This is a list of battles of the Eighty Years' War. Introduction Royalist forces Until August 1567, the government of the Habsburg Netherlands, in the hands of Governor-General Margaret of Parma and her Stadtholders, was using local Netherlandish troops, such as schutterijen as city guards. Military law enforcement included the Bandes d'ordonnance (), elite heavy cavalry formations drawn mostly from the Flemish (Dutch-speaking) and Walloon (French-speaking) aristocracy. The newly created Army of Flanders arrived in the Low Countries in August 1567 under the command of the Duke of Alba, who immediately carried out substantial military reforms. Alba reduced the prominence of the Bandes d'ordonnance (in part because he distrusted the local nobility) in favour of the well-known Habsburg multi-ethnic infantry regiments, the tercios, alongside Spanish light cavalry (the latter comprised just 8% of the army by 1573). Alba introduced Spanish (Castilian) as the language of communication in the Army of Flanders, and Spaniards received higher pay and most of the key positions in his high command. Alba had a low opinion of soldiers from other ethnicities (called "nations") in the tercios, such as Italians, Flemish and Walloons (flamencos or nativos, as the Spaniards called them), and Germans, and preferred relying on Spanish infantrymen, but the actual share of Spanish soldiers in the Army of Flanders – which was at one of the highest totals of the war during Alba's tenure – was a little over 15%. There were also Burgundian, Scottish, Irish, English and Portuguese "nations" at various stages of the war, and intermittently units from other ethnic backgrounds. Mutiny due to lack of troop payment was a common problem in the 1570s, which could result in increasing civilian sympathies for the rebel cause (notably the 1576 Sack of Antwerp leading to the Pacification of Ghent), while in the late 1580s and especially 1590s, ethnic tensions between the commanders of the "nations" (such as the Italian Parma, the German Mansfeld and the Spanish Fuentes) led to power struggles that left the Army of Flanders divided and largely paralysed. Rebel forces The rebels, who initiated their first actions of physical force during the Beeldenstorm (August–October 1566, initially mostly directed at Catholic Church property rather than governmental forces) started out as disparate riotous mobs of poorly armed and poorly trained but well-organised Calvinists, originally predominantly from industrial centres in western Flanders. On 14 December 1566, the Habsburg Netherlandish government declared the city