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
The Surrender of Breda the Eighty Years' War. The Spanish general, Genoese aristocrat Ambrogio Spinola, conquered Breda against the instructions of his superiors. Before its capture, the Spanish government had decided that siege warfare against heavily defended towns of the Low Countries was too wasteful and that they would concentrate instead on an economic blockade of the Dutch Republic. The bulk of Spanish forces were diverted to the unfolding Thirty Years War. Breda, a city near the frontier of Holland proper had been occupied in 1567 by the Duke of Alba, ten years afterwards recovered by Holach, and again seized by Haultepenne. The town