Thirty Years' War outside Europe


This articles refers to the interconnected military, naval, economic, and informational developments that took place outside Europe during the Thirty Years' War.
Although the conflict is traditionally portrayed as a Central European and intra-imperial war, several Atlantic, African, and Asian theatres significantly influenced its outcome. These overseas dimensions involved mainly the pro-Habsburg and Catholic Iberian Union against the anti-Hasburg and Protestant coalition, whose colonial rivalries reshaped the economic foundations of European states engaged in the war and were intimately related in the diplomatic and strategical area. This generally involved skirmishes and naval blockades rather than large and pitched battles.

Historiography

Since the mid-twentieth century historians have emphasized that the Thirty Years War was not merely a German civil war but concerned much of Europe. Then more recent scholarship has taken the next interpretive step by situating the war within early modern globalization. For this historiography, the Thirty Years' War can be described as the first pan-European colonial war, due to the war's international scale and the involvement of colonial empires, being this oversea conflict so intense that some have dubbed it the true "First World War", preceding the one that occurred in the 20th century.
While the wider European significance of the war has since been fully recognized, historians like John Pike, Johannes Müller, Geoffrey Parker, John K. Thornton, Wim Klooster, Peter H. Wilson, Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Jonathan Israel, etc. have only recently begun to place it in a global context by more systematically integrating its various Trans-Oceanic side stages into their analyses. The global perspective emphasizes three main factors:Colonial and maritime warfare, especially Dutch–Portuguese and Dutch–Spanish conflicts.Transoceanic bullion flows, particularly the Spanish treasure fleets that financed Imperial and Habsburg armies.A transcontinental news culture, which integrated events from Brazil, the Caribbean, West Africa, and the Indian Ocean into European political discourse.

Background

The Iberian Union and global Habsburg warfare

In 1580, Philip II of Spain also became ruler of the Portuguese Empire, creating the Iberian Union, the largest connected overseas domain of early modern era which was key in the developing of a Proto-globalization between the Old World and the New World through maritime networks. However, such rapid expansion led to a chronic shortage of soldiers and enormous debts, making Spain reluctant to expand its territory, and thus it dominated a strategy of territorial defense against its enemies. Long-standing commercial rivals, the 1602 to 1663 Dutch–Portuguese War was an offshoot of the Dutch fight for independence from Spain that will merge with the Thirty Years' War. The Portuguese dominated the trans-Atlantic economy known as the Triangular trade, in which slaves were transported from West Africa and Portuguese Angola to work on plantations in Portuguese Brazil, which exported sugar and tobacco to Europe. During the Thirty Years' War, Spain relied heavily on American silver and on Maritime routes to sustain its European armies. The vulnerability of these oceanic links made the overseas theatres strategically decisive.
Every year, two Spanish treasure fleets sailed from America to Seville's Casa de Contratación, transporting Potosi and Zacatecas silver with other colonial products, along the road the ships take scales in ports like Panama, Cartagena de Indias, Havana, Santo Domingo, Santa Cruz de Tenerife. During those scales, they were prey of pirates and corsairs hostile to Spain, being the most dangerous scale the Cuban one in the Bahama Channel. This turned the Philippines, Spanish Main and Canary Islands into important military objectives by the Anti-Habsburg Protestant coalition. Similar destiny had the Portuguese Cafila convoy system that transported their exotic products and slaves from the Factories to Colonial Brazil and Lisbon's Casa da Índia, which turned into military objectives the strategic Portuguese intermediaries of Macau, Malacca, Goa, Ormuz, Cape of Good Hope, Luanda, São Tomé, Gold Coast, Cape Verde, Pernambuco and the Azores. The Spanish overseas possessions were generally better defended than Portuguese ones, which were widely scattered and difficult to reinforce.
Despite the International isolation of the House of Habsburg in the worst years of the Thirty Years' War, the Republic of Genoa still was a loyal ally of Spanish Habsburgs and became the only European power that sent military help to the Spanish Empire in Oversea. Although were not capable to bring significative maid, the Genoese reached so far that they were fighting in the Spanish Philippines at 1630s.
Also, the Iberian Union was a Composite monarchy administrated through a Polysynodial System and under a Legal pluralist Constitution based in Fueros. So, the Kingdoms, States and Lordships that comprised the Hispanic Monarchy were united through aeque principaliter, so the constituent kingdoms continued to be treated as distinct entities which retained their own traditional rights, resulting in the king not having the same powers in every territory, like in the states of the Crown of Aragon and Portugal in which his authority was considerably limited by their laws and institutions, causing Castile to bear the greatest burden of the Monarchy's expenses and war efforts, with its economy ruined by a century of almost continuous colonial wars. That economical decline made Portuguese oversea troops to have Logistical problems for lacking Castilian financiation, and the Spanish troops to mutiny on several occasions at the Thirty Years' War due to not receiving their pay, so the Union of Arms was proposed by Count-duke of Olivares to strengthen the collaboration of all the kingdoms of the Hispanic Monarchy in a common policy of military defense contribution, but he failed to gain acceptance from the institutions of each territory due to suspects of Centralisation and attempts to impose Legal Uniformism. This revealed the unstable internal relationship between the Spanish and Portuguese in developing a consistent foreign policy, which was exploited by Iberian Union's enemies.

The rise of Dutch and English naval power

Before Thirty Years' War, the Dutch Republic and England challenged Iberian monopoly over Atlantic and Indo-Pacific commerce. These conflicts, though rooted in earlier struggles, became intertwined with the anti-Habsburg coalitions fighting within the Holy Roman Empire after the end of the Twelve Years' Truce.

