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The Netherlands, as anation state, dates to 1568,[1] when theDutch Revolt created theDutch Empire. Previously, the Germanic tribes had no written language during theancient andearly medieval periods, so what we know about their early military history comes from accounts written inLatin and from archaeology. This causes significant gaps in the historic timeline.Germanic wars against theRomans are fairly well documented from the Roman perspective; however, Germanic wars against the earlyCelts remain mysterious because neither side recorded the events. Wars between the Germanic tribes inNorthern Belgium and the present day Netherlands, and various Celtic tribes that bordered their lands, are likely due to their geographical proximity.
Belgium, a country with aDutch-speaking majority, became an independent state in 1830 when it seceded from the Netherlands. Despite the contemporary political boundaries, they share much of the same military history.
Germanic tribes are thought to have originated during theNordic Bronze Age in northern Germany and southernScandinavia. The tribes spread south, possibly motivated by the deteriorating climate of that area. They crossed the RiverElbe, most likely overrunning territories formerly occupied by Celtic people. In the East, other tribes, such asGoths,Rugians andVandals, settled along the shores of theBaltic Sea pushing southward and eventually settling as far away asUkraine. TheAngles andSaxons migrated to England. The Germanic peoples often had unsettled relationships with their neighbours and each other, leading to a period of over two millennia of military conflict over various territorial, religious, ideological and economic issues.
TheBatavi (Batavians) were aGermanic tribe, originally part of theChatti, reported byTacitus to have lived around the Rhine delta, in the area which is currently the Netherlands, "an uninhabited district on the extremity of the coast of Gaul, and also of a neighbouring island, surrounded by the ocean in front, and by the river Rhine in the rear and on either side" (Tacitus,Histories iv). This led to theLatin name ofBatavia for the area. The same name is used for several military units, originally raised among the Batavi.
They were mentioned byJulius Caesar in his commentaryGallic Wars as living on an island formed by theMeuse River after it is joined by theWaal, 80 Romanmiles from the mouth of the river. He said there were many other islands formed by branches of theRhine, inhabited by a "savage, barbarous nation", some of whom were supposed to live on fish and the eggs of sea-fowl.
Tacitus named theMattiaci as a similar tribe under homage, but on the other side of the Rhine. The areas inhabited by the Batavians were never occupied by theRomans, as the Batavians were allies.
The Batavians incorrectly became regarded as the sole and eponymous ancestors of theDutch people. The Netherlands were briefly known as theBatavian Republic. Moreover, during the timeIndonesia was a Dutch colony (theDutch East Indies), the capital (nowJakarta) was named Batavia. If the ancestry of most native Dutch people were traced back to Germanic tribes, most would lead to theFranks,Frisians andSaxons.Dutch is in fact aLow Frankish language, and is the only language (together withAfrikaans, which descends from Dutch itself) to be a direct descendant ofOld Frankish, the language of theFranks.
Later, Tacitus described the Batavians as the bravest of the tribes of the area, hardened in the Germanic border wars, with cohorts under their own noble commanders transferred toBritannia. He said they retained the honour of the ancient association with the Romans, not required to pay tribute or taxes and used by the Romans only for war: "They furnished to the Empire nothing but men and arms", Tacitus remarked. They were well regarded for their skills in horsemanship and swimming, for their men and horses could cross the Rhine without losing formation, according to Tacitus.Dio Cassius describes this surprise tactic employed byAulus Plautius against the "barbarians" — the British Celts — at thebattle of the River Medway, 43:
The Batavians also provided a contingent for the Emperor'sImperial Horse Guard.
Numerous altars and tombstones of the Batavi, dating to the 2nd century and 3rd century, have been found alongHadrian's Wall (notably atCastlecary andCarrawburgh), and in Germany,Yugoslavia, Hungary,Romania and Austria. After the 3rd century, however, the Batavians are no longer mentioned, and they are assumed to have merged with the neighbouringFrisian andFrankish people.
Until theFranks defeated and pushed them back the Romans established two provinces in the area of the present-day Belgium and a part of the Netherlands. Both were outposts, especially above theMeuse and apart from a fewRoman legions sent there to protect the Empires borders, the Roman presence was limited. The provinces were calledGallia Belgica named after theBelgae, a group of Celtic tribes conquered by the Romans, andGermania Inferior (inferior meaning 'low' inLatin, andGermania referring to the area occupied by theGermanic tribes).
During theRevolt of the Batavi, which took place in theRoman province ofGermania Inferior between 69 and 70 AD, the rebels led byCivilis managed to destroy fourlegions and inflict humiliating defeats on the Roman army. After their initial successes, a massive Roman army led byQuintus Petillius Cerialis eventually defeated them. Following peace talks, the situation was normalized, but Batavia had to cope with humiliating conditions and a legion stationed permanently within her lands.
TheFranks or theFrankish people were one of several westGermanic federations. The confederation was formed out ofGermanic tribes:Salians,Sugambri,Chamavi, Tencteri,Chattuarii,Bructeri,Usipetes,Ampsivarii,Chatti. They entered thelate Roman Empire from the present day Netherlands and northern Germany and conquered northernGaul where they were accepted as afoederati and established a lastingrealm (sometimes referred to asFrancia) in an area that covers most of modern-day France and the western regions of Germany (Franconia,Rhineland,Hesse) and the whole of theLow Countries, forming the historic kernel of the two modern countries. The conversion toChristianity of the pagan Frankish kingClovis was a crucial event in the history of Europe. Like the French and Germans, the Dutch also claim the military history of the Franks as their own.
Battle of Soissons (486)
Battle of Tolbiac (496)
Battle of Vouillé (507)
Battle of Tours (732)
Battle of Pavia (773)
Saxon Campaigns (773-804)
Siege of Paris (885-886)
TheFrankish Empire was the territory of theFranks, from the 5th to the 10th centuries, from 481 ruled byClovis I of theMerovingian dynasty, the firstking of all the Franks. From 751, under theCarolingian dynasty, it is known as theCarolingian Empire. After theTreaty of Verdun of 843 it was split intoEast,West andMiddle Francia. East Francia gave rise to theHoly Roman Empire withOtto I the Great in 962.
Since the term "Empire" properly applies only to times after the coronation ofCharlemagne in 800, and since the unified kingdom was repeatedly split and re-united, most historians prefer to use the termFrankish Kingdoms orFrankish Realm to refer to the entirety of Frankish rule from the 5th to the 9th century.
The Frankish realm underwent many partitions and repartitions, since the Franks divided their property among surviving sons, and lacking a broad sense of ares publica, they conceived of the realm as a large extent ofprivate property. This practice explains in part the difficulty of describing precisely the dates and physical boundaries of any of the Frankish kingdoms and who ruled the various sections. The contraction ofliteracy while the Franks ruled compounds the problem: they produced few written records. In essence, however, twodynasties of leaders succeeded each other; first theMerovingians and then theCarolingians.
The Holy Roman Empire was a political conglomeration oflands inCentral Europe andWestern Europe in theMiddle Ages and the early modern period. Emerging from theeastern part of theFrankish Empire after its division in theTreaty of Verdun (843), it lasted almost a millennium until its dissolution in 1806. By the 18th century, it still consisted of the larger part of modern Germany,Bohemia (nowCzech Republic), Austria,Liechtenstein,Slovenia, Belgium, andLuxembourg, as well as large parts of modern Poland and small parts of the Netherlands andCroatia. Previously, it had included all of the Netherlands and Switzerland, parts of modern France and Italy. By the middle of the 18th century, the empire had been greatly reduced in power.
TheEighty Years' War, orDutch Revolt, was the war ofsecession between the Netherlands and the Spanish king, that lasted from 1568 to 1648. The war resulted in theSeven United Provinces being recognized as an independent state. The region now known as Belgium andLuxembourg also became established as theSouthern Netherlands, part of theSeventeen Provinces that remained under royalHabsburg rule.
