Siege of Breda (1637) Siege of Breda (1637) The Fifth Siege of Breda (21 July – 11 October 1637) was an important siege in the Eighty Years' War in which stadtholder Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange retook the city of Breda, which had last changed hands in 1625 when the Spanish general Ambrogio Spinola conquered it for the Spanish Habsburgs. Hereafter, the city would remain in the hands of the Dutch Republic until the end of the war. In 1635 France and the Dutch Republic formed an alliance against Spain with the objective of conquering and partitioning the Spanish Netherlands. They invaded on two
Congress of Breda fresh congress at Aix-la-Chapelle was arranged, where all warring states would participate, to offer formal approval to the agreement between Britain and France. The peace was formally concluded with the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748 in which all parties participated although the terms had already been agreed in advance by Britain and France at Breda. The terms proved deeply unsatisfactory to Maria Theresa of Austria who was outraged that Austria had lost Silesia and that the British had agreed so at Breda, without any Austrians being present. In the long run, that contributed to the breakdown of the Anglo-Austrian Alliance.