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......... the online guide for The Netherlands .........
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History of The Netherlands.
This page contains a brief account of the history of the Netherlands.
For your convenience, the information is presented under six separate themes, which have been carefully chosen to cover key periods in Dutch history. Various links can be used to obtain further information about the period in question.
 Formation of The Netherlands: 50 BC - 1586
The Dutch Republic at War: 1568 - 1813
The Golden Age: 1600 - 1700
The Kingdom of The Netherlands: 1813 - 1914
World Wars and post-war Reconstruction: 1914 - 1966
The last decades of the twentieth century: 1967 - 2000
Formation of The Netherlands: 50 BC - 1586
50 BC - 400 AD - The Romans
In 57 BC Julius Caesar's troops conquered what is now Belgium and the southern part of the Netherlands. The tribes in the area were subjected to Roman rule. This marked the end of the pre-history of the Netherlands. Julius Caesar's own 'Commentarii de Bello Gallico' gives an account of the relevant campaigns. Slightly later, Tacitus reports in his 'Historiae' on events in the area in 69-70 AD. He gives a particularly detailed account of an uprising led by Claudius Civilis, a Batavian chieftain who had commanded the Batavian auxiliaries in the Roman army for many years but united several tribes in revolt against Roman rule following the death of Emperor Nero. Claudius Civilis was supported by Gauls but was eventually defeated after a bitter struggle and probably withdrew north of the Rhine.
During the Roman period, the Rhine marked the northern frontier of the Roman empire in the Netherlands. Forts were built at present-day Valkenburg, Utrecht and Nijmegen. The Frisians, who lived in the area now known as the northern provinces of Friesland and Groningen, were not under Roman rule, although they did have close trading relations with the Romans. Because the areas where the Frisians lived were regularly inundated by the sea, they built artificial mounds (known as 'terps' ) to raise their settlements above the level of the floods. South of the Rhine, large villas were built where the native inhabitants lived Roman-style in relative luxury and farmed the land using slaves, according to Roman custom.
The reign of Emperor Trajan (98-117) saw a long period of peace and relative prosperity, during which the Roman-occupied Netherlands became part of the province of Germania Inferior. In the course of the 3rd century AD, Roman power began to weaken. The Germanic tribes which had united and collectively become known as the Franks and the Saxons made ever more frequent incursions into the Roman-occupied area and in 406 a great invasion of Gaul finally put an end to Roman rule in the Low Countries.
800 - The early Middle Ages
In the early Middle Ages, the Franks were a major force in the Low Countries (present-day Belgium and the Netherlands). The word 'Franks' is probably a collective term used to describe a number of Germanic tribes which had joined forces to overthrow Roman rule. Having done this, they pressed gradually southwards over the next few decades. However, in 451, when the Huns invaded under the leadership of Attila, triggering a major westward migration, Franks and Romans fought side by side at the battle of the Catalaunian Plains.
Frankish culture evolved gradually out of that of the late Roman era. Clovis (466-511), grandson of the Merovech who gave his name to the dynasty, was the most successful of the Merovingian Frankish kings. He managed to expand the Frankish sphere of influence to include the whole of Gaul, from the Pyrenees to the major rivers of the northern Netherlands. On his deathbed, he divided his kingdom between his four sons. Belgium and part of the Netherlands were allocated to Chlotar I.
The Merovingians appointed officials called 'mayors of the palace' to advise them and supervise their households. As time went on, however, these officials gained more and more power and eventually usurped the throne. In 689, one of them - Pepin II - defeated the Frisian king Radbod near Dorestad and so extended his domains to the north and east. At that time, too, the conversion of the Netherlands to Christianity was just beginning. Missionaries roamed the country and in 629 a small church was built in Utrecht on the ruins of an old Roman fort. In the north, however, the Frisians continued to cling to their old beliefs and the Christian missionaries had little success.
An Anglo-Saxon monk called Willibrord is one of the best remembered of the missionaries who were active in the Netherlands, especially among the Frisians. Eventually the Pope ordained him archbishop of the Frisians and bishop of Utrecht. After Willibrord died in 739, his work was continued by Boniface (bishop of Mainz) until he was murdered by a band of Frisians in Dokkum in 754.
In 751, Pepin III deposed the last Merovingian king and had himself proclaimed King of the Franks. He did so with the Pope's support and was anointed king by the missionary archbishop Boniface. Pepin's action established the Carolingian dynasty, named after his celebrated son, Charlemagne (742-814). When Charlemagne succeeded his father, he at first shared the throne with his brother Carloman. After the latter's death, he embarked on a struggle against the Saxons, who were resisting Frankish domination under the leadership of a Saxon noble called Widukind. In 785 Widukind capitulated and was forced to follow Charlemagne into Gaul, to swear allegiance to him and to be baptised. This brought the eastern Netherlands and Frisia definitively under Carolingian sway.