The United Provinces of the Netherlands, or theDutch Republic, became a world power, through its merchant shipping and huge naval power, and experienced a period of economic, scientific and cultural growth. In the late 16th century military reform byMaurice of Orange laid the foundation for early modern battlefield tactics. TheDutch States Army between 1600 and 1648 was one of the most powerful in Europe, together with the Spanish, English and French.
TheDutch East India Company (Dutch:Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie or VOC), chartered in 1602, concentrated Dutch trade efforts under one directorate with a unified policy. In 1605 armed Dutch merchantmen captured thePortuguese fort atAmboyna in theMoluccas, which was developed into the first secure base of the VOC. TheTwelve Years' Truce signed inAntwerp in 1609 called a halt to formal hostilities between Spain (which controlled Portugal and its territories at the time) and theUnited Provinces. In the Indies, the foundation ofBatavia formed the permanent center from which Dutch enterprises, more mercantile than colonial, could be coordinated. From it "the Dutch wove the immense web of traffic and exchange which would eventually make up their empire, a fragile and flexible one built, like the Portuguese empire, 'on thePhoenician model'." (Braudel 1984, p. 215)
Over the next decades the Dutch captured the major trading ports of the East Indies:Malacca in 1641; Achem (Aceh) in the native kingdom ofSumatra, 1667;Macassar, 1669; andBantam itself, in 1682. At the same time connections in the ports of India provided the printedcottons that the Dutch traded forpepper, the staple of thespice trade.
The greatest source of wealth in the East Indies,Fernand Braudel has noted, was the tradewithin the archipelago, what the Dutch calledinlandse handel ('native trade'), where one commodity was exchanged for another, with profit at each turn, assilver from the Americas was more desirable in the East than in Europe.
By concentrating on monopolies in the fine spices, Dutch policy encouragedmonoculture:Amboyna forcloves,Timor forsandalwood, theBandas formace andnutmeg,Ceylon forcinnamon. Monoculture linked island economies to the mercantile system to provide the missing necessities of life.
The Dutch East India Company was defeated byMing dynasty China in theSino–Dutch conflicts during a war overPenghu (the Pescadores) from 1622 to 1624. The Dutch were defeated again by the Chinese at theBattle of Liaoluo Bay in 1633. In 1662, the Dutch East India company's army was defeated by a ChineseMing dynasty army led byKoxinga at theSiege of Fort Zeelandia onTaiwan. The Chinese used ships and naval bombardment with cannon to force a surrender.[5] The expulsion of the Dutch ended their colonial rule over Taiwan.[6][7]
The Cambodians defeated the Dutch East India Company in awar from 1643 to 1644 on the Mekong River.
The Vietnamese Nguyen Lords defeated the Dutch East India Company in a1643 battle during the Trịnh–Nguyễn War, blowing up a Dutch ship.
TheRepublic of the Seven United Netherlands (Republiek der Zeven Verenigde Nederlanden/Provinciën; alsoDutch Republic orUnited Provinces in short) was a Europeanrepublic between 1581 (but was formally recognised in 1648) and 1795, which is now known as the Netherlands. From an economic and military perspective, the Republic of the United Provinces was extremely successful. This time period is known in the Netherlands as theGolden Age. The free trade spirit of the time received a strong augmentation through the development of a modernstock market in the Low Countries. At first the Dutch had a very strong standing field army and large garrisons in their numerous fortified cities. From 1648 on however the Army was neglected; and for a few years even the Navy fell into neglect— until rivalry with England forced a large extension of naval forces.
TheAnglo-Dutch Wars (Dutch:Engelse Oorlogen) were fought in the 17th and 18th centuries betweenBritain and theUnited Provinces for control over the seas and trade routes. They are known as theDutch Wars in England and as theEnglish Wars in the Netherlands.
In 1651, one of the last possessions held by the English Royalists (partisans ofCharles II of England against theCommonwealth of England declared by theRump Parliament) was theIsles of Scilly, off Cornwall. From these islands, governed bySir John Grenville, and from other friendly ports, a section of theRoyal Navy that had mutinied to Charles' side operated in apiratical way against shipping in the English channel.
The Dutch declared war against the Scillies as alegal fiction which would cover a hostile response to the Royalist fleet. In July 1651, soon after the declaration of war, the Parliamentarian forces under AdmiralRobert Blake forced the Royalist fleet to surrender. The Netherlands fleet, no longer under threat, left without firing a shot. However, due to the obscurity of one nation's declaration of war against a small part of another, the Dutch forgot to officially declare peace.
In 1985, thehistorian and Chairman of the Isles of Scilly CouncilRoy Duncan, wrote to the DutchEmbassy in London to dispose of the "myth" that the islands were still at war. But embassy staff found the myth to be accurate and Duncan invitedAmbassadorJonkheer Rein Huydecoper to visit the islands and sign apeace treaty. Peace was declared on April 17, 1986, a stunning 335 years after the war began.
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The collapse of Spanish power at the end of theThirty Years' War in 1648 meant that the colonial possessions of thePortuguese andSpanish Empires were effectively up for grabs. This brought theCommonwealth of England and theUnited Provinces of the Netherlands, former allies in theThirty Years' War, into conflict. The Dutch had the largest mercantile fleet of Europe, and a dominant position in European trade. They had annexed most of Portugal's territory in theEast Indies giving them control over the enormously profitable trade inspices. They were even gaining significant influence over England's maritime trade with herNorth American colonies, profiting from the turmoil that resulted from theEnglish Civil War. However, the Dutch navy had been neglected during this time period, whileCromwell had built a strong fleet.
In order to protect its position in North America and damage Dutch trade, in 1651 theParliament of theCommonwealth of England passed the first of theNavigation Acts, which mandated that all goods from her American colonies must be carried by English ships. In a period of growingmercantilism this was the spark that ignited the first Anglo-Dutch war, the British seeking a pretext to start a war which led to sporadic naval engagements across the globe.
The English were initially successful, AdmiralRobert Blake defeating the Dutch AdmiralWitte de With in theBattle of the Kentish Knock in 1652. Believing that the war was all but over, the English divided their forces and in 1653 were routed by the fleet of Dutch AdmiralMaarten Tromp at theBattle of Dungeness in theEnglish Channel. The Dutch were also victorious at theBattle of Leghorn and had effective control of both the Mediterranean and theEnglish Channel. Blake, recovering from an injury, rethought, together withGeorge Monck, the whole system of naval tactics, and in mid-1653 used the Dutchline of battle method to drive the Dutch navy back to its ports in the battles ofPortland andthe Gabbard. In the finalBattle of Scheveningen on August 10, 1653, Tromp was killed, a blow to Dutch morale, but the British were forced to end their blockade of the Dutch coast. As both nations were by now exhausted, peace negotiations were started.
The war ended on 1654-04-05 with the signing of theTreaty of Westminster, but the commercial rivalry was not resolved, the British having failed to replace the Dutch as the world's dominant trade nation.
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The Dutch-Swedish War, 1657–1660, was a Dutch intervention in theNorthern Wars. WhenCharles X of Sweden had been unable to continue his hold on Poland — partly because the Dutch fleet relieved the besieged city ofDanzig in 1656 — he turned his attention on Denmark, invading that country from what is now Germany. He broke a new agreement withFrederick III of Denmark and laid siege toCopenhagen. To the Dutch the Baltic trade was vital, both in quantity and quality. The Dutch had been able to convince Denmark, by threat of force, to keep theSound tolls at a low level but they feared a strong Swedish empire would not be so complying. In 1658 they sent an expedition fleet of 75 ships, 3,000 cannon and 15000 troops; in theBattle of the Sound it defeated theSwedish fleet and relieved Copenhagen. In 1659 the Dutch liberated the other Danish Isles and the essential supply of grain, wood and iron from the Baltic was guaranteed once more.
