud moments but the negative effects of the empire definitely were not glossed over.
mintvilla t1_ja8aicz wrote
Yeah the national curriculum is very neutral, you learn history from both sides of the story.
Its not exactly a british trait to boast/brag... we are known for under playing the situation, compared for example to our american cousins
TheRealVillain666 t1_ja81dk9 wrote
It was many years ago and many things were glossed over.
I'm proud of many things England achieved and not so proud about others.
teabagmoustache t1_ja842b6 wrote
Exactly how it should be.
I find it's mainly people who had a similar education to yourself, that are the hardest to reason with when it comes to British history.
Acknowledging atrocities were carried out by the Empire doesn't mean you can't be proud of positive contributions at the same time.
We should be proud of doing good in the world and learning about the not so good, means we can learn from it and not repeat it.
dovetc t1_ja7sbk2 wrote
From reading the comments you would think there was some conspiracy of silence surrounding this tidbit. The truth is that it's simply not the important part of the story upon which history did or did not turn.
The failed English expedition wasn't a part of a larger invasion of Spain that presented an existential threat to the Spanish governing apparatus.
The status of the new church in England was far from a settled question at the time of the SA. This represented a real potential turning point or historical counterfactual had the monarchy been placed back in the hands of a Catholic. There was no such tension underpinning the English counter-raid.
Your history teachers didn't hide this from you. They curated the curriculum to fit highlight the more important bits because there's only so many hours in a school day.
Yancy_Farnesworth t1_ja8atnr wrote
This is reddit. If you don't know something, or if it's not literally taught in every school around the world, it's a conspiracy.
No-Owl9201 t1_ja68tuu wrote
New to me, very interesting just how selective was the history we were taught in school back in the day. Gives a new twist on that saying "History is written by the victors"
Muroid t1_ja6mcbb wrote
History is written by the people who were writing history in the language that you speak.
No-Owl9201 t1_ja6n83e wrote
Yes that's a much better version, but no doubt they saw that by glorifying these triumphs they could impress all those held captive by the slowly disintegrating British Empire..
marioquartz t1_ja764cz wrote
"But only if the victors are British".
There are a lot of victories against the British, but always are ignored.
[deleted] t1_ja7frxn wrote
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No-Owl9201 t1_ja76m1z wrote
So true, and even if when they lose, they often celebrate it like a victory..
2KoolAwYe t1_ja780yo wrote
Because we own our mistakes and like a party
You don't like us, we get it, let us have our fun
Papichuloft t1_jaabt23 wrote
She was a heroine for the defense of Coruña in NW SPain, when she allegedly killed Francis Drake's brother with a spear carrying the English banner.
tmag03 t1_ja7irt2 wrote
History in the Anglosphere has a very anti-Spanish bent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Legend_(Spain)
Dieg_1990 t1_ja7mqov wrote
I guess that why envy is a trait associated with "bad"
DrCashew t1_jaauudk wrote
Do you mind elaborating?
Dieg_1990 t1_jabo6zi wrote
It was a joke, guys, jeesh...
DrCashew t1_jabs5c4 wrote
I am asking you to explain it, is what I'm saying. I haven't downvoted, just that the joke whooshed for me, isn't funny or makes no sense. I suspected it was probably the first so I asked you to explain it.
Dieg_1990 t1_jac7tuh wrote
Sorry then, I thought you were part of that downvote group that didn't get the joke. I should have included a /s tho
Where I come from, when there is this kind of irrational "hate"/ antipathy towards a person/culture/group that it's firmly rooted, we claim it's due to subconscious envy. Kind of like when a comment hurts even tho it's true but you don't want to accept it.
[deleted] t1_ja8a1bp wrote
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Harv7 t1_ja7lwif wrote
Im from Spain, we talk a lot about the "leyenda negra española", other empires tried to ruin spanish reputation lying or exaggerating things. There are some historical facts about our history that even us arent sure if they are true.
Harv7 t1_ja7m4d4 wrote
Spanish inquisition is part of this, they were bad but pretty normal for these years, lot of countries had a worst inquisition.
cvernie t1_ja874ya wrote
No one expects the guy defending the Spanish Inquisition!
marioquartz t1_ja8q4kt wrote
In others countries in one year they killed what Inquisition killed in 300 years. But the evil is the Spanish Inquisition...
coredump3d t1_ja8t0wf wrote
"Elizabeth: The not-so-golden age", the next movie in trilogy given that"Elizabeth: The Golden age" spoke about the English victory part already
malektewaus OP t1_ja619pi wrote
I learned about the Spanish Armada in high school, and they didn't mention this at all.