First wave of colonial chartered companies

An indirect effect of the Eighty Years' War was the participation of new European powers in the first wave of Colonialism. Due to the successes of the Dutch East India Company in defy the Iberian Mare clausum of Tordesillas and to spread Protestantism in the New World against the "Papist heresies", a lot of Protestant Great powers tried to imitate the Dutch Empire with their system of Chartered companies that seemed to be cheaper for the State and less risky than attempting colonies with direct control and inversion from the Crown Treasury, desiring to develop Colonial empires capable to military defy the one of the Habsburg Spain. Also France, despite being catholic, imitated the system in an attempt to defy the Papal concession to the Iberian Monarchies as the only ones with rights to spread the Catholic Gospel, while also getting a part of the benefits in the International trade with the Indies. In that spirit were founding the following armored chartered companies in the early XVII century:
While originally were external initiatives that were unrelated to the Thirty Years' War, several political leaders—like Maurice of Nassau, Christian IV of Denmark, Gustavus Adolphus and specially the Cardinal Richelieu—tried to integrate those in the strategic plan of the Anti-Habsburg coallition to develop a common effort to defy Portuguese and Spanish Empire with their Mare clausum monopoly. For example:
The main protagonist of the Anti-Habsburg oversea operations were the Dutch East India Company (VOC), formed to develop trade routes with the East of Cape of Good Hope, and the [Dutch West Indies|West India Company|Dutch West India Company (WIC)], formed later to do the same with the West, both to overcome the Insufficient supply of the goods which the Dutch were accustomed to obtain from the Iberian Peninsula. Known by Dutch historians as the 'Great Design', control of this trade would not only be extremely profitable but also deprive the Spanish of funds needed to finance their war in the Netherlands. In 1621, the Dutch West India Company was formed to achieve this militar plan to control both the lucrative sugar plantations in Brazil and the Atlantic slave trade. Dutch maritime successes deprived the Spanish monarchy of revenue and ships, indirectly shaping land campaigns in Germany, Italy, the Low Countries and even the Iberian Peninsula. The principal objectives of the Dutch were on eroding Iberian trading capabilities and establishing their own commercial hegemony globally as part of a grand, multi-faceted strategy across Europe and the wider world that was planned to be achieved at the end of the Twelve Years' Truce. Such truce did not halt Dutch commercial and colonial expansion in the Caribbean and specially the East Indies, even though Spain had tried to impose the dissolution of the VOC as a condition of the treaty. The Dutch Republic's minor concessions about the elimination of plans to create a Dutch West India Company and a halt to Portuguese encroachment in Asia were coming to an end, now with the support of France and England at the beginning of the Thirty Years' War to execute its aggressive campaign of commercial expansion to the New World by using privateers. By the time the truce ended, the Dutch were the aggressors in this global war for commercial interests; the initiative for armed conflict almost always came from the Dutch side, taking advantage of the emphasis on a defensive strategy among the Iberians due to the economic problems of the Hispanic monarchy.
Knowing of the Dutch plans to strengthen their relationships with the enemies of Spain and the Catholic Church, the Iberian Union tried to apply a foreign policy of Divide and conquer by wanting to develop an Anglo-Spanish alliance against the Dutch, or a Franco-Spanish alliance against the Anglo-Dutch. However, the International isolation of the Habsburg monarchy, the Anti-Catholic sentiment in English Parliament and the Anti-Spanish sentiment there and the French court was too powerful. Also did not helped the inner struggles between the Council of Castile and the Council of Portugal, which could not agree in a common Foreign policy due to the Portuguese's misguided obsession of restoring the Tordesillas duopoly and their naval supremacy in Asia against Northern Europeans and the local Great Powers like the Gunpowder empires, as also Spanish attempts to suppress Goa municipal council to strengthen Hispanic Monarchy institutionality, like the Viceroy of Portuguese India, and dismiss Luso-Asians Jesuits authority and incomes.

Americas

In the colonies located at the Americas, the military tactics of the Anti-Habsburg coalition were mainly limited to supporting the privateering of their captains in the coastal zones of Ibero-America, in order to drain the Spanish treasury and fill their own. The main exception were the attempts to occupy the Lesser Antilles, North America, Southern Chile and specially Northeast Brazil, with some Indigenous help. The Dutch prince Maurice of Nassau believed that the ruin of Spain would be inevitable if any of its rich American colonies were taken from it, so in 1623-24 developed 2 big expeditions, one against the Viceroyalty of Peru and the other to Portuguese Brazil, the later with a bigger success.

Northeast Brazil

During the early phases of the Thirty Years' War, the Dutch West India Company targeted Portuguese Brazil, seizing Salvador da Bahia in 1624 and later capturing Pernambuco (1630), which was not returned until 1654. This led to the stablishment of Dutch Brazil, being its capital Mauritsstad, and conquering more territory in the Campaign of Porto Calvo while also gaining some indigenous allies like the Tupi people and the Tarairiú. In consecuence, Portuguese colonists, Mestiços and Afro-Brazilian militias mounted a Catholic resistance against the Dutch West India Company, while the Spanish Navy sent militar aid in operations like the Jornada dos Vassalos, the Battle of Abrolhos, Siege of Salvador (1638), Battle of Pernambuco (1640), etc. in which arrived Castilian, Portuguese, and Neapolitan joint forces to aid Brazilians and secure Amazon River from foreign incursions that could menace Peruvian Amazonia. Although Portugal was formally part of the Habsburg monarchy at this time, these colonial losses damaged the supply networks of the Iberian Empire, while the Brazilian production financed much of the Dutch military budget during the 1630s and early 1640s.
After the State of Brazil recognised John IV of Braganza in 1641, succeeded local Austracistas intrigues from Brazilian nobility to restore the Suzerainty to the Hispanic Monarchy in exchange of some privileges from the Governorate of the Río de la Plata in matter of supply of indigenous Guaraní workers, military defense against Dutch Brazil and autonomy. However the court of Madrid suspected in the intention of Bandeirantes in turning indigenous into slaves and expel Spanish colonists from Río de la Plata, like have been done by luso-Brazilians in former Spanish Guayrá.