After theEnglish Restoration,Charles II tried to serve his dynastic interests by attempting to makePrince William III of Orange, his nephew,stadtholder of The Republic, using military pressure. This led to a surge of patriotism in England, the country being, asSamuel Pepys put it, "mad for war".This war, deliberately provoked by the English in 1664, witnessed several significant English victories in battle, (but also some Dutch ones such as the capture of HMSPrince Royal during theFour Days Battle in 1666 which was the subject of a famous painting byWillem van de Velde). However, theRaid on the Medway (entailing the burning of part of the English fleet whilst docked atChatham in June 1667 when a flotilla of ships led byAdmiral de Ruyter broke through thedefensive chains guarding theMedway and wrought havoc on the English ships as well as the capture of theRoyal Navy'sflagshipHMS Royal Charles) saw the war ended with a Dutch victory. For several years the greatly expandedDutch Navy was the most powerful navy in the world.[8] The Republic was at the zenith of its power.
Franco-Dutch War (1672–1678) was a war fought between France and aquadruple alliance consisting ofBrandenburg, theHoly Roman Empire, Spain, and theUnited Provinces. The war ended with theTreaty of Nijmegen (1678); this granted France control of theFranche-Comté (from Spain).
France led a coalition includingMünster and Great Britain.Louis XIV was annoyed by the Dutch refusal to cooperate in the destruction and division of theSpanish Netherlands. As the Dutch army had been neglected, the French had no trouble by-passing the fortress ofMaastricht and then marching to the heart of the Republic, takingUtrecht.Prince William III of Orange is assumed to have had the leading Dutch politicianJohan de Witt deposed and murdered, and was acclaimedstadtholder. The French were halted byinundations,the Dutch Water Line, after Louis tarried too much in conquering the whole of the Republic. He had promised the major Dutch cities to the British and tried to extort huge sums from the Dutch in exchange for a separate peace. Thebishop of Münster laid siege toGroningen but failed. 1672 is known as therampjaar ("disaster year") in Dutch history, in which the country only nearly survived the combined English-French-German assault.
Soon after the second Anglo-Dutch War, the English navy was rebuilt. After the embarrassing events in the previous war, English public opinion was unenthusiastic about starting a new one. Bound by theSecret Treaty of Dover Charles II was however obliged to assistLouis XIV in his attack on The Republic in theFranco-Dutch War. This he did willingly, having manipulated the French and Dutch into war. The French army being halted byinundations, and an attempt was made to invade The Republic by sea. AdmiralMichiel de Ruyter, gaining four strategic victories against the Anglo-French fleet, prevented invasion. After these failures the English parliament forced Charles to sign a peace in 1674.
Already, allies had joined the Dutch — theElector ofBrandenburg, theEmperor, andCharles II of Spain. Louis, despite the successfulSiege of Maastricht in 1673, was forced to abandon his plans of conquering the Dutch and revert to a slow, cautious war of attrition around the French frontiers. By 1678, he had managed to break apart his opponents' coalition, and managed to gain considerable territories by the terms of theTreaty of Nijmegen. Most notably, the French acquired theFranche-Comté and various territories in the Netherlands from the Spanish. Nevertheless, the Dutch had thwarted the ambitions of two of the major royal dynasties of the time: theStuarts and theBourbons.
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Theaction of March 1677 was a maritime battle that took place in March 1677 in the West Indies when a Dutch fleet underJacob Binckes repulsed a French force attempting to recapture the island ofTobago. Heavy losses were suffered on both sides: one of the Dutch supply ships caught fire and exploded. The fire then quickly spread in the narrow bay causing several ships, among them the French flagship 'Glorieux', to catch fire and explode in turn which resulted in great loss of life on both sides. The French under d'Estrees retreated.
TheNine Years' War was a major war fought in Europe andAmerica from 1688 to 1697, between France and theLeague of Augsburg — which, by 1689, was known as the "Grand Alliance". The war was fought to resist French expansionism along theRhine, as well as, on the part of England, to safeguard the results of theGlorious Revolution from a possible French-backed restoration ofJames II. In North America the war was known asKing William's War.
The League of Augsburg was formed in 1686 between the Holy Roman Emperor,Leopold I, and various of the German princes (including thePalatinate,Bavaria, andBrandenburg) to resist French expansionism in Germany. The alliance was joined by Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and theUnited Provinces.
France had expected a benevolent neutrality on the part of James II's England, but after James's deposition and replacement by his son-in-lawWilliam of Orange, Louis's inveterate enemy, England declared war on France in May 1689, and the League of Augsburg became known as the "Grand Alliance", with England, Portugal, Spain, the United Provinces, and most of the German states joined to fight France.
In the war's principal theatre, in continental Europe, the early military campaigns, which mostly occurred in theSpanish Netherlands, were generally successful for France. After a setback at theBattle of Walcourt in August 1689, in which the French were defeated by an allied army under Prince Georg Friedrich of Waldeck, the French underMarshal Luxembourg were successful at theBattle of Fleurus in 1690, but Louis prevented Luxembourg from following up on his victory. The French were also successful in the Alps in 1690, with Marshal Catinat defeating the Duke of Savoy at theBattle of Staffarda and occupying Savoy. The Turkish recapture ofBelgrade in October of the same year proved a boon to the French, preventing the Emperor from making peace with the Turks and sending his full forces west. The French were also successful at sea, defeating the Anglo-Dutch fleet atBeachy Head, but failed to follow up on the victory by sending aid to the Jacobite forces in Ireland or pursuing control of the Channel.
The French followed up on their success in 1691 with Luxembourg's capture ofMons andHalle and his defeat of Waldeck at theBattle of Leuze, while Marshal Catinat continued his advance into Italy, and another French army advanced into Catalonia, and in 1692Namur was captured by a French army under the direct command of the King, and the French beat back an allied offensive under William of Orange at theBattle of Steenkerque.
When the war began in 1689, the BritishAdmiralty was still suffering from the disorders of the reign ofKing Charles II, which had been only in part corrected during the short reign of James II. The first squadrons were sent out late and in insufficient strength. The Dutch, crushed by the obligation to maintain a great army, found an increasing difficulty in preparing their fleet for action early. Louis XIV, with as yet inexhausted resources, had it within his power to strike first.
A large French fleet entered theEnglish Channel, and gained a success over the combined British and Dutch fleets on July 10, 1690, in theBattle of Beachy Head, which was not followed up by vigorous action. During the following year, while James's cause was finally ruined in Ireland, the main French fleet was cruising in theBay of Biscay, principally for the purpose of avoiding battle. During the whole of 1689, 1690 and 1691, British squadrons were active on the Irish coast -helping to win theWilliamite war in Ireland for the allies. One raised thesiege of Derry in July 1689, and another convoyed the first British and Dutch forces sent over under theDuke of Schomberg. Immediately after Beachy Head in 1690, a part of the Channel fleet carried out an expedition under theEarl of Marlborough, which tookCork and reduced a large part of the south of the island. William of Orange himself arrived in Ireland in 1690 with veteran Dutch and allied troops, defeatingJames II at theBattle of the Boyne - an engagement largely decided by Dutch infantry. The war was ended in Anglo-Dutch favour in 1691, when Dutch general Ginkel destroyed the Franco-Irish army at theBattle of Aughrim.
In 1691, the French did little more than help to carry away the wreckage of their allies and their own detachments. In 1692 a vigorous but tardy attempt was made to employ their fleet to cover an invasion of England at theBattle of La Hougue. It ended in defeat, and the allies remained masters of the Channel. The defeat of La Hougue did not do so much harm to Louis's naval power, and in the next year, 1693, he was able to strike a severe blow at the Allies.
