posted 08-31-05 02:11 PM EDT (US)
)This article outlines Dutch history up to 1850. It only details the periods of Dutch independence.
The territory nowadays known as the Netherlands have a curious history, rising quickly from a mere province in the Habsburg territory to one of the most prosperous parts of Europe, and a major political power. However, few know the many incarnations of Dutch independence. This article aims to give the reader a good overview of what, how, and why.
The Batavian Republic was an interesting experiment. Because it was a satellite state of France, it needed to follow the same policies. But they were introduced in a more considerate manner (partly because the country, contrary to France, had already been a republic to start with). Government was centralised, mostly by curbing provincial power (the principle foundation of the original Dutch Republic). A National Consultation was introduced, a type of early democracy, allowing citizens to voice their concerns. And perhaps, most importantly, the Catholics, one third of the country’s population, were made full citizens. Before his accession, Napoleon had told Louis he should try to be Dutch above all. This was also Louis’s intention, and Dutch welfare was the spear point of his reign. Napoleon’s Continental System, forbidding trade with the United Kingdom, put an intolerable strain on the Dutch economy (which was bad enough without it) and Louis did little to prosecute smugglers or prevent trade with the British. This proved the only boost to Dutch economy at the time. Louis tried as best he could to improve the economy, but with little avail. He introduced the Gulden as national currency, replacing the locally minted coinage. He also asked Napoleon to pay back a debt of 20 million Francs he owed the country. The Emperor refused and instead demanded the Dutch should pay more.
In 1579 the Provincial Estates of seven different Dutch provinces (Guelders, Utrecht, Holland, Zeeland, Overijssel, Groningen and Friesland) signed a remarkable document, the Union of Utrecht. It proclaimed the provinces would, to the outside world, act as one province, while leaving the individual rights of the provinces and cities in tact. This was a direct attack on Spain. Philip II, King of Spain, had until then been seen as ruler of the provinces, but the Union made it clear the provinces recognised no higher authority than the States General. The States General being the collective Provincial Estates. These decided foreign policy, military affairs and finances belonging to those. The separate Provincial Estates could set their own policy on all other matters. The Union of Utrecht can be seen as the foundation of the Dutch Republic.
Since 1568 the Dutch had been rebelling against the Spanish governments, for several reasons. The primary reason was Philip’s attempt to centralise government of the provinces into the hands of his trusted advisors. This threatened the power of the Dutch cities and provinces, as well as the local nobles, who were in disfavour in the Spanish court. The King in stead gave all positions of any significance to Spaniards and Italians. Apart from thus alienating the middle and upper class, the lower class was outraged by Philip’s religious policies. The Reformation was going on in the Netherlands, and while the provinces advocated moderation and freedom of conscience, allowing everyone to follow their own religion, Philip II was a devout Catholic, urging on the persecution of the new Protestants. More than a few ended up on the pyre, despite attempts of the provincial and city governments to prevent this. It can be seen there was plenty of support for rebellion.
As the Spanish army, at the time the most famous in the world, slowly advanced on the heartland of the Dutch rebels, the provinces of Holland, Zeeland and Friesland, the Dutch became increasingly desperate. Hanging on in their many well-fortified cities, the Spanish army made little progress. A number of cities fell, such as Naarden, Maastricht and Haarlem, after lengthy sieges. As Philip II was low on finances, there was no pay for the troops but whatever they could loot from the conquered cities. The troops became notoriously cruel looters, and this further determined the Dutch to hold out. In 1573-74 two important sieges, those of Alkmaar and Leiden, failed. The Spanish had to retreat, and this allowed the provinces of Guelders, Groningen, Overijssel and Drenthe to join the revolt.
By 1600, the situation had stabilised. From then on, only minor border changes would take place – though if they did, they were generally in favour of the Dutch Republic. The reason for this was Dutch generalship. During the early years of the Revolt, William of Orange had taken charge of the rebellion. His leadership had been inspiring, and he had been elevated to the position of Stadholder, military and more or less political leader – comparable perhaps to George Washington’s position during the American Revolution. After William had been outlawed by the King of Spain and the Pope, and subsequently assassinated by a Catholic, William’s son, Maurits, became the new Stadholder. Introducing a series of military reforms based on old Roman regulations, he greatly improved the Dutch army. He did not neglect siege warfare either, and his engineers thought up platforms to carry cannons, so they could be used even in swampy or sandy terrain.
The Spanish, on the other hand, were fighting on multiple fronts, and for primary means of income it had only its insecure American territories. Defeating the Dutch was therefore not Spain’s main concern, and in 1648 the two countries made peace, Spain recognising the Dutch Republic as an independent state.
Already in the 17th century, barely independent, the Dutch became one of the most prosperous countries in Europe. This was mostly due to its trade. In the 15th and 16th centuries, the Dutch provinces had created a surplus of dairy products. They took the surplus to the Baltic, by ship. It turned out the Baltic was also in need of salt and other products, so the Dutch started making extra trips past Portugal and Gascony, where natural sea salt could be harvested. The Dutch trade network slowly expanded over time, and Dutch merchants got ever richer. Importing wood from Scandinavia to build more ships, then using these to carry raw goods from far-off places back to the Republic, where they were often further improved (the salt used to pickle herring, for example), thus allowing for considerable profits.
Because of these profits, by the 17th century trade with Asia became possible. A number of people would invest in a journey, together paying for the ship, crew, and wares. When the ship returned from its long and hazardous journey, the profits would be shared between the investors. Thus, in the Dutch Republic, shareholding and the stock exchange were created and this powered the Dutch economy for decades to come.
The Dutch interests in the New World and Asia were primarily centred on trade. Colonisation was of little importance, and would only really take place in the case of New Amsterdam, later renamed New York by the British. The Dutch concentrated on setting up trading posts, which were set up all over Asia and in the West Indies. The VOC, the Dutch East India Company, conquered the city of Jayakarta, renaming it Batavia, for their East Asian headquarters. Batavia, before then not much of a city, grew considerably in size, attracting merchants from all over Asia, including a large number of Chinese.
The Dutch Republic prospered because of the successful trading, but money was not the only thing it brought forth: it also stimulated the arts. Painters, especially, profited from this. Thousands of paintings were made in the period, and foreign observers were surprised even the poorest households had more than one painting gracing the wall (of course usually not of Rembrandt quality). Standards of living were generally high, and freedom of conscience was assured. Although non-Calvinists had to pay to be able to have churches, they were entirely free to choose their own religion, and practise it as long as it didn’t harm anyone. Less lax than the rights many citizens enjoy in the western world today, at the time the Republic was the most tolerant country in the world. There being little censuring, many controversial British, French, German and other works were published in the small country.
Philosophers like Descartes, a Frenchman, and Spinoza, a Jew, found safe places in Dutch society.
Science, too, fared well, and Dutch inventions such as the microscope are still being used extensively today.
Now we know a bit more of Dutch culture and the reason behind the country’s economic success, we can continue where we left. The Dutch Republic, at peace with Spain, had expanded economically and politically, controlling lands all over Asia and the Americas. The other major countries of Europe were only now recovering from a harsh economical and political period. The United Kingdom and France had both been ravaged by civil war, Spain’s economy was grinding to a halt, the German states had just ended the Thirty Years War after much bloodshed. One of the reasons of Dutch success was in fact the total inability of all other major European powers.
Naturally, when the other states started recuperating, in the 1650s, they could not help but view the wealthy Dutch Republic with some jealousy. In the first two Anglo-Dutch Wars, the British tried to wrest control from Dutch trading supremacy. Although the British captured New Amsterdam, the Dutch strengthened their hold in the West Indies as well as in Indonesia and the Baltic. Even more damaging to the British was the Raid on the Medway, where the Dutch fleet under Michiel de Ruyter captured the British flagship and brought the war far closer to London than the British had feared. The Dutch government was widely popular, and in a controversial move decided to stop the Orange family, the descendants of William of Orange, from becoming Stadholders again.
The British threat halted, France became the next, and more tenacious, opponent of the Dutch Republic. Louis XIV, the Sun King, became succeeded his father when he himself was only four years old. When his principal minister, Cardinal Mazarin, died in 1661, Louis himself became Prime Minister, aged 23, and until his death in 1715 he personally governed the country.
Louis was obsessed with the security of France, aiming to expand his country to the natural boundaries. In Alsace-Lorraine the Vosges mountains formed the barrier, the mountains of the Alps and the Pyrenees protected the south. Only the north was virtually unprotected. Attempting to conquer the Spanish territory south of the Schelde river (bordering the Dutch Republic), he sought to solidify his northern defences.
The Dutch, together with the Swedish and British, didn’t much like the prospect of an even larger France, and forced the Kingdom, through politics alone, to abandon its plans. Louis XIV was angry to see his plans fail, and blamed the Dutch. These had been loyal allies of France since the foundation of the Republic, and Louis saw their opposition to his scheme as treason. Bribing the Swedish to remain neutral and the British as well as the Bishops of Cologne and Münster to actively help him, he invaded the Dutch Republic in 1672, quickly conquering the eastern territories of Guelders, Overijssel, Drenthe and Utrecht. The German Bishops were halted at Groningen, where they sat down for a long siege. Louis himself stopped at Utrecht, to conduct negotiations with the Dutch, demanding nothing less than a complete surrender.
But the Dutch used the time effectively, and in that week they flooded their lands, creating a water barrier between the provinces of Holland and Zeeland and the French army. The Dutch admiral, Michiel de Ruyter, defeated combined French-British fleets several times, thus preventing the landing of British and French troops in Holland.
In an act of barbarity, Dutch citizens lynched the anti-Orangist prime-minister of the Netherlands. Fearing open revolt, the government quickly appointed the young Prince of Orange as new Stadholder. This was what the people had wanted, and William III rose to the occasion with considerable success. Rallying the citizens as well as the troops, he began a counter-attack against the French, capturing Naarden. The German army at Groningen meanwhile had been defeated in a most humiliating fashion, losing two-thirds of its total size in the siege, withdrawing from the war. The northerners from Friesland and Groningen reclaimed Drenthe and steadily made their way south.
The Dutch, now allied with the powerful German state of Brandenburg (which would later become the Kingdom of Prussia) forced the French to abandon the country altogether in 1673, when they captured Bonn, effectively cutting off all French supply lines.
For forty years, western Europe would be a bloody place, marked by nearly continuous warfare with only intermittent times of peace. William III proved to be firmly anti-French, and Louis proved to be firmly anti-William. In a personal rivalry of sorts, they both sought allies (William with more success than Louis) causing the wars to drag on and on. In 1688 William III even became King of the United Kingdom, replacing King James II in the Glorious Revolution.
But the Dutch Republic, the United Kingdom, Austria and Brandenburg could not decisively beat solitary France, and each of the wars ended in a draw.
The wars even continued after William III died (the famous Spanish Succession War, where Marlborough rose to greatness) and would last until Louis’s death, in 1715. By then, all of the major countries were in considerable debt, and this created a new period of peace – but not prosperity. Dutch economy, despite being still relatively strong, only declined from then on, and the Peace of Aachen, in 1748, marking the end of a relatively minor war (the War of the Austrian Succession) brought no good terms to the Dutch.
As the 18th century progressed, wages fell and the quality of life deteriorated markedly in the Dutch Republic. Unsurprisingly, this caused a lot of social dissent, not only among the lower classes. The utter failure of the Dutch navy in the fourth Anglo-Dutch War (1780-1784) was a slap in the face to the nation and its people, and the exquisite lifestyle of the Stadholder, William V, irritated many.
The American Revolution proved inspiring to the Dutch population as well as to the French, and in many cities the revolutionaries, calling themselves Patriots, united in companies, drilling and training for a possible conflict. The flash in the pan was the arrest of the wife of William V, by Patriots, in 1787 when she attempted to travel to The Hague, to gather support for her husband.
This proved an unlucky event for the Patriots, as she was the sister to the King of Prussia. In support of his sister, the King quickly gathered his armies and invaded the country in support of the Stadholder. The Patriots were chased out of the country or arrested. Most of them made their way to France, waiting.
They had to wait only a short while, as in 1789 the French Revolution brought an end to the old government in France. The French revolutionaries, with the help of the Patriots attempted to conquer the Dutch Republic (as well as many other territories). Despite several years of war and resistance of the Dutch army, backed up considerably by the British, Prussians, Austrians and Russians, the French liberated the country in 1795, turning the country into a satellite state, the Batavian Republic. After two centuries, the Dutch Republic was no more.
In 1806 Napoleon disbanded the Batavian Republic. His Europe was not one of Republics, but of Kingdoms (subjected to his Empire). He put his brother, Louis, on the throne and renamed the country the Kingdom of Holland. But the principal changes made by the Batavian Republic were all maintained.
Louis was also interested in the military, issuing new uniforms and reforming the military service. A new soldier, the voltigeur, was introduced. The voltigeur was a skirmisher usually deployed on the flank, modelled after the French example. Louis abolished compulsory service and made his army a professional force, setting a high standard. Dutch troops fought in Germany and Spain, where they distinguished themselves.
But the primary reason why Louis should be remembered to this day is the fact he was the ideal constitutional monarch. It must be difficult to become king in a country you have never been to before, where the people speak a different language and are initially opposed to your reign. But Louis succeeded in winning them over. Regularly he toured the country, and even in cases of emergency he was present: when a ammunition ship exploded in the city of Leiden, killing hundreds of people and wrecking 2000 homes, he went there right away (he had heard his explosion from his palace in The Hague) to try and help rescue survivors from the rubble; when a mysterious disease struck the province of Brabant he visited the ill and called in extra doctors to help cure them; when one of the rivers flooded, he had no hesitation in going there – even though there was little he could do. Furthermore, he turned his birthday into a feast for all: rather than receiving presents, he generously donated to the poor as well as orphanages, and insisted that not only the state orphanages but also Jewish and non-religious orphanages should receive their share.
What we see here, is an enlightened king, caring more about the wellbeing of his subjects than his own health or power. Napoleon resented him for it, and sent his armies into the Holland to annex the Kingdom.