Southern Chile and Peru

The Dutch prepared an expedition against the Viceroyalty of Peru, in which a Dutch conquest of Chile was considered as an imperative intermediate step to prepare for a larger invasion of Peru. Due to the Destruction of the Seven Cities at the Arauco War in 1598, the Anti-Spanish coalition developed a special interest to conquer Southern Chile, which had been desoccupied by Habsburg Spain after the Disaster of curalaba and also was controlled by hostile Mapuches and Huilliches who could been potential allies against the Spaniards from the Captaincy General of Chile. Such special interest was increased by the Dutch after the Bombardment of Valparaiso by Joris van Spilbergen, since they knew firsthand the Spanish weakness in the region, and even defeated the Spaniards leaded by Rodrigo de Mendoza at Cañete (Peru), and then sack Paita.
With such goal in mind, an expedition of 11 navies with 2000 soldiers was launched in 1623 by Jacques l'Hermite from Amsterdam to Southern Pacific Ocean, reaching Mala on May 5 of 1624 and then attacking Callao from May 9 by establishing a military blockade between San Lorenzo Island and La Punta to the mouth of the Rimac River. However, due to logistical problems and the Viceroy Diego Fernández de Córdoba's staunch resistance to preventing them from landing to resupply, the Dutch decided to withdraw in September 9 after the excessive number of deaths from famine and disease among the crew. The rest of the expedition, leaded now by Hugo Schapenham and Julius Wilhelm Van Verschoor, attacked Pisco, Acapulco and the Spanish East Indies until reaching Batavia.
Another attempt of the Dutch was done when John Maurice of Nassau sent in 1643 an expedition to Valdivia leaded by Hendrik Brouwer, who founded the colony of Brouwershaven in the ruins of Valparaíso, with the goal to conquer the Valdivia River valley. However, logistic problems made the Dutch colony inviable and were easily expelled.

Spanish Main and West Indies

Multiple confrontations in the Caribbean—such as Dutch, English, and French raids on Spanish settlements between New Spain and New Granada—further weakened the Habsburg maritime system. These engagements contributed to the progressive erosion of Spain's Atlantic hegemony during the period, as Dutch, English and French privateers used the war to attack Spanish shipping under legal ambiguity. One of the most consequential overseas events was the 1628 capture of the Spanish treasure fleet by Dutch admiral Piet Pieterszoon Heyn in the bay of Matanzas. The loss of American bullion was widely reported in German newspapers and perceived by contemporaries as having direct repercussions for Spanish military finance in Europe.
The Dutch West India Company succeeded in the Capture of Saint Martin (1633) and briefly occupied San Juan (Puerto Rico) in 1625, although most of the operations were focused in raid operations, like the Jan Janszoon van Hoorn's expedition of 1633 in Central America or the Expedition to the Unare in Venezuela. The English empire also take advantage of the Dutch-Spanish War by declaring war over Spain to occupy strategic island and enclaves in the Caribbean like St. Kitts, Barbados, Nevis, the Mosquito Coast of Nicaragua, and modern Belize.
However the Spaniards expelled English of St. Kitts in 1629 by taking advantage of Anglo-French struggles for the division of the island, and then the English failed in stablishing a colony in Providencia after the Iberian capture of 1641. Also the French colonists tried to take advantage of the Anglo-Dutch-Iberian conflicts, but were not as successfully, settling in Tortuga on modern Haiti after the expulsion from St. Kitts in 1629, but were expelled from there in 1635 by the Spaniards from Santo Domingo. Despite the military successes of late 1620s and early 1630s, the Spaniards did not leave a permanent military garrison on Saint Kitts, Nevis or Tortuga, so the English and French returned later and intensified their colonization efforts in the Caribbean, focusing on the Bahamas and Saint-Domingue.
Other Minor confrontations involved some Swedish-Finnish Piracy raids from New Sweden against Spanish West Indies. The Fogel Grip of the 1st Swedish expedition to North America in 1637-38, leaded by Peter Minuit and Måns Nilsson Kling, sacked some Spanish galleons near Saint Kitts to gain provisions. Also the Couronian colonizers at Tobago had some skirmishes with the colony of Spanish Trinidad during late 1630s and early 1640s, until Cornelius Caroon consolidated a colony in 1643.

Africa

In Africa there were mostly Anglo-Dutch raids against Portuguese Africans bases in the Coasts and Islands of the continent, while also some skirmishes between the Iberians versus the Ottomans and Danish-Norwegian. Portuguese São Tomé and Príncipe and Portuguese Cape Verde suffered most of those raids by Privateers. However, the Dutch West India Company developed bigger plans to conquer the Slave Coast of West Africa and Portuguese Angola to control the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

