The secret diplomacy of the Habsburgs, 1598-1625 / [by] Charles Howard Carter.

Impresum

New York, : : Columbia University Press,, 1964.)

Materijalni opis

XIV, 321 str. : maps. ; 24 cm.

Tip građe

tekst

Vrsta građe

knjiga

Sažetak

This ]earned, careful, and accompUshed work undertakes to review Spanish Habsburg policy-making and the influence of intelligence on decisions made by Spain and the Spanish Netherlands during the quarter century of relative military quiescence and intense diplomatic activity that led into the Thirty Years' War. It concentrates on the diplomatic interplay in London and the intelUgence sent froin there to Madrid and Brussels. Although it faithfully carries out this task, -it disappoints any expectation aroused by headings like "About Spies and Such, .. ''The Informational Base of Foreign Policy," "Intelligence from England," •A Renaissance Spymaster, .. and "Spanish Espionage Put to the Test" either that it should give intimate glimpses into the practice· of espionage in those days or that it should add historical perspective to the ultimate question for intelligence, its application to poUcy. For one thing, it takes about half the book to set the compUcated stage--for an era when dynastic maneuvering had hopelessly scram-bled the ethnic map of Europe and the pervasive Catholic-Protestant conflict was contorted by unending secular considerations-and intro-duce the characters. ·Of the policy makers among these the one that stands out best, because of the author's interest and the nature of the source material, is James I, but his policy and decisions are not central to the play. Then the intelligence selected for detailed examination is the reporting done by Madrid's envoy, Gondomar, and Brussels', Van Male .. But Gondomar was a high-level operator who made a. friend of King Jame_s and got his information for the asking from the horse's mouth; and though Van Male was a true spy-maste! we do not see the spies at work but only the finished Weeka, as it were, that he sent home. Professor Carter focuses on the reporting that covered secret negotia-tions with two diplomatic task forces sent to London in ·1621, when the peace, such as it was, had begun to break down. The 6.rst was from Louis XIII of France, seeking a marriage alliance and English help in an attack on the Habsburgs' line of communication over the Alps in exchange for French help in restoring the Palatinate to James'

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