2nd Spanish Armada 1596. Spain and England had been at war for nearly twelve years with neither side gaining the upper hand. The result of the intervention of Philip II in the religious war in France in support of the Catholic League, meant that Spanish forces had established coastal garrisons along the French and Flemish coast by the late 1580s. These bases had a huge strategic value because they allowed England to be threatened by the Spanish fleet and troops. England on the other hand had also intervened in France, but in support of King Henry IV of France, as a result of
Spanish Armada the coast of Greenland, a characteristic phenomenon of the "Little Ice Age". More ships and sailors were lost to cold and stormy weather than in direct combat. Following the gales it is reckoned that 5,000 men died by drowning, starvation and slaughter at the hands of English forces after they were driven ashore in Ireland. Reports of the passage of the remnants of the Spanish Armada around Ireland abound with onerous accounts of hardships and survival. In the end, 67 ships and fewer than 10,000 men survived. Many of the men were near death from disease, as the conditions were