Northern Africa

North Africa became an important region for Habsburg Spain and Protestant Anti-Habsburgs from early 1600s, since the Expulsion of the Moriscos and the arrival of Anglo-Dutch corsairs, being a Northern Invasion for the local Berbers. On 1610s was conquered Larache and Medhya as Plazas de soberanía to counter the Anglo-Dutch raids and for a possible conquest of Morocco and Algeria. Despite, at the renewal of Flanders campaign during 1620s, the Castilian interest in the Mediterranean and Africa was marginalized in preference of North Sea and Northern Europe, being the Portuguese the ones focused in the region due to their economical interests in the Near East, although a lot of renegades from Ottoman Africa offered their services of spionage to the Iberian Union. Simultaneously, the Ottoman Empire and Venice were interested in supporting the Barbary corsairs from Morocco to challenge the Iberian Sphere of influence in the Mediterranean.
On early years of the 1625–1630 Anglo-Spanish War, Charles I of England sent diplomatic missions to Morocco to involucrate them in the Thirty Years' War and join the Anti-Habsburg Spain coalition, although the Cádiz expedition (1625) convince Moroccans to do not accept the offer, while their current situation of anarchy since the death of Ahmed al-Mansur in 1603 made imprudent to enter in conflict with the Spanish Empire. Despite, the Mujahidin and Hornachero warlord Sidi Al-Ayyashi in May 9 of 1627 accepted an offer of English alliance for 10 years, in which they used Anglo-Turkish piracy tactics, tried to capture Spanish Mehdya in 1628 and fortified Salé in 1637. Then the Moroccan ambassador Jawdar ben Abdellah reached another alliance with England in 1637 to support Mohammed esh-Sheikh against other Moroccan claimants and Marabouts.
During the Portuguese Restoration War, Tangier and Ceuta make allegiance to Habsburg Spain and rejected John IV of Braganza attempts to be recognised. However, a 1643 Braganzist Rebellion in Tangier forced such colony to secede from the Hispanic Monarchy and be annexed by the reconstituted Portuguese Monarchy, while Ceuta until today is a Spanish territory. This loyalty from Portuguese plazas at Morocco was influenced by their dependences in Subsidies from Andalusia and attempted negotiations from Braganzist Junta of Portugal to abandon those to Saadi Sultanate in exchange of Moroccan support in the European conflict. During those years, the Plazas de soberanía were occasionally raided by Muslim warlords or the Anti-Habsburg allies, taking advantage of Logistical problems. Other minor confrontations involved some skirmishes at the Canary Islands in which the Spaniards tried to increased the regulations over the entrancy of English, Dutch, French, Ottoman, Moroccan, German, Swedish or Danish navies, avoiding them to raid those for piracy or use the islands as a scale to reach the West or East Indies and so sabotage their Colonialist projects, fearing an occupation than turn the islands into bases. At the end, it was a Pyrrhic victory for Spain by maintaining its control in the Strait of Gibraltar and not losing territories at the cost of being severely damaged the Mediterranean fleet and having supply problems.

Western Africa

The struggle for control of West African affected the Atlantic slave trade, which was economically vital for the economy of Habsburg Portugal. The disruption of these routes undermined Portuguese Brazil and thereby the Portuguese segment of the Spanish Habsburg world monarchy, indirectly constraining funds available for the Habsburg land war in Germany. Although the Portuguese initially won the 1618 English expedition to the Gambia and the Battle of Elmina (1625), the Dutch gains at the Battle of Elmina (1637) and the Battle of Axim (1642) collapsed the Portuguese Gold Coast and strengthened both the Dutch West India Company and the Dutch Republic state treasury, something heavily needed for their War in Flanders. Simultaneously succeeded a corsair war in the region between Portuguese and Dutch, this ones allied with Lançados settlers and Privateers of Sephardic origin that were renegades of the Iberian Union.

Central Africa

Since 1511, the Kingdom of Kongo developed a pact of confederation with the Portuguese Empire, which turned Kongo into a military objective for the enemies of Portugal. The early colony of Portuguese Angola depended a lot in alliances with local rulers at the east of Luanda to reach the Hinterland and benefit of the trade of the Congo Basin. Discovering this Portuguese dependency in local rulers after the news of Kongo victory at 1623 Battle of Mbanda Kasi, the Dutch developed an Anti-Portuguese alliance between them, Kingdom of Ndongo and the Kingdom of Loango to expel the Portuguese from the region and stablish a Dutch colony there. Also influenced in Dutch intervention that Castilians were banned by Kingdom of Portugal to intervene in Aethiopia according to the Tordesillas treaty and Cortes of Tomar that were Fundamental laws of the Iberian Union.
Initially, the Dutch failed on 1624 during the invasions of Filips van Zuylen and Piet Hein to aid Pedro II of Kongo's Angolan Wars, focusing then on consolidate the Dutch conquest of Brazil and raid the Spanish Main before other African empress. Despite, the Dutch's luck changed in 1641 when they seized Portuguese slave trading hubs in Angola and São Tomé with support from Dutch Brazil and the local kingdoms of Kongo leaded by Garcia II of Kongo and Ndongo leaded by [Nzinga of Kingdom of Ndongo|Ndongo and Matamba|Queen Nzinga], the last one being the mastermind behind the largest anti-colonial alliance of Angolan states. The Portuguese now faced attacks from the Ndongo from the east, the Kongo from the north, the Dutch from the west coming by sea, and the Quiassama tribes from the south in the corridor between the Cuanza and Bengo rivers, concluding in the Battle of Kombi. However, the Portuguese recover the initiative after getting reinforcement from Portuguese Brazilians while also achieving a peace agreement and alliances with locals like the kingdom of Kasanje, getting the Portuguese to Recapture Angola at 1648.

East Africa

East Africa was an important region for Portuguese Empire due to being a necessary step to reach Indian Ocean and for the Ottomans was relevant to protect the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and impede Iberians to reach Red Sea. Despite the small intervention of the Ottomans in the Thirty Years' War in Eastern Europe, they were tacitly allied to the Protestant Anti-Habsburg Coalition and sought to help the Dutch Empire and the French in the name of their alliance, as also the formal state of Spanish-Ottoman war since 1515 and to oppose the Habsburg–Persian alliance.
Also there was a brief Spanish-Ottoman proxy conflict in the Ethiopian Empire during 1630s, in which the attempts of the Iberian-backed Jesuits to convert Ethiopians from Ethiopian Orthodox to Coptic Catholics through the pro-Iberian Susenyos I caused a Coptic Oriental Orthodox reaction leaded by the Anti-Catholic Fasilides, who won a war of succession in 1632. At the end, the Catholic Patriarch, Afonso Mendes, and the Jesuits were banned and their properties confiscated in 1634. Mendes tried to convince Philip IV of Spain until 1638 to launch an invasion of Ethiopia to end the Persecution of Catholics in Abyssinia, but that solicitation was rejected due to the resistance of Portuguese Goa to co-operate with Spaniards, as also the fear of open another war front for Habsburg Spain at the Thirty Years' War or to ruin the Holy See–Spain relations due to the increasement of Franciscan anti-Jesuitism.

South Africa

At the time, the region of Southern Africa was under the Portuguese Sphere of influence, specially through their Factory at Cape of Good Hope to secure the travel between Atlantic and Indian Ocean. In consequence, the Anti-Habsburg Protestant coalition tried to disrupt the Iberian reinforcements and shipping between Europe and Asia through attacks on Portuguese shipping around the Cape. The Dutch East India Company since early 1600s made constant raids against the Iberian navies in the region to interrupt the Carreira da Índia route and to secure their own travel routes to the Eastern Hemisphere, and when the Twelve Years' Truce ended, the newly formed Dutch West India Company joined to those raids to consolidate their own participation in the Atlantic slave trade. The Danish colonial navy also had some brief participations in this theater, like in the Sinking of the Flensborg.

Asia and Oceania

In Asia and Oceania, the Dutch East India Company (VOC), through the main bases in Surat and Batavia, and the English East India Company in lesser extent, fought the Portuguese Estado da Índia and the Spanish Captaincy General of Philippines for dominance over Indonesian and Indian Ocean spice routes. Battles were fought for rich colonies across a vast area such as Macau, the East Indies, Sri Lanka, Formosa, the Philippines, among others, in which notable confrontations included the struggles over Portuguese Malacca and Portuguese Ceylon. Although geographically distant, these victories increased Dutch commercial profits through Piracy in Asia and weakened the Portuguese Crown at a time when Portugal's resources were tied to Habsburg war aims. This also perjudicated the Portuguese economy and influenced in the causes of the Portuguese Restoration War. The importance of this Eastern Hemisphere theater was that the Anti-Habsburg coalition, leaded by the Anglo-Dutch, wanted to put an end to the Iberian's Mare clausum based in Tordesillas treaty's Papal concessions for an exclusive Portuguese sphere of influence in the Indo-Pacific, which was used to exclude other European Powers to participate in a free Maritime trade. Iberians justified this in Anti-Protestantism by securing Catholic monopoly in Asian people's Conversion to Christianism. However, due to the Spanish-Portuguese rivalry, despite the uneasy partnership, this campaigns became the most difficult for the Spanish Habsburgs in matter of Logistics, and the most fragile politically for the Iberian Union. A great flaw of Portuguese military in the East was that the eastern Indian Ocean was under a minimum control from Portuguese India authorities, depending a lot in private initiatives, and also maintaining an inner rivalry with Spanish Philippines.

Persian Gulf

Since the XVI Century, the Portuguese dominated the Persian Gulf, initially to secure positions to attack Basra Eyalet at the Ottoman–Portuguese confrontations, but then to control trade between Safavid Iran and Omani Empire with Eurasia and convert Middle Easterns to Roman Catholicism. The English East India Company, though less directly involved in the continental conflict, contributed to the general pressure on Portuguese trade networks through competition in Surat, the Persian Gulf, and Southeast Asia. This led to English intrigues against Portuguese presence in Asia, which would cause the 1621-1625 "Crisis of Hormuz" in the Iberian Union after the successes of the English East India Company to expel Portuguese from Qeshm and Hormuz Island in exchange of developing commercial Iran–England relations with the Safavids. All of this events were a reaction to Ruy Freire de Andrade's 1619 Preventive attack in Qeshm to expel the English through a reckless tactic of crossing Safavid coastal lands to Encircle the English while briefly closing maritime communications between Iran and the Strait of Hormuz. However, the plan would only succeed if the English naval presence in the Persian Gulf was annihilated, preventing them from seeking an alliance with the angered Safavids for a certain revenge that actually happened in the Anglo-Persian capture of Qeshm and of Hormuz on 1621–22, in which the survivor English ships transported the Iranian land army to restore their Suzerainty in Qeshm and then expel the Portuguese from Southern Iran at 1625. The Portuguese in vengeance started to support Ottoman Iraq against Safavid Iraq at the Ottoman–Persian War (1623–1639), sending their armada to the 1624 Siege of Baghdad, and also developed an alliance with the Imamate of Oman in the other side of Arabian Gulf to counter Shah Abbas I's expansionism.
Despite that the Council of Portugal desired the formation of a Castilian-Portuguese joint force to retake Ormuz and declare war over Iran, the Hispanic Monarchy in the Junta of Persia priorized a diplomatic approach, not wanting to harm the Habsburg–Persian alliance, which angered the Portuguese, who ignored the deplorable state of the finances of Portugal and Castile, which were the arguments offered by the Council of Castile in avoiding to start a war with the Anglo-Iranians that would isolate more the Habsburgs in a critical situation like the Thirty Years' War. In the other hand, although the English monarchy was not originally involved and initially George Villiers considered to demand the EIC for threatening Ibero-English relations, he and King James I were bribed with 10,000 pounds to get Diplomatic protection and support in establishing a monopoly over Persian silk trade on the Cape route, which soured relations between both monarchies for such conspiracy against Iberian monopoly, leading to the political tensions of 1625 and then the English intervention in the Eighty Years' War (1621–1648) by the approachment between the Crown and the House of Commons. The next engagement was the Battle off Hormuz (1625) in which Portuguese stabilized their control over the Persian Gulf and reached a truce with Safavids but with heavy costs and without being capable to impede the arrival of non-Portuguese European merchants from the EIC and the VOC since 1629. Also the Dutch take advantage of the English victories among the Safavid dynasty by developing trade agreements and stablishing their own Factories in the region.