In this instance, the arrangements of the allied governments and admirals were not good. They made no effort to blockade Brest, nor did they take effective steps to discover whether or not the French fleet had left the port. The convoy was seen beyond theScilly Isles by the main fleet. But as the French admiralTourville had left Brest for theStraits of Gibraltar with a powerful force and had been joined by a squadron fromToulon, the whole convoy was scattered or taken by him, in the latter days of June, nearLagos Bay. Although this success was a very fair equivalent for the defeat at La Hogue, it was the last serious effort made by the navy of Louis XIV in this war. Want of money compelled him to lay his fleet up.
The allies were now free to make full use of their own, to harass the French coast, to intercept French commerce, and to cooperate with the armies acting against France. Some of the operations undertaken by them were more remarkable for the violence of the effort than for the magnitude of the results. The numerous bombardments of French Channel ports, and the attempts to destroySaint-Malo, the great nursery of the active Frenchprivateers, by infernal machines, did little harm. A British attack on Brest in June 1694 was beaten off with heavy loss, the scheme having been betrayed byJacobite correspondents. Yet the inability of the French king to avert these enterprises showed the weakness of his navy and the limitations of his power. The protection of British and Dutch commerce was never complete, for the French privateers were active to the end, but French commerce was wholly ruined.
TheGlorious Revolution of 1688 was the last successful invasion of England and ended the conflict by placingPrince William III of Orange on the English throne as co-ruler with his wifeMary. Though this was in fact a military conflict between Great Britain and The Republic, William invading the British Isles with a Dutch fleet and army, in English histories it is never described as such because he had strong support in England and was partly serving the dynastic interests of his wife.
Theregime change was a major contributing factor in the economic decline of the Dutch Republic. The Dutch merchant elite immediately began to use London as a new operational base. Dutch economic growth slowed. William ordered that any Anglo-Dutch fleet be under British command, with the Dutch navy having 60% of the strength of the British. From about 1720 Dutch wealth declined. Between 1740 and 1770 the Dutch Navy was neglected. Around 1780 the per capitagross national product of theKingdom of Great Britain surpassed that of the Dutch Republic.
The Dutch Republic, nominally neutral, had been trading with the Americans during theAmerican Revolutionary War, exchanging Dutch arms and munitions for American colonial wares (in contravention of the BritishNavigation Acts), primarily through activity based inSt. Eustatius, before the French formally entered the war.[10] The British considered this trade to include contraband military supplies and had attempted to stop it, at first diplomatically by appealing to previous treaty obligations, interpretation of whose terms the two nations disagreed on, and then by searching and seizing Dutch merchant ships. The situation escalated when the Britishseized a Dutch merchant convoy sailing under Dutch naval escort in December 1779, prompting the Dutch to join theLeague of Armed Neutrality. Britain responded to this decision by declaring war on the Dutch in December 1780, sparking theFourth Anglo-Dutch War.[11]
The Dutch navy was by now only a shadow of its former self, having only about twenty ships of the line, so there were no large fleet battles. The English tried to reduce the Republic to the status of a Britishprotectorate, usingPrussian military pressure and gaining factual control over most of the Dutch colonies, those conquered during the war given back at war's end. The Dutch then still held some key positions in the European trade with Asia, such as the Cape,Ceylon andMalacca. The war sparked a new round of Dutch ship building (95 warships in the last quarter of the 18th century), but the British kept their absolute numerical superiority by doubling their fleet in the same time.
Against this background it is less surprising that, after theFrench Revolution, when Republican troops invaded and occupied the Netherlands in 1795, the French encountered so little united resistance.William V of Orange fled to England. The Patriots proclaimed the short-livedBatavian Republic, but government was soon returned to stabler and more experienced hands. In 1806Napoleon restyled the Netherlands (along with a small part of what is now Germany) into theKingdom of Holland, with his brotherLouis (Lodewijk) Bonaparte as king. This too was short-lived, however. Napoleon incorporated the Netherlands into theFrench empire after his brother put Dutch interests ahead of those of the French. The French occupation of the Netherlands ended in 1813 after Napoleon was defeated, a defeat in whichWilliam of Orange played a prominent role.
From 1795 to 1806, theBatavian Republic (Bataafse Republiek inDutch) designated the Netherlands as arepublic modeled after the French Republic, to which it was avassal state.
The Batavian Republic was proclaimed on January 19, 1795, a day afterstadtholderWilliam V of Orange fled to England. The invadingFrench revolutionary army, however, found quite a few allies in the Netherlands. Eight years before, the Orange faction had won the upper hand in a small, but nasty civil war only thanks to the military intervention of theKing of Prussia, brother-in-law of the stadtholder.Many of the revolutionaries (see:Patriottentijd) had fled to France and now returned eager to realize their ideals.
In contrast to events in France, revolutionary changes in the Netherlands occurred comparatively peacefully. The country had been arepublic for two centuries and had a limited nobility. Theguillotine proved unnecessary to the new state. The old Republic had been a very archaic and ineffective political construction, still largely based on oldfeudal institutions. Decision-making had proceeded very slowly and sometimes did not happen at all. The individual provinces had possessed so much power that they blocked many sensible innovations. The Batavian Republic marked the transition to a more centralised and functional government, from a looseconfederation of (at least nominally) independent provinces to a trueunitary state. Many of its innovations were retained in later times, such as the first official spelling standard of theDutch language by Siegenbeek (1804).Jews,Lutherans andRoman Catholics were givenequal rights. ABill of Rights was drafted.
The new Republic took its name from theBatavi, a Germanic tribe who had lived in the area of the Netherlands inRoman times and who were then romantically regarded as the ancestors of the Dutch nation.
Again in contrast to France, the new Republic did not experience a reign of terror or become a dictatorship. Changes were imposed from outside afterNapoleon Bonaparte's rise to power. In 1805 Napoleon installed the shrewd politicianSchimmelpenninck asraadspensionaris ("Grand Pensionary", i.e. president of the republic) to strengthen the executive branch. In 1806 Napoleon forced Schimmelpenninck to resign and declared his brotherLouis Bonaparteking of the newKingdom of Holland.
The only signs of political instability were threecoups d'état. The first occurred in 1798, when the unitarian democrats were annoyed by the slow pace of democratic reforms. A few months later a second coup put an end to the dictatorship of the unitarians. The National Assembly, which had been convened in 1796, was divided by a struggle among the factions. The third coup occurred in 1801, when a French commander, backed by Napoleon, staged a conservative coup reversing the changes made after the 1798 coup. The Batavian government was more popular among the Dutch population than was the prince of Orange. This was apparent during the British-Russian invasion of 1799.
As a French vassal state, the Batavian Republic was an ally of France in its wars against Great Britain. This led to the loss of most of theDutch colonial empire and a defeat of the Dutch fleet in theBattle of Camperdown (Camperduin) in 1797. The collapse of Dutch trade caused a series of economic crises. Only in the second half of the 19th century would Dutch wealth be restored to its previous level.
TheFrench Revolutionary Wars continued from 1794 between France and theFirst Coalition.
The year opened with French forces in the process of attacking theNetherlands in the middle of winter. The Dutch people were rather indifferent to the French call for revolution, as they had already been a republic for two centuries, nevertheless city after city was occupied by the French. The Dutch fleet was captured, and thestadtholder fled to be replaced by theBatavian Republic, and, as a vassal state of France, supported the French cause and signed the treaty of Paris, ceding the territories ofBrabant andMaastricht to France on May 16.
With the Netherlands falling,Prussia also decided to leave the coalition, signing thePeace of Basle on April 6, ceding the left bank of theRhine to France. This freed Prussia to finish the occupation of Poland.
TheKingdom of Holland 1806-1810 (Koninkrijk Holland inDutch,Royaume de Hollande inFrench) was set up byNapoleon Bonaparte as apuppet kingdom for his third brother,Louis Bonaparte, in order to better control the Kingdom of the Holland. The name of the leadingprovince,Holland, was now taken for the whole country. Louis did not perform to Napoleon's expectations – he tried to serve Dutch interests instead of his brother's – and the kingdom was dissolved in 1810 after which the Netherlands wereannexed by France until 1813 when the French were defeated. During Louis' reign an expeditionary force took part in the French campaigns in Germany during theWar of the Fourth Coalition and theWar of the Fifth Coalition, and aDutch brigade was involved in thePeninsular War.
TheAnglo-Dutch Java War in 1810-1811 was a war between Great Britain and the Netherlands fought entirely on the Island ofJava in colonialIndonesia.
The governor-general of theDutch East Indies,Herman Willem Daendels (1762–1818), fortified the island of Java against possible British attack. In 1810 a strongBritish East India Company expedition underGilbert Elliot, first earl of Minto, governor-general of India, conquered the French islands of Bourbon (Réunion) andMauritius in theIndian Ocean and the Dutch East Indian possessions ofAmbon and theMolucca Islands. Afterward it moved against Java, captured the port city of Batavia (Jakarta) in August 1811, and forced the Dutch to surrender atSemarang on September 17, 1811. Java,Palembang (inSumatra),Macassar (Makasar,Celebes), andTimor were ceded to the British. Appointed lieutenant governor of Java,Thomas Stamford Raffles (1781–1826) ended Dutch administrative methods, liberalized the system of land tenure, and extended trade. In 1816, the British returned Java and other East Indian possessions to the Dutch as part of the accord ending theNapoleonic Wars.
TheBattle of Waterloo was to involve 73,000 French soldiers; while the Allied army from Britain,Hanover,Brunswick, and theNetherlands andNassau were about 67,000 men strong. (Of the 26 infantrybrigades in Wellington's army, nine were British; of the 12 cavalry brigades, 7 were British. Half of the 29batteries of guns were Hanoverian or Dutch).
At Waterloo, Wellington had the reinforcedHougomont farm, anchoring his right flank, and several other farms on his left. Napoleon faced his first major problem even before the battle began. Unsure of the Prussian Army's position since its flight from Ligny two days previously, Napoleon was all too aware of the need to begin the assault on Wellington's positions. The battle commenced at about 10:00 with an attack upon Hougoumont[2], but the main attack, with the most feared weapon of the era, the Frenchfield artillery, was delayed for hours until the sodden ground from the previous night's downpour had dried out sufficiently to take the weight of the French ordnance. The mud also hindered infantry and cavalry as they trudged into position. When the French artillery eventually opened fire on Wellington's ridge at around 11:35, the expected impact on the Allied troops was diminished by the soft terrain that absorbed the impact of many of the cannonballs.
A crucial element of the French plan of battle was the expectation that Wellington would move his reserve to his right flank in defense of Hougomont. At one point, the French succeeded in breaking into the farm's courtyard before being repulsed, but their attacks on the farm were eventually unsuccessful, and Wellington did not need to use his reserve. Hougomont became a battle within a battle and, throughout that day, its defence continued to draw thousands of valuable French troops, under the command of Jérôme Bonaparte, into a fruitless attack while all but a few of Wellington's reserves remained in his centre.
At about 13:30, after receiving news of the Prussian advance to his right, Napoleon ordered Marshal Ney to sendd'Erlon's infantry forward against the allied flank nearLa Haye Sainte. The attack centred on the Dutch 1st Brigade commanded by Major-GeneralWillem Frederik van Bylandt, which was one of the few units placed on the forward slope of the ridge. After suffering an intense artillery bombardment and exchanging volleys with d'Erlon's leading elements for some nine minutes, van Bylandt's outnumbered soldiers were forced to retreat over the ridge and through the lines of GeneralThomas Picton's division. Picton's division moved forward over the ridgeline to engage d'Erlon. The British and Dutchmen were likewise mauled by volley-fire and close-quarter attacks, but Picton's soldiers stood firm, eventually breaking up the attack by charging the French columns.
Meanwhile, the Prussians began to appear on the field. Napoleon sent his reserve, Lobau's VI corps and 2 cavalry divisions, some 15,000 troops, to hold them back. With this, Napoleon had committed all of his infantry reserves, except the Guard.
Lacking an infantry reserve, as Napoleon was unwilling to commit the Guard at this stage of the battle, all that Ney could do was to try to break Wellington's centre with his cavalry. It struggled up the slope to the fore of Wellington's centre, where squares of Allied infantry awaited them.
The cavalry attacks were repeatedly repelled by the solid Allied infantry squares (four ranks deep with fixed bayonets – vulnerable to artillery or infantry, but deadly to cavalry), the harrying fire of British artillery as the French cavalry recoiled down the slopes to regroup, and the decisive counter-charges of the Allied Light Cavalry regiments and the Dutch Heavy Cavalry Brigade. After numerous fruitless attacks on the Allied ridge, the French cavalry was exhausted.
The Prussians were already engaging the Imperial Army's right flank whenLa Haye Sainte fell to French combined arms (infantry, artillery and cavalry), because the defendingKing's German Legion had run out of ammunition in the early evening. The Prussians had driven Lobau out of Plancenoit, which was on the extreme (Allied) left of the battle field. Therefore, Napoleon sent his 10 battalion strong Young Guard to beat the Prussians back. But after very hard fighting the Young Guard was beaten back. Napoleon sent 2 battalions of Old Guard and after ferocious fighting they beat the Prussians out. But the Prussians had not been forced away far enough. Approximately 30,000 Prussians attacked Plancenoit again. The place was defended by 20,000 Frenchmen in and around the village. The Old Guard and other supporting troops were able to hold on for about one hour before a massive Prussian counter-attack kicked them out after some bloody street fighting lasting more than a half hour. The last to flee was the Old Guard who defended the church and cemetery. The French casualties at the end of the day were horrible.
With Wellington's centre exposed by the French takingLa Haye Sainte, Napoleon committed his last reserve, the undefeatedImperial Guard. After marching through a blizzard of shell and shrapnel, the already outnumbered 5 battalions ofMiddle Guard defeated the allied first line, including British, Brunswick and Nassau troops.
Meanwhile, to the west, 1,500 British Guards underMaitland were lying down to protect themselves from the French artillery. They rose as one, and devastated the shocked Imperial Guard with volleys of fire at point-blank range. The French chasseurs deployed to answer the fire. After 10 minutes of exchanging musketry the outnumbered French began wavering. This was the sign for a bayonet charge. But then a fresh French chasseur battalion appeared on the scene. The British guard retired with the French in pursuit – though the French in their turn were attacked by fresh British troops of Adam's brigade.
The Imperial Guard fell back in disarray and chaos. A ripple of panic passed through the French lines – "La garde recule. Sauve qui peut!" ("The Guard retreats. Save yourself if you can!"). Wellington, judging that the retreat by the Imperial Guard had unnerved all the French soldiers who saw it, stood up in the stirrups ofCopenhagen (his favourite horse), and waved his hat in the air, signalling a general advance. The long-suffering Anglo-Dutch infantry rushed forward from the lines where they had been shelled all day, and threw themselves upon the retreating French.
The Padri War also calledMinangkabau War is the name given to the skirmishes fought by theDutch troops from 1821 to 1837 inWest Sumatra,Indonesia.
In the 1820s, the Dutch were yet to consolidate their possessions in some parts of theDutch East Indies (later Indonesia) after re-acquiring it from the British. At the same time, a conflict broke out in West Sumatra between the so-calledadat andpadri factions. Although both Minangkabaus and Muslims, they differ in values: the Adats wereMinangkabau traditionalists while the Padris wereIslamist-Wahhabist. The Padris sought to reform un-Islamic traditions, such ascockfighting and gambling.