Charlemagne aspired to model his kingdom on the Roman empire and in 800 he had the Pope crown him Holy Roman Emperor. His 47-year-long reign was a period of administrative reform and cultural renaissance. At the height of his power, he ruled over an area that extended from the Elbe to the Pyrenees and from central Italy to the North Sea.
925 - German rule
Charlemagne was succeeded in 814 by his son, Louis the Pious (778-840). He built coastal defences against the Viking raids which had begun during his father's reign. The Vikings, mainly from Denmark, were to continue harrying the coastal areas of the Netherlands for at least another 200 years, sailing up the rivers to plunder deep inland.
Following the death of Louis the Pious, the empire was divided between his three sons by the Treaty of Verdun (843). The eldest, Lothair, was given the imperial crown and the extensive middle kingdom stretching from central Italy to the North Sea and incorporating the Low Countries. On his death, this middle kingdom was further divided between his own three sons. The northern part, Lotharingia, which extended from Friesland to the Jura in eastern France, fell to Lothair II, from whom it got its name. After Lothair II died leaving no legitimate heirs, Lotharingia was partitioned into the west and east Frankish kingdoms. In 925, however, King Henry (the Fowler) of Germany conquered the whole of Lotharingia. From then until 1648, the Netherlands was to remain officially part of the German-ruled Holy Roman Empire, despite constant efforts to regain its independence.
The feudal system in the Holy Roman Empire had a profound effect on the social structure of the area. The spiritual and temporal lords were bound as vassals, or liegemen, to the king, from whom they received fiefs in return for their fealty. The lords in their turn granted their vassals land in fief. At the base of the pyramid were the peasants or serfs, who were allowed small pieces of land but had to surrender most of what they produced to their overlords. In the course of time, the vassals began to act more independently of the empire and so laid the foundations for the earliest counties (lands ruled by a count) and later for the independent principalities. The term 'Holland' emerged around 1100 as the name of one such county.
During this period of fragmentation of power, much land was brought into cultivation and trade and industry increased. As a result, the proportion of the population living in towns increased substantially. This in turn made the municipal authorities more important. The power of the Emperors was increasingly undermined by the push for independence by the counts and their vassals. They tried to restore it by investing loyal Churchmen with temporal powers and loyal secular lands with ecclesiastical powers. This strategy led to the investiture controversy between the Holy Roman Emperor and the Pope in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The contest finally ended in 1122 when the Emperor renounced his claim to influence over the appointment of bishops and abbots. This reduction in the Emperor's power ushered in a further decline of the Holy Roman Empire.
1419-1467 - Burgundian rule
Burgundy is a region of eastern France. It owes its name to the Burgundians, a Germanic tribe who had migrated southwards from Bornholm (Denmark) and settled on the banks of the Rhine. Following their defeat by the Huns, the Romans allocated them new territory in Savoy (in the French Alps). In 1363 the Duchy of Burgundy was given by the King of France to his son Philip the Bold (1342-1404). It was his marriage to Margaret, heiress to the county of Flanders, that laid the foundation for the later Burgundian dynasty. Their grandson, Philip the Good (1396-1467), set up 'States' (assemblies of representatives of the 'three estates': nobility, clergy and towns) as a form of limited central government in his kingdom. By the fourteenth century, the Low Countries had more or less evolved into independent territories with their own privileges. The States were entitled to decide what financial contributions these territories should make to central government. Later, the States found ways of extending their powers further. In 1464 delegates from all the States assembled for the first time in Bruges. This event is regarded as the first meeting of the body later to be known as the States General (still the official name of the Dutch parliament).
In 1467, Charles the Bold (1433-1477), son of Philip the Good, became duke of Burgundy, Brabant, Limburg and Luxembourg and count of Flanders, Holland and Zeeland. Charles the Bold is mainly remembered for his attempt to revive the middle kingdom of Lotharingia in the face of opposition from the French king Louis XI. He also established a number of central government institutions including a central court of audit and a supreme law court, the Parlement of Mechlin.
Under the Burgundians, trade, industry and the arts all flourished. Antwerp became the principal port of the Low Countries and the thriving cloth industry was a major source of income. Great artists appeared on the scene, notably in the southern Netherlands, where Jan van Eyck, court painter to Philip the Good, painted the celebrated altarpiece, 'The Adoration of the Lamb'. Another great artist active at this time was Hieronymus Bosch. The first university in the Low Countries was founded at Louvain and the invention of the printing press by the German goldsmith Johan Gutenberg around 1440 led to the emergence of a recorded lay literature. 'Charles and Elegast', a Dutch-language tale of chivalry featuring Charlemagne, was particularly popular among the nobility and educated bourgeoisie during the Burgundian era and was seen by them as exemplifying the ideal relationship between prince and subject.