India and Sri Lanka

Since the arrival of the Portuguese presence at Sri Lanka in 1518, there was an intermittent conflict in which the local powers clashed with Portuguese Ceylon, who take advantage of the rivalries and animosities among the Sinhalese kingdoms. Eventually, European Powers hostile to Habsburgs arrived in the region and tried to stablish alliances and agreements with those Anti-Portuguese locals at early 1600s, mainly Dutch during Eighty Years' War. However, after the Portuguese conquest of the Jaffna kingdom, the Lusitan hegemony was consolidated by late 1610s. So, the Kingdom of Kandy sought help from the VOC and briefly from the Danish East India Company at the 1618-22 Ove Gjedde's Expedition.
The Raja of Kandy, Senarath Adahasin, convinced Crappé to declare war against the Portuguese in 1619, which lead to a militar campaign at the Coromandel Coast and Northern Sri Lanka that also involucrated the Thanjavur Nayak kingdom in the side of Dano-Dutch Protestants. Although the Danish offensive was a failure, the Portuguese launched a new campaign in 1622 to get rid off them definitively from Trincomalee, in which another consequence was the destruction of the Hindu Koneswaram Temple.
Despite the Danish defeat, the Kandyans defeated Portugal at Randeniwela and at Gannoruwa. Then Rajasinha II in 1635-38 made made an alliance with Adam Westerwolt that would conclude in the Siege of Galle (1640) in which Dutch Ceylon was formed and Portuguese declined in the region. At the same years, at the Indian subcontinent, happened Iberian-Protestant clashes like the 1621-23 Anglo-Dutch raids in Western India, Adam Westerwolt would launch a blockage of Goa which would climate in the battles of Battle of Goa (1638) and the Battle of Mormugão (1639), the latter would result in his death. Although the VOC succeeded in doing Piracy raids against Portuguese India and even periodically blockaded Goa since 1603 to 1644, the Dutch failed in conquer the Jewel of Portuguese presence in Asia despite having help of local powers like the Sultanate of Bijapur. However, the Dutch Bengal did other successes by blocking trade between Portuguese factories in Malabar Coast and the ones in Ming China, isolating Goa from Macau by late 1620s.
At the end, the Dutch captured the Portuguese settlements in Galle, Trincomalee, Batticaloa, Negombo and Colombo in Sri Lanka; and the Portuguese factories in Thoothukudi, Negapattinam, Kollam, Kodungallur, Kannur and Kochi in India. In the other hand, after the Ormuz and Ceylon defeats, the Estado da India entered in a political crisis, generating complaints in Portugal against the corruption and vices of the arrogant Fidalgo authorities at Goa and their rejection to let Castilians to intervene through the Union of Arms or to open trade with the EIC or VOC, causing the Spaniards to accuse them of demanding everything from Spanish Empire without offering anything to resolve their crisis due to their disloyalty and incapability of reforming the "drain" that Portuguese Asia represented, increasing the inner tensions in the Iberian Union that lead to Portuguese Independence. Brief solutions were the Luso-English truce of 1634 at Surat and the establishment of the Portuguese East India Company to let non-Portuguese capitals participate in Goa and extract more benefits from India, but the lack of support from Private business and Luso-Asians merchants, as also Anti-Jewish laws and Fuero regulations, led to its downfall. A 1640 proposal to open Free trade between Portuguese India and the rest of the Spanish Empire to save the Iberian-Asian commerce was rejected by the Luso-Indians authorities and was a reason for them to support the Forty Conspirators and acclaim the Braganzas in September 9 of 1641.

East Indies

The most complex theater of the war was the one involving the East Indies, as it was the one with the most profitable benefits due to the Spice islands and Chinese trade. After the 1606 conquest of the Moluccas and occupation of Fort Kastela, the Spaniards became key players in the East Indies and during the Twelve Years' Truce reinforced their position in 1609 by building Fort Tahula and Fort Manado for active confrontation against the Dutch, something which happened during the rule of Juan de Silva in Spanish Philippines on 1611, as the Dutch occupied Fort Oranje and Fort Tolukko to fight against Spain, allied to the Sultanate of Tidore. However, this theater of war officially started when the VOC conquered Jakarta in 1619 against the Sultanate of Mataram, making it their base in the east and forming the Dutch East Indies. Through Batavia (Dutch East Indies), the Dutch launched big offensives against the Portuguese India at Malacca, even stablishing new colonies like Dutch Formosa that menaced Portuguese Macau and the Spanish Captaincy General of the Philippines at Manila, which received help from New Spain and Peru in terms of economic resources and Indian auxiliary forces, as also was very important the recruitment of Indigenous peoples of Philippines and of Indonesia in the Spanish army as also Japanese and Chinese Filipinos volunteers. Also the Dutch made alliances with local Austronesians like Johor, Aceh, Ternate and Moro peoples. Minor allies were the Ottomans and Safavids by sending economic support to the VOC-Muslim allies.
Aside of Brazil, the East Indies theater was the only front of the War in which Spaniards and Portuguese had a degree of military cooperation at the South Seas from Malacca strait to Philippine Sea, instead of having purely separate strategies against the Protestant Anti-Habsburg forces in the zone. The Portuguese Goa authorities cooperated reluctantly and constantly hesitated to obey Council of Portugal requisites while the Portuguese Macau tried to integrate more with the Spanish East Indies.

On the Portuguese side

There were 2 main fronts, on the Indonesian Archipelago and the Malay Peninsula:Strait of Malacca: This theater was the most important due to the rivalry between Portuguese Malacca and Dutch Batavia for the control of the East Indies, in which another factor was that such region connected the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. Previously, the governor of Philippines, Juan de Silva, sent an expedition to aid Portuguese at the Singapore Strait in 1616, but bad Climate and a Portuguese defeat by Dutch-Johor forces ruined the Java enterprise, although the VOC also could not domain Singapore in the next years. During 1623–1627 happened a lot of Anglo-Dutch attempts to conquer Malacca, but those failed and then the Anglo-Dutch changed their strategy in doing constant raids and a Blockade of Malacca leaded by Cornelis Symonz to disrupt communications with Mainland Southeast Asia, leading to the 1630 Battle of Jambi. Those raids were accompanied by the Battle of Langat River and of Duyon River by the Acehnese allies. This raids and blockades harmed terrible the colonial economy and ruined their Logistics for defenses, in which the consequence was the 1641 Siege of Malacca when the VOC finally defeated Portuguese and stablished the colony of Dutch Malacca, causing a terrible psychological humiliation for the Portuguese. Being legally the 1641 Battle of Malacca the last significative military engagement of the Iberian Union in Portuguese Asia, such defeat influenced in the decision of Portuguese Indonesians to accept John IV of Braganza and reject Habsburg Spain, hoping the end of Protestant Anti-Habsburg raids from the Thirty Years' War.Portuguese Indonesia: After Solor island was lost in 1613, the colonial government of Portuguese Insulindia moved to Flores island, which started to be raided by the Dutch East Indies' navy. In 1646, the Insulindia capital moved to Kupang at Western Timor and developed a Captaincy general, although very weak but serving as the seed for the development of Portuguese Timor colony.

On the Spanish side

There were 3 main fronts, on Taiwan, Philippines and northern Indonesia:Northern Maluku-Minahasa Peninsula: By 1618, Spanish East Indies occupied Tidore, southern Ternate, northern Sulawesi and some parts of Halmahera and of Morotai, while the Dutch East Indies had inestability due to rebellions in Makian, Siau, Ambon and the Banda, but also had more economic benefits than the Spaniards under Deficit and suffering Dutch naval blockades, becoming the riskiest and most costly territory for the Spaniards. When the Thirty Years' War started, French and Danish were in Sulawesi by 1620–21, so Alonso Fajardo de Tenza sent constantly relief fleets to aid the Spanish Moluccas and stablished alliances with Makassar while abandoning costly positions like the forts in Jailolo and Manado. In reaction, the Dutch strengthen their alliance with the Sultanate of Ternate to invade those forts and launch raids through Kora kora ships against Iberian Galleons, while receiving aid from the corsairs Van Verschoor and Schapenham. The Spaniards answered by occupying Fort Marieko in 1621, then Fort Kalamata in 1625 while raiding Dutch Celebes and receiving aid from Madrid. The death of Saidi Berkat in 1628 ruined a plan of peaceful reconquest to expel the Dutch that were in a precarious position by not receiving reinforcements from Holland. Juan Niño de Tabora sent a fleet that was defeated by the VOC in the 1627 Battle of Ternate, but Pedro de Heredia triumphed in a revenge at 1628 and in in 1629. During 1630s-40s, the use of larger ships favoured Spaniards to overcome Dutch raids and intervene to aid Cachil Varo against pro-Dutch Cachil Borotalo in a Tidore's succession war, as also the king of Manados against rebels. More clashes succeeded in Fort Oranje until 1651 when arrived the news about the Peace of Westphalia. Although the Spaniards triumphed over the Dutch raids, it was a Pyrrhic victory as Hamza of Ternate expanded its territory and rejected Vassalage while the Spanish costs to secure their territories from Dutch Malacca made it economically inviable, abandoning Maluku at 1656–1662 after Koxinga's menace of war and the betrayal of Tidore.Spanish Philippines: Since early 1600s the Philippines were raided by the Dutch Empire, being the most important confrontation the 1617 Battle of Playa Honda. Then, the Anglo-Dutch ships, aided by Sino-Japanese Wokou and Moro pirates, constantly blockaded Manila since 1620s and harmed the communications of Manila with the rest of the Iberian Union. Simultaneously, the VOC with Ternate tried to develop an Anti-Catholic coalition with local Muslim powers to expel the Spaniards from the Malay Archipelago, causing a VOC intervention in the Spanish–Moro conflict located in Southern Philippines, leading to the Spanish campaigns in Lanao (1637–1639), in which the Spaniards had aid from Indigenous Filipinos, Siau, Ternatean Christians, New Spain, Santo Domingo and Peru to put an end to Moro pirates. At the end the Catholic alliance won and led to the 1638-46 Spanish occupation of Jolo, but the unification of Mindanao Muslims succeeded in expel the Spaniards with Dutch help in the long term. The effects of the military efforts in the Pacific Ocean put an end to the Captaincy General of the Philippines' expansionist plans in Southeast Asia, abandoning the Spaniards their Sphere of influence in Borneo and Maluku while retreating from Sulu Archipelago, focusing instead in professionalize military the Filipinos and do improvements in the administration and economy of the colonies that Spain already had.Formosa: On 1624, Dutch Formosa was stablished in modern Tainan to control the Taiwan Strait to reach Ming China and also damaging the Philippines–Taiwan route to harm the Captaincy General of the Philippines' commerce and security. In reaction, the Spaniards settled in Cape Santiago on 1626 and started to colonize northern Taiwan in Quelang to reforce the China–Philippines route and the Japan–Spain relations menaced critically by the Dutch interference. The Spanish Formosa was colonized by Spanish Filipinos aided by Kapampangan, Ibanag and Ilocano people, who served in the Colonial troops. The presence of the Spanish in the north and the Dutch in the south brought the rivalry between the two powers to the region. The Spanish were successful in repelling the first Dutch naval attack in 1630, organized by Pieter Nuyts. However, the Dutch and Sino-Japanese pirates managed to prevent annual supply ships from delivering provisions, which caused the Spanish on the island to venture inland in search of supplies, which led in 1636 to an uprising by the indigenous people of the Tamsui area that destroyed the Spanish fortification, killing 30 of its 60 defenders, but it was later rebuilt. Then, the next significate clash was the 1641 Battle of San Salvador with Spanish victory, but 1642 Battle of San Salvador ended the Spanish influence in Taiwan and consolidated the one of the Dutch, while also indirectly of the Han Taiwanese, which were already clashing with the Dutch at Liaoluo Bay since 1630s.

