Four centuries ago, in 1624 and 1625, all of Europe followed the siege of the city of Breda with utmost interest. In June 1625, after ten months of strangling encirclement, the Italian general Spinola and his tens of thousands of troops, fighting for the king of Spain, forced the surrender of the city.
This last great Spanish victory against the ‘heretic rebels’ in the Eighty Years’ War in the Low Countries (1568-1648) was immortalized in a play by Calderón de la Barca, ‘El sitio de Breda’ (‘The siege of Breda’), and, of course, by the famous Velázquez painting, ‘La Rendición de Breda’ (‘Breda surrenders’), better known in Spain as ‘Las Lanzas’ (‘The Lances’)
In his talk, dramatized in a surprising and humoristic fashion, Harry – born and raised in Breda – talks about the historical context of the siege, its propagandistic use in later years and, more in general, about the image of the Spanish in the Low Countries, the lands now occupied by The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxemburg.