Francisco Velasco Hernández, creator and owner of Ediciones Nova Spartaria, holds a PhD in Modern History from the University of Murcia, is Professor of History and lecturer at the U.N.E.D. associated centre in Cartagena.

ABSTRACT:

The naval wars of the 17th century had their own particular battlefield in the Hispanic southeast, starting with the repercussions of the failed expeditions against Algiers, the danger of the squadrons of Barbary ships, the 'cleaning' of the coastline by the galleys of the Catholic King or the last acts of corsair cruelty in Adra and Calpe.

But the so-called 'major war' was also present, with the French attempt to invade Cartagena in 1643 and the battle of Cape Gata. Even the English civil war was transferred here, with a duel to the death between the Royalist and Parliamentary squadrons. And as the Maghreb corsairs became a serious international problem, important English, Dutch and French squadrons also arrived in the ports of the southeast to fight them from nearby.

The epilogue to almost a century of warmongering at sea came with the terrible bombardment of Alicante in 1691. It is therefore not surprising that its waters were ploughed by the most famous admirals of the time, whether French (Sourdis, Brézé, Tourville, Duquesne, D'Estrées), English (Mansell, Rupert del Rin, Blake, Spragg, Rooke) or Dutch (Ruyter, Tromp), without forgetting the generations of illustrious Spanish and Italian sailors.