China

Since early 1600s, Dutch and English forces reached Ming China trying to stablish China–Netherlands and China–England economical relationships, and by 1623 to 1636 the Portuguese lost 500 navies at colonial Macau due to their raids and aggressions, which included a blockade of Macau and Manila by an Anglo-Dutch navy commanded by Willem Janszoon. These Anglo-Dutch attacks caused an increasement of collaboration between Portuguese Macau and the Captaincy General of the Philippines, integrating Macau to the Manila galleon route and occasionally receiving Castilian auxiliary forces and supplies. One of the most important raids was the 1622 Battle of Macau, in which the VOC tried to conquer Macau to force China to open its market to them, but the Spanish-Portuguese forces succeeded.
Simultaneously at the South China Sea started a series of Sino-Dutch conflicts, which were a consequence of Dutch attempts to force Ming China to close his commerce with Portuguese Macau and Spanish Philippines, demanding to open Free trade with the Dutch and the rest of Europe. This led to an informal alliance between Mings and Iberians, while the angered Dutch allied with Asian pirates. Some important Sino-Dutch skirmishes were the Battle of Liaoluo Bay. An indirect consequence of this struggles were that the Imperial Chinese authorities give permission for Portuguese Macau to fortify itself and improve its walls to defend Southern China from Wokou pirates backed by the Dutch.
Despite Macau triumphed in securing its military defense through the war despite being one of the weakest Portuguese colony in the region, such was a Pyrrhic victory as Macau ended in economical ruin around the 1640s due to the ruin of Goa-Macau Indian trade, the Macau-New Spain trade and the Macau-Japan trade caused by the consequences of Dutch expansionism and Spanish crisis at the Thirty Years' War. Also Macau situation worsened by the contemporary Ming-Qing Conflict. All of this concluded in the 1640-42 Macau political crisis due to the doubts in colonial authorities to recognise John IV of Braganza or maintain allegiance to Philip IV of Habsburg Spain ; a Macau proposal of 1642 in which a Castilian-Filipino Presidio should be stablished in their city and free Mobilization for Macau people to Manila was briefly considered as a compromise to maintain the Spanish Habsburg Suzerainty, but the Cortes in Madrid rejected it due to the previous confiscation of property against Spaniards that did Macau authorities. After that, Macau joined the Anti-Habsburg coalition and the Anglo-Dutch navies began to supply them and act as intermediaries, although in 1644 and 1646 some Spanish Filipinos instigated an Austracist revolts to re-annex Macau to Spain, but failed and the Portuguese punishment was the total expulsion of Spaniards merchants and missionaries from Portuguese India.

Proxy conflicts

There were another conflicts in which there was an indirect participation of a European Power backing a Local Power against another European Power which was in opposing sides at the time of the Thirty Years' War:In India: The effects of the Torstenson War (1643–45) had influence over the Danish East India Company, as the defeated Danish Navy could not dispatch new ships to Tranquebar for approximately 3 decades, making Danish India a de facto independent society that depended of their own funds to its defense. Also, during the Dano-Mughal War, due to the Swedish-Dutch alliance in reaction to a Dano-Spanish alliance to limit their commerce in the Øresund, the properties of the Danish-Norwegian factories in the Bay of Bengal increasingly felt under Dutch Bengal control and after the Peace of Bromsebro, tolls for Dutch ships were significantly reduced in Danish India. Another Dano-Dutch conflict at the time was the Siege of Dansborg (1644) by the Dutch-backed Thanjavur Nayak kingdom, a consequence of the Dano-Carical Conflict against a Dutch-Portuguese brief alliance. Also a minor conflict was the Danish civil war between Willem Leyel and Bernt Pessart, which involved the parties of the Thirty Years' War.In Bengal: There was the Burmese–Portuguese and Mughal–Portuguese conflicts in which the Dutch sent some aid to local powers hostile to Portuguese, like in the Siege of Hooghly. Also there were struggles in Hooghly between Mughal and Anglo-Dutch traders about the economical rights granted by the Farmans to Europpeans, which the Portuguese take advantage by associating with local Arakan traders and factions in the Mughal Court. In the end, the Portuguese Factory at Sandwip Island became the center of Portuguese influence in the Bengal region after the fall of Portuguese settlement in Chittagong, while loss support from the Royal power in Lisbon due to its Informal economic nature.In Indochina: There were 3 main conflicts:

Results

For the Anti-Habsburg Protestant Coallition

For the Pro-Habsburg Iberian Alliance

For the Indigenous and colonial populations

Effects on European conflict and Propaganda

For contemporary European news media and chronicles, the global nature of the Thirty Years' War was a very prominent idea, as seventeenth-century observers frequently placed the military and political events of this conflict in a Transatlantic and even Global frame, reporting events from Ibero-America, South-West Africa and the East Indies alongside the campaigns in Central Europe. Periodical newspapers, newsletters and manuscript chronicles linked transoceanic events—such as the Dutch invasions of Brazil and Chile, Revolts in Mexico, Portuguese-Kongo Wars, the arrival of the Spanish treasure fleet with Peruvian silver in Seville—to European military and fiscal crises, treating them as causally relevant to the fate of armies and states involucrated in the HRE's great war, seeing them as events that could alter the balance of power in Europe by weakening or strengthening metropolitan partners and so, perceiving distant events into a single narrative of universal crisis as transoceanic economic flows and colonial warfare had observable impacts on European military capacity and diplomacy.
This printed and manuscript news culture created a discourse of simultaneity and connectedness that integrated the disturbances in colonial possessions into the temporal narrative of the conflict and helped contemporaries perceive the fighting as part of a wider, interlinked contest rather than as an exclusively Local conflict or purely European war, recounting the European events that "led to the bloody Bohemian War which dragged on continuously for many years, creeping across virtually the entire world and devastating all the lands" with several Oversea theatres that had structural effects on the European conflict. For example, the importance of the Battle of Matanzas Bay, in which a Spanish treasure fleet was captured by the Dutch in Cuba, having immediate implications for troop pay, mercenary financing and the diplomatic leverage of the Imperial Side in benefit of the Protestant Coallition.