Tercios were very strong during the era Conn Nugent is pointing at; “nobody in Europe could stand up to them” is probably an exaggeration but not by much. They had a pretty good record under Ferdinand II, and then for various dynastic reasons, Spain was inherited by a Habsburg who became Holy Roman Emperor, and then immediately faced coalitions against him as the ‘most powerful man in Christendom.’ So we don’t really get to see what would have happened had they tried to fight their way to continental prominence, since they inherited to it.
It’s also not obvious that, if you have spare military capacity in 1550 (or whenever), you would want to use it conquering bits of Europe instead of conquering bits elsewhere, if the difficulty for the latter is sufficiently lower and the benefits not sufficiently higher.
I agree Tercios were strong; I agree that spare military capacity might be directed towards easier targets. Still though, the tech advantage of the spanish over the Aztecs was significantly greater than the advantage they enjoyed over the rest of Europe.
Tercios were very strong during the era Conn Nugent is pointing at; “nobody in Europe could stand up to them” is probably an exaggeration but not by much. They had a pretty good record under Ferdinand II, and then for various dynastic reasons, Spain was inherited by a Habsburg who became Holy Roman Emperor, and then immediately faced coalitions against him as the ‘most powerful man in Christendom.’ So we don’t really get to see what would have happened had they tried to fight their way to continental prominence, since they inherited to it.
It’s also not obvious that, if you have spare military capacity in 1550 (or whenever), you would want to use it conquering bits of Europe instead of conquering bits elsewhere, if the difficulty for the latter is sufficiently lower and the benefits not sufficiently higher.
I agree Tercios were strong; I agree that spare military capacity might be directed towards easier targets. Still though, the tech advantage of the spanish over the Aztecs was significantly greater than the advantage they enjoyed over the rest of Europe.