Rather than surrender to his Imperial brother, Louis fled the country and sought refuge in neutral Austria. He was respected throughout Europe for his decision. Napoleon incorporated the country into the French Empire, which caused considerable resentment but no open revolt. Dutch troops continued to fight for France: in Spain, Russia, Germany, and eventually even in France.
In 1813 the country was liberated by the Allies, the Russian Cossacks forming the first wave. In 1813 Prince William, son of the late Stadholder William V, returned to the country. At the congress of Vienna it was eventually decided he was to become King, not Stadholder, of the new Kingdom of the Netherlands.
After the fall of Napoleon, the Congress of Vienna reset the boundaries of Europe, and the Kingdom of the Netherlands was a result of this. The country was to consist not only of the old Republic, but also of the Belgian lands, which had previously belonged to Spain and Austria. This strip of land was supposed to be a buffer zone: should the French ever turn aggressive once again, the southern half of the country should slow them down for long enough to allow British troops to land there to help fight against the French. It was given to the Dutch because they were closest to it; besides, the only other contestant for ownership of Belgium was Prussia, and Britain and Russia feared it would become too powerful if Belgium would be given to her.
The situation was a bit unpleasant for both sides; the northern provinces remained dominant, and viewed the new provinces as inferior, because they hadn’t rebelled against the Spanish two centuries earlier. The southern provinces on the other hand had a larger population, and wanted to have a larger part in the government (as it was, the Estates were split 50/50 between north and south, whereas technically the south had over 70% of the population). Two other differences were that the south was dominantly Catholic, while the north was mainly Protestant, and the fact that about half of the south spoke French rather than Dutch. But for the time being, everyone hoped for improvement.
Improvements came, but only in economical terms. King William I started work on improving and expanding the road network begun by Napoleon, an effort that met with success, many of the roads are still there today. Ironically, however, they are referred to as “Napoleon roads”. William also had a keen interest in the industrialisation, and invested in setting up steelworks and mines in the southern half of the country. The northern half wasn’t too happy about this; they preferred to improve their economy by doing even more trading. Dutch upper class was certainly old-fashioned.
The Dutch did expand their colonial power, especially in Indonesia. They conquered and unified the various islands, but this brought little peace, and the 19th century saw continuous struggles between the Dutch and various tribes.
The mix of north and south in one kingdom was a disaster waiting to happen, and it was inevitable that there would be unrest sooner or later. This eventually came about in August 1830. An opera, La Muette de Portici, praising revolution and promoting patriotism, caused the inhabitants of Brussels to attack governmental buildings. The entire southern half of the country had been rebellious for some time, as high bread prices caused famine.
King William didn’t want to bring the army into the city, fearing the worst (not only was half the army from the south, the troops were also badly armed and supplied, many not actually having munitions). This proved to be a disaster, as revolutionary feelings spread quickly, first to Leuven and Liege and from there to the rest of the country. An attack on Brussels by the army, a month later, was a disaster, and further strengthened the revolutionary spirit in Belgium.
The northerners were incensed at the revolt in the south, and accused the Belgians of being thankless. With one side being successful in war and the other being inconsolable, it is easy to see why negotiations failed. The other countries reasoned that the original goal of Belgium, to serve as a buffer between France and the rest of Europe, so the British had time to take ship, was better served with a free Belgium than with one that was oppressed. They supported the rebels, a slap in the face to King William.
He refused to give up the war, which dragged on for nine years. No actual fighting was going on, but William didn’t want to give up Belgium – some blame him of maintaining war so as to keep up the position of wartime king, giving him almost complete control of the government. When the war ended, it turned out the king had so indebted the kingdom that his popularity plummeted, and he resigned a year later.
The new king, William II, had waited for this moment for a very long time. He was 48 when he eventually became king, and ruled for only nine years. Like his father, he wasn’t very popular, and when revolution raged in Europe in 1848 an angry mob, headed by the liberal Thorbecke, forced him to accept a new constitution. The constitution implemented direct elections, parliamentary rights were increased and those of the King curbed; this effectively turned the country into a Constitutional Monarchy.
But it would be years before the Kingdom of the Netherlands would be a truly modern state; the industrialisation process, rudely cut off by the Belgian Revolution, would only really get off the ground in the 20th century. As it was, the country held on to its practice of trading and its colonial rule for decades to come.
Kor | The Age of Chivalry is upon us!
Wellent ich gugk, so hindert mich / köstlicher ziere sinder,
Der ich e pflag, da für ich sich / Neur kelber, gaiss, böck, rinder,
Und knospot leut, swarz, hässeleich, / Vast rüssig gen dem winder;
Die geben müt als sackwein vich. / Vor angst slach ich mein kinder
Offt hin hinder.
.
