The 1588 Armada war was an ideological total war across all Christendom.

Evidence

To minds formed by A. T. Mahan and the theorists of empire the issue in 1588 seemed to be the command of the ocean seas and the opportunity to exploit the newly discovered routes to Asia and the Americas. To such minds it was rational and right to fight for economic interests, but absurd and rather shocking to fight about the relative validity of conflicting systems of ideas. … The men of 1588 did not think so. To them the clash of the English and Spanish fleets in the Channel was the beginning of Armageddon, of a final struggle to the death between the forces of light and the forces of darkness. … Ideological wars are revolutionary wars, easily transcending national boundaries, and always, at least in intention and in the imaginations of the men involved in them, total wars. — Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 22

Categorization

• XREF: Contrasts the Mahan economic-determinist reading with a crusade reading; resonates with how other Crusades and wars of religion were total wars. — connects to: The men of 1588 saw the Armada clash as a total ideological war. — Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 22; Spain conscripted every third man for the Armada campaign — Richard Bruce Wernham, The Expedition of Sir John Norris and…, 928; Europe framed the Armada battle as a judicial duel with God as judge — Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 897
• SEED: Article angle: the 1890-vs-1940 lens shift as a case study in how historians’ present conditions determine which past facts become visible.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 22

Library Connections

• The men of 1588 saw the Armada clash as a total ideological war. #corroborates (0.95) — Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 22

Broader Connections

• Europe framed the Armada battle as a judicial duel with God as judge #expands (0.80) — Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 897
• Spain conscripted every third man for the Armada campaign #expands (0.60) — Richard Bruce Wernham, The Expedition of Sir John Norris and…, 928