Battle of Rocroi - Significance

Significance

The battle was an important propaganda victory for Mazarin and Enghien, the future "Great Condé" and represented a weakening of the besieged Spanish Low Countries. It was also of symbolic importance, as it was one of the few major battlefield defeats of a Spanish army in over a century and, moreover, a defeat of one its most famous units. It has been noted that Melo's German, Walloon, and Italian troops actually surrendered first, while the Spanish infantry cracked only after repeated cavalry charges and a vicious spell under the French guns. Though Rocroi was not the military disaster claimed by French propagandists (ten years later the Spanish captured Rocroi and held it until the peace treaty was signed) it marked the end of Spanish military doctrinal supremacy and the maturing of the doctrines prefigured by Gustavus Adolfus.