TheJava War was fought in Java between 1825 and 1830. It started as a rebellion led by the illustrious PrinceDiponegoro. The trigger was the Dutch decision to build a road across a piece of his property that contained his own parent's tomb. Among its causes was a sense of betrayal by the Dutch felt by members of theJavanese aristocratic families, as they were no longer able to rent land at high prices. There were also some problems with the succession of the throne inYogyakarta: Diponegoro was the oldest son, but as his mother was not the queen, he did not have any right to succeed his father.
The troops of Prince Diponegoro were very successful in the beginning, controlling the middle of Java and besieging Yogyakarta. Furthermore, the Javanese population was supportive of Prince Diponegoro's cause, whereas the Dutch colonial authorities were initially very indecisive.
However, as the Java war prolonged, Prince Diponegoro had difficulties in maintaining the numbers of his troops.
The Dutch colonial army however was able to fill its ranks with troops fromSulawesi and later on with troops from the Netherlands. The Dutch commander, general De Cock, was able to end the siege of Yogyakarta on September 25, 1825.
Prince Diponegoro started a fierce guerrilla war and it was not until 1827 that the Dutch army gained the upper hand.
It is estimated that 200,000 died over the course of the conflict, 8,000 being Dutch. The rebellion finally ended in 1830, after Prince Diponegoro was tricked into entering Dutch custody nearMagelang, believing he was there for negotiations for a possible cease-fire, and exiled toManado on the island ofSulawesi.
TheBelgian Revolution was a conflict in theUnited Kingdom of the Netherlands that began with a riot inBrussels in August 1830 and eventually led to the establishment of an independent, Catholic and neutral Belgium (William I, king of the Netherlands, would refuse to recognize a Belgian state until 1839, when he had to yield under pressure by theTreaty of London).
August 2 to August 12, 1831, the Dutch army, headed by the Dutch princes, invaded Belgium, in the so-called "Ten Days' Campaign", and defeated Belgian forces nearHasselt andLeuven. Only the appearance of a French army underMarshal Gérard caused the Dutch to retreat. The victorious initial campaign gave the Dutch an advantageous position in subsequent negotiations. William stubbornly pursued the war, bungled, ineffectual and expensive as its desultory campaigns were, until 1839.
The Dutch colonial governmentdeclared war on Aceh on March 26, 1873; the apparent immediate trigger for their invasion was discussions between representatives of Aceh and the United States inSingapore during early 1873.[12] An expedition under Major General Köhler was sent out in 1874, which was able to occupy most of the coastal areas. It was the intention of the Dutch to attack and take the Sultan's palace, which would also lead to the occupation of the entire country. The Sultan requested and possibly received military aid from Italy and the United Kingdom in Singapore: in any case the Aceh army was rapidly modernized, and Aceh soldiers managed to kill Köhler (a monument of this achievement has been built inside Grand Mosque of Banda Aceh). Köhler made some grave tactical errors and the reputation of the Dutch was severely harmed.
A second expedition led by General Van Swieten managed to capture thekraton (sultan'spalace): the Sultan had however been warned, and had escaped capture. Intermittentguerrilla warfare continued in the region for ten years, with many victims on both sides. Around 1880 the Dutch strategy changed, and rather than continuing the war, they now concentrated on defending areas they already controlled, which were mostly limited to the capital city (modernBanda Aceh), and theharbour town of Ulee Lheue. On October 13, 1880, the colonial government declared the war as over, but continued spending heavily to maintain control over the areas it occupied.
War began again in 1883, when the British shipNisero was stranded in Aceh, in an area where the Dutch had little influence. A local leader asked forransom from both the Dutch and the British, and under British pressure the Dutch were forced to attempt to liberate the sailors. After a failed Dutch attempt to rescue thehostages, where the local leaderTeuku Umar was asked for help but he refused, the Dutch together with the British invaded the territory. The Sultan gave up the hostages, and received a large amount in cash in exchange.
The Dutch Minister of Warfare Weitzel now again declared open war on Aceh, and warfare continued, with little success, as before. The Dutch now also tried to enlist local leaders: the aforementioned Umar was bought with cash,opium, and weapons. Umar received the titlepanglima prang besar (upperwarlord of the government).
Umar called himself ratherTeuku Djohan Pahlawan (Johan the heroic). On January 1, 1894, Umar even received Dutch aid to build an army. However, two years later Umar attacked the Dutch with his new army, rather than aiding the Dutch in subjugating inner Aceh. This is recorded in Dutch history as "Het verraad van Teukoe Oemar" (thetreason of Teuku Umar).
In 1892 and 1893, Aceh remained independent, despite the Dutch efforts. MajorJ.B. van Heutsz, a colonial military leader, then wrote a series of articles on Aceh. He was supported by DrSnouck Hurgronje of theUniversity of Leiden, then the leading Dutch expert on Islam. Hurgronje managed to get the confidence of many Aceh leaders and gathered valuableintelligence for the Dutch government. His works remained an official secret for many years. In Hurgronje's analysis of Acehnese society, he minimised the role of the Sultan and argued that attention should be paid to the hereditary chiefs, theUlee Balang, who he felt could be trusted as local administrators. However, he argued, Aceh's religious leaders, theulema, could not be trusted or persuaded to cooperate, and must be destroyed.
This advice was followed: in 1898 Van Heutsz was proclaimedgovernor of Aceh, and with his lieutenant, laterDutch Prime MinisterHendrikus Colijn, would finally conquer most of Aceh. They followed Hurgronje's suggestions, finding cooperativeuleebelang that would support them in the countryside. Van Heutsz charged Colonel Van Daalen with breaking remaining resistance. Van Daalen destroyed several villages, killing at least 2,900 Acehnese, among which were 1,150 women and children. Dutch losses numbered just 26, and Van Daalen was replaced by Colonel Swart. By 1904 most of Aceh was under Dutch control, and had an indigenous government that cooperated with the colonial state. Estimated total casualties on the Aceh side range from 50,000 to 100,000 dead, and over a million wounded.
During World War I the Netherlands remained neutral. A large army was mobilised to defend this neutrality, but it was not equipped by the new standards of the day, causing a structural equipment inferiority that would last until the middle of the century. After the war most of the defence budget was spent on the fleet to protect the East Indies. This however didn't allow the navy to be expanded, merely to be modernised.
Whereas it often said of the allies, with much exaggeration, that they during theBattle of France were more prepared for the previous than the present war, for the Dutch not even that was true. Of all the major participants they were by far the most poorly equipped, not even attaining World War I standards, largely due to the Dutch belief that their neutrality would (again) be respected. However, the German invaders in May 1940 adjusted their forces accordingly, and the Dutch army in theBattle of the Netherlands was largely intact when it surrendered on May 14 — after just five days of fighting — to save the major Dutch cities from further bombardment.
The Dutch empire continued the fight, but theNetherlands East Indies (later Indonesia) wasinvaded by Japan in 1942. In the climacticBattle of the Java Sea, the larger part of the Dutch navy was destroyed. The Dutch contribution to the war effort was then limited to the merchant fleet (providing the bulk of allied merchant shipping in the Pacific war), several aircraft squadrons, some naval vessels and a motorised infantry brigade raised by enlisting Dutch emigrants.
After the Second World War, the Dutch were first involved in a colonial war against the nationalists inIndonesia. As a result, the home forces were much neglected and had to rearm by begging for (or simply taking) surplus allied equipment, such as theRAM tank. In 1949Bernard Montgomery judged theRoyal Netherlands Army as simply "unfit for battle".
