Qualla: Action of 18 February 1639

Action of 18 February 1639: Introduction

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Willem van de Velde the Elder, Public domain. Maarten Tromp will win the battle and lose the year. On the morning of 18 February 1639, the Dutch admiral has twelve warships off Dunkirk and orders to keep the Spanish Dunkirk Squadron bottled up in port. By the time the fighting ends four hours later, he has captured two Spanish galleons, run a third aground, and inflicted heavy casualties on the squadron of Miguel de Horna. But his own ships are battered beyond what the blockade can absorb. He has to pull off, regroup, repair. While the Dutch sails recede, De Horna - imprisoned briefly by his own superiors for the loss, then quietly reinstated - patches up the rest of his squadron in Dunkirk harbour. Within months he is sailing those galleons south to join Admiral Antonio de Oquendo at A Coruña. The mission Tromp was supposed to stop will be accomplished on schedule. The tactical victor goes home. The strategic victor leaves port.

Image: Willem van de Velde the Elder | Public domain

Action of 18 February 1639: Why a Convoy Was Trying to Leave

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Wernervc, CC BY-SA 3.0. By 1639, the Eighty Years' War between Habsburg Spain and the Dutch Republic had been running for nearly seven decades. Spain's naval position had worsened steadily. Most of the Armada del Mar Océano had been peeled off to support the Armada de Pernambuco under don Fernando de Ma...

Image: Wernervc | CC BY-SA 3.0

Action of 18 February 1639: The Dutch Squadron Appears

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sebastien de Beaulieu (designer), Joan Blaeu (publisher), Public domain. Word of De Horna's plans reached the States-General of the Dutch Republic, which sent Maarten Tromp with twelve warships to intercept him. Tromp arrived off Dunkirk on 17 February. The Spanish attempt to break out came the next day. According to contemporary Spanish accounts, a l...

Image: Sebastien de Beaulieu (designer), Joan Blaeu (publisher) | Public domain

Action of 18 February 1639: Four Hours Between the Sandbanks

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY-SA 3.0. The battle that followed lasted about four hours. The terrain favoured neither side: shallow water, narrow channels, the constant risk of running aground in unfamiliar shoals. Tromp's gunnery was effective. Two of De Horna's galleons were captured outright, their decks taken with...

Image: CC BY-SA 3.0

Action of 18 February 1639: Punishment and Reinstatement

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Grumpy, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Marquis of Fuentes, the Spanish governor responsible for the squadron, blamed De Horna and his vice-admiral Matthys Rombout for the disaster and had both imprisoned. The imprisonment did not last. With Spanish forces stretched thin and competent commanders rarer than punishab...

Image: Grumpy | CC BY-SA 4.0

Action of 18 February 1639: A Footnote With Consequences

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Welleschik, CC BY-SA 3.0. The action of 18 February 1639 occupies a small space in most accounts of the Eighty Years' War, overshadowed by the Downs eight months later. But it is worth looking at on its own terms. It is a battle in which both commanders did their jobs well, and in which the rules of the w...

Image: Welleschik | CC BY-SA 3.0