In the early fifties however, the Dutch fully participated in theNATO build-up of conventional forces. US financial support paying half of the equipment budget made it possible to create a modern defence force. Afraid that the USA might give up Europe immediately after a Soviet attack, the Dutch strongly reinforced the Rhine position by means of the traditional Dutch defensive weapon: water. Preparations were made to completely dam the major Rhineeffluent rivers, forcing the water into the northernIJssel branch and thereby creating an impassable mudbarrier betweenLake IJssel and theRuhr Area. The Dutch navy was also expanded with anaircraft carrier, twocruisers, twelvedestroyers and eightsubmarines.
In the sixties, the Navy again began to produce modern vessels of its own design and expanded slowly, howevernuclear propulsion was refused by the United States. The Army replaced most of its motorised units by mechanised ones, introducing thousands ofAFVs into the Infantry and the Artillery. Conventional firepower was neglected however as it was intended to engage in nuclear war immediately.
In the seventies, it was hoped that the strategy offlexible response would allow for a purely conventional defence. Digital modelling by theNetherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research showed that successful conventional defence was feasible and indeed likely, provided that conventional firepower would be improved. Whereas the British, French, Belgians and Canadians reduced their forces in this decade, the Dutch government therefore decided to go along with the German and American policy of force enlargement. As a result, in the mid-eighties the Dutch heavy units equalled the British in number and the Dutch Corps sector at theElbe was the only one to have its own reserve division; it was conceived as to be able to hold an attack by nine reinforced Soviet divisions, or about 10,000 AFVs including materiel reserves. These facts were obscured somewhat by international press attention to the relaxation of discipline, part of a deliberate policy to better integrate the forces into the larger society. At the same time the Navy had over thirty capital vessels and the Air Force about 200 tactical planes.
When theWarsaw Pact and theSoviet Union itselfcollapsed, the Dutch reduced their forces considerably and integrated their army with the German while also creating a new airborne brigade. The conscript army was replaced by a fully professional one and hundreds of light AFVs bought for use in peace missions. Modernising of naval and air forces, less drastically reduced, continues.
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The Korean War, from June 25, 1950, until theKorean Armistice Agreement took effect on July 27, 1953, started as a war betweenNorth Korea andSouth Korea. When it began, North and South Korea existed as provisional governments competing for control over the Korean peninsula, due to thedivision of Korea. The war was one of the first major armed clashes of theCold War. The principal combatants were North Korea, supported by thePeople's Republic of China, and latercombat advisors, aircraft pilots, and weapons from the Soviet Union; against South Korea, supported principally by the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, thePhilippines and many other nations sent troops under the aegis of theUnited Nations (UN), including the Netherlands, who sent over 3,000 troops.
The Netherlands Detachment United Nations was established on October 15, 1950, and out of a total number of 16,225 volunteers, 3,418 men were accepted and sent to Korea. Most Dutch army troops were assigned to the "Netherlands Battalion", attached to the38th Infantry Regiment of theU.S. 2nd Infantry Division. Dutch casualties included 116 men killed in action, 3 missing in action and 1 who died as a prisoner of war. The casualties were eventually buried at theUnited Nations Memorial Cemetery inBusan, South Korea.[13]
Several vessels of the Royal Netherlands Navy were deployed to Korean waters including the destroyersHNLMS Evertsen,HNLMS Van Galen andHNLMS Piet Hein and thefrigatesHNLMS Johan Maurits van Nassau,HNLMS Eland Dubois andHNLMS Van Zijll (not all at the same time). Their duties included patrolling Korean waters, escorting other ships and supporting ground troops withnaval artillery fire.[14][15]
After the collapse of Japan at the end of World War II, Indonesian nationalists underSukarno recognized the opportunity presenting itself and declared independence from Dutch colonial rule. With the assistance of indigenous army units created by the Japanese, an independent Republic of Indonesia with Sukarno as its president was proclaimed on August 17, 1945.
The Netherlands, only very recently freed from German occupation itself, initially lacked the means to respond, allowing Republican forces to establishde facto control over parts of the huge archipelago, particularly inJava andSumatra. On the other, in the less densely populated outer islands, no effective control was established by either party, leading at times to chaotic conditions.
In the weeks following the Japanese surrender, the United Kingdom sent in troops to take over from the Japanese and soon found itself in conflict with the fledgling government. British forces brought in a small Dutch military contingent which it termed the Netherlands Indies Civil Administration (NICA). The British were worried about the increasing boldness and apparent strength of the Indonesian nationalists, who seemed to be armed with the weapons of defeated Japanese garrisons across the archipelago. A British Brigadier,A.W.S Mallaby, was killed as he pushed for an ultimatum stipulating that the Indonesians surrender their weapons or face a major assault. In retaliation, 10 November 1945, Surabaya was attacked by British forces, leading to a bloody street-to-street battle.
Lasting three weeks,the battle of Surabaya was the bloodiest single engagement in the war and demonstrated the determination of the Indonesian nationalist forces. It made the British reluctant to be drawn into another when their resources in southeast Asia were stretched following the Japanese surrender.
As a consequence, the Dutch were asked to take back control, and the number of NICA forces soon increased dramatically. Initially the Netherlands negotiated with the Republic and came to anagreement at Linggadjati, in which the 'United States of Indonesia' were proclaimed, a semi-autonomous federal state keeping as its head the Queen of the Netherlands.
Both sides increasingly accused each other of violating the agreement, and as consequence the hawkish forces soon won out on both sides. A major point of concern for the Dutch side was the fate of members of the Dutch minority in Indonesia, most of whom had been held under deplorable conditions inconcentration camps by the Japanese. The Indonesians were accused (and guilty) of not cooperating in liberating these prisoners.
The Netherlands government then mounted a large military force to regain what it believed was rightfully its territory. The two major military campaigns that followed were declared as mere 'police actions' to downplay the extent of the operations. There were atrocities and violations ofhuman rights in many forms by both sides in the conflict. Some 6,000 Dutch and 150,000 Indonesians are estimated to have been killed.
Although the Dutch and their indigenous allies managed to defeat the Republican Army in almost all major engagements and during the second campaign even to arrest Sukarno himself, Indonesian forces continued to wage a major guerrilla war under the leadership of General Sudirman who had escaped the Dutch onslaught.
A few months before the second Dutch offensive, communist elements within the independence movement had staged a failed coup, known asMadiun Affair, with the goal of seizing control of the republican forces.
The continuing existence of Republican resistance following the second 'Police action', paired with active diplomacy, soon thereafter led to the end of colonial rule. Journalistic opinion in much of the rest of the world, notably in the United States, was against the Dutch. In January 1949, the US government suspendedMarshall Plan aid to the Netherlands Indies. Although the threat toMarshall Plan aid to the Netherlands was only implicit, the possibility of the threat to American funds vital to Dutch economic recovery after the Second World War, was one of the reasons why the Netherlands government resumed negotiations.[16]
Following the Round Table conference in The Hague, the Dutch finally recognised Indonesian independence on December 27, 1949. An exception was made for NetherlandsNew Guinea (currently known as West Irian Jaya), which remained under Dutch control. In 1962, in an attempt to increase pressure on the Dutch, Indonesia launched a campaign of infiltration by commandos coming in by sea and air, which were all beaten back by the Dutch forces, although these were not serious invasions. After large pressure from mainly the United States (again about the Marshall Plan) the Dutch finally gave custody over New Guinea to the UN, which in 1963 gave New Guinea to Indonesia.
In the following decades, a diplomatic row between the governments of Indonesia and the Netherlands persisted over the officially recognized date of Indonesian independence. Indonesians commemorate the anniversary of Sukarno's proclamation (August 17, 1945) as their official holiday.
The Netherlands, having taken in a number of loyalist exiles who (for various reasons) viewed Sukarno's government as illegitimate, would only recognize the date of the final Dutch capitulation to Indonesia on December 27, 1949. This changed in 2005 when the DutchForeign Minister,Bernard Bot, made several well-publicized goodwill gestures: officially accepting Indonesian independence as beginning on August 17, 1945; expressing regret for suffering caused by the fighting during the war; and attending the 60th anniversary commemoration of Sukarno's independence proclamation, part of the first Dutch delegation to do so.
The war inBosnia and Herzegovina was an armed conflict that took place between March 1992 and November 1995. The war involved several ethnically defined factions within Bosnia and Herzegovina, each of which claimed to represent one of the country'sconstitutive peoples.
TheUnited Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) was the primaryUN peacekeeping force inCroatia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina during theYugoslav Wars. They served between February 1992 and March 1995. The Dutch Army contribution was known as ‘Dutchbat’. UNPROFOR was replaced by aNATO-led multinational force,IFOR in December 1995.
TheRoyal Netherlands Air Force deployed 12F-16s as part ofOperation Deny Flight, NATO's enforcement of the Bosnian no-fly zone between April 1993 and December 1995[3]. The Royal Netherlands Air Force also deployed 18 F-16s as part ofOperation Deliberate Force, a NATO air campaign conducted to undermine the military capability of Bosnian Serbs who threatened or attacked UN-designated "safe areas" in Bosnia[4].
One of the most controversial chapters of the Bosnian war and the Netherlands's involvement in the conflict was theSrebrenica massacre that took place in July 1995, where at least 7,000 Muslim men and boys were murdered after the town of Srebrenica fell to Bosnian Serb forces.
Srebrenica was supposed to be a UN-designated safe area, and Dutch troops under the command of ColonelThom Karremans were tasked to protect Srebrenica's safe haven status. From the outset, both parties to the conflict violated the 'safe area' agreement. Dutchbat troops had arrived in January 1995 and watched the situation deteriorate rapidly in the months after their arrival. The already meagre resources of the civilian population dwindled further and even the UN forces started running dangerously low on food, medicine, fuel and ammunition. Eventually, the UN peacekeepers had so little fuel that they were forced to start patrolling the enclave on foot; Dutchbat soldiers who went out of the area on leave were not allowed to return and their number dropped from 600 to 400 men. With only machinegun-equipped, light armor (Dutch parliament refused to deploy tanks), UNHQ's refusal to commit air support when it was needed, a passive, politically motivated Dutch high command and malfunctioning US supplied anti tank weapons (they would kill the operator on launch), the Dutchbat soldiers present could only wait and watch. Bosnian Serb forces soon took over the town and the massacre soon followed. One Dutch soldier was killed by a grenade lobbed from a column of a retreating Bosniak soldiers; he was the only fatal Dutch casualty in Srebrenica.
Thom Karremans, the UN, the Netherlands army and the Dutch government soon came under fierce criticism for their handling of the crisis. In 2002, a report by theNederlands Instituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie concluded that the "humanitarian motivation and political ambitions drove the Netherlands to undertake an ill-conceived and virtually impossible peace mission" and that Dutchbat was ill-equipped to carry out such a mission. The report led to the resignation of theSecond cabinet of Wim Kok. The report did not satisfy those that believed the Netherlands bore greater responsibility in not preventing the massacre.[17][18][19][20]
The Kosovo conflict was betweenYugoslavia and theNorth Atlantic Treaty Organization between March 24 and June 10, 1999, as a result of the breakdown of security and deteriorating human rights situation inKosovo. The Netherlands contributed several ships and aircraft to the NATO force in the region. On March 26, 1999, a YugoslavMiG-29 was shot down by a Royal Netherlands Air Force F-16. At its height in 1999, the Netherlands provided 2,000 troops forKFOR, that entered Kosovo to establish and maintain a secure environment.
The ‘War on Terrorism’ is a campaign by the United States, supported by severalNATO members and other allies, including the Netherlands, with the stated goal of ending internationalterrorism. The ‘War on Terrorism’ (in its current context) is the name given by theGeorge W. Bush administration to the efforts launched in response to theSeptember 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. byal-Qaeda.
TheMultinational force in Iraq, also known as the 'Coalition' or 'US-led coalition', refers to the nations whose governments have military personnel in Iraq. Thefirst Balkenende cabinet supported the US and the UK in the2003 invasion of Iraq. An independent contingent of 1,345 troops (including 650Dutch Marines,CH-47 Chinook helicopters, military police, a logistics team, a commando squad, and a field hospital and Royal Netherlands Air ForceAH-64 attack helicopters in support) based inSamawah (Southern Iraq), that started deploying in 2003 after the initial invasion, left Iraq in June 2005. Netherlands lost two soldiers in separate insurgent attacks.
In January 2010, PM Balkenende found himself in dire straits after the publication of the final report of the 10 months inquiry by theDavids Commission.
Willibrord Davids was the chairman of this special committee of inquiry, charged by the Dutch government in 2009 with investigating the decision-making by the Dutch government in 2003 on the political support for the war in Iraq, which was supported then by the Dutch government following intelligence from Britain and the US. This was the first ever independent legal assessment of the invasion decision. The commissioners included the former president of theHoge Raad (Dutch supreme court), a former judge of theEuropean Court of Justice, and two legal academics. Balkenende had so far resisted calls for a formalparliamentary inquiry into the decision to back the war.
According to the report, the Dutch cabinet had failed to fully inform the DutchHouse of Representatives about its support that the military action of the allies against Iraq"had no sound mandate under international law" and that the United Kingdom was instrumental in influencing the Dutch decision to back the war.[21]
It also emerged that the British government had refused to disclose a key document requested by the Dutch panel, a letter to Balkenende fromTony Blair in which was asked for the support. This letter was said to be handed over in a"breach ofdiplomatic protocol" and on the basis that it was for Balkenende's eyes only.
The letter was not sent as anote verbale as is the normal procedure – instead it was a personal message from Blair to Balkenende, and had to be returned and not stored in the Dutch archives.
The details of the Dutch inquiry's findings and the refusal of the British government to disclose the letter were likely to increase international scrutiny on theChilcot inquiry.
Balkenende reacted that he had fully informed of the lower house of parliament with regard to support for the invasion and that the repeated refusal by Saddam Hussain to respect UN resolutions and to co-operate with UN weapons inspectors had justified the invasion.
ThePartij van de Arbeid (Dutch Labour Party), part of Balkenende's ruling coalition, demanded a new statement from the PM.[22][23][24]
As part ofOperation Enduring Freedom, the Netherlands deployed aircraft as part of the European Participating Air Force (EPAF) in support of ground operations inAfghanistan as well as Dutch naval frigates to police the waters of the Middle East/Indian Ocean. Starting in 2006, the Netherlands deployed further troops and helicopters to Afghanistan as part of a new security operation in the south of the country.[25] Dutch ground and air forces totalled almost 2,000 personnel during 2006, taking part in combat operations alongside British and Canadian forces as part of NATO'sISAF force in the south. Most of the troops operated in theUruzgan Province as part of a 3-D strategy (defense, development, diplomacy). On November 1, 2006, Dutch Major-General Ton Van Loon took over NATO Regional Command South in Afghanistan for a six months period from the Canadians.[5]See theCoalition combat operations in Afghanistan in 2006 andBattle of Chora articles for further details. TheRoyal Netherlands ArmyCommando CaptainMarco Kroon was the first individual recipient of theMilitary William Order (the highest Dutch award for valour under fire, comparable to theVictoria Cross and theMedal of Honor) since 1955 for actions inUruzgan,Afghanistan.
Domestically, the participation was unpopular and controversial leading the government in 2007 to announce their withdrawal set for 2010.[26] In response to requests of the American government to continue to stay in Afghanistan in 2009, the Dutch government was reported to explore new missions in Afghanistan, however, this action led to disagreements within the government culminating in its collapse in February 2010.[27] On August 1, 2010, the Dutch military formally declared its withdrawal from its four-year mission in Afghanistan; all 1,950 soldiers are expected to be back in the Netherlands by September.[28]
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