In 1477 Charles the Bold died in battle at Nancy and the duchy of Burgundy reverted to the French crown. The other Burgundian lands, including the Low Countries, passed into the hands of the Habsburgs (the ruling house of the Holy Roman Empire) with the marriage between Charles' daughter Mary of Burgundy and Maximilian I of Austria.
The late 14th century saw growing criticism of the church in the Low Countries. This would eventually lead to a schism within the Roman Catholic church.
1477 - The Habsburgs
The House of Habsburg ruled the Holy Roman Empire intermittently from 1273 to 1806. In 1477, under pressure from the States, which wished to regain their former prerogatives, Mary of Burgundy enacted the 'Great Privilege'. She was only nineteen and not yet married to Maximilian I. The document provided for the abolition of the Parlement of Mechlin and the central court of audit and their replacement by a new body, the Great Council of Mechlin. From now on, the States General and the states of the different provinces could meet on their own authority. Flanders, Holland, Namur and Brabant received major privileges of their own. These measures prevented the disintegration of the Low Countries.
After the death of Charles the Bold, King Louis XI of France immediately occupied the duchy of Burgundy and sent his army north. In September of the same year, a truce was declared between Mary's husband, Maximilian I of Austria, and Louis XI but in 1478 the French confiscated Charles the Bold's French lands and war broke out again. A victory by Maximilian over the French army guaranteed Mary continued possession of Flanders. When she died in 1482 after falling from her horse, she was succeeded by her three-year-old son Philip the Handsome, with his father Maximilian acting as regent. Flanders and Brabant strongly objected to this regency. They recognised Maximilian only after he had signed the Peace of Arras with France and on condition that his two-year-old daughter married the thirteen-year-old Charles VIII of France. Burgundy was regarded as rightfully belonging to France.
In 1493, Maximilian succeeded his father as Holy Roman Emperor. His son Philip the Handsome, now able to act for himself, took over the government of the Low Countries and married Joan of Castile. When he suddenly died in 1506, his son Charles V was still a child and Maximilian resumed the regency, sending his daughter Margaret of Savoy to Brussels to represent him as governor-general.
1515-1555 - Charles V
In 1492, the provinces of Flanders, Artois, Brabant, Limburg, Namur, Luxembourg, Hainault, Holland and Zeeland had acknowledged Philip the Handsome as their ruler. Gelderland and Zutphen were given their own ruler in the shape of Charles, count of Egmond. Liège, Utrecht, Friesland and Groningen remained independent despite a fierce struggle between Charles of Egmond and Philip the Handsome for control over them. However, Philip's son Charles V, who attained his majority in 1515, managed to annex all these areas with the exception of Liège, creating a degree of cohesion between the Low Countries. In 1517 Charles V left for Spain to succeed his grandfather, Ferdinand of Aragon. He was to remain there for the rest of his reign, returning to the Low Countries only for periods of relatively short duration. He too appointed Margaret of Savoy as governor-general of the Low Countries. On the death of his other grandfather, Maximilian, in 1519, Charles succeeded to the imperial crown. He now reigned over a vast empire, including the Spanish conquests in the New World.
Charles V pursued a strongly centralist policy. He disregarded the 'Great Privilege' which his grandmother Mary of Burgundy had enacted and which gave the provinces greater political freedom. In 1531, following the death of Margaret of Savoy, he reformed central government and appointed his sister, Mary of Hungary, to govern the Low Countries. The Great Council was divided into three separate bodies: the Council of Finance, the Privy Council and the Council of State. The latter was composed of officials and senior nobles and existed to advise the governor-general on all matters of importance. In addition, Charles appointed stadholders to govern the provinces in his name. Mary held almost daily meetings with her inner circle of advisors, but seldom invited the great nobles to attend. This caused much resentment.
The reign of Charles V was a time of religious as well as political ferment. In 1517 a German Augustinian monk named Martin Luther nailed his famous 95 theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg, giving voice to widespread public dissatisfaction with the conduct of the Catholic Church. His protest was directed primarily at the highly profitable sale of indulgences (documents commuting the temporal punishment for sins committed by the purchaser). Charles pursued the religious reformers with fire and the sword. Anyone supporting their views could expect to be burnt at the stake. Even so, the Low Countries provided particularly fertile ground for Luther's ideas, especially because one-third of the population could read and write. A number of different Protestant movements sprang up. The radical doctrines of the Frenchman Jean Calvin (1509-1564) made rapid headway. Calvinist services were extremely plain and Calvinists regarded the statues adorning Catholic churches as heathen images. Another important emergent movement was humanism, most famously represented by the Rotterdam-born Desiderius Erasmus (1469-1536). One of his best-known works is The Praise of Folly, a satire on shortcomings in the Church and society at large. Erasmus tried to reconcile humanism - which attaches great value to individual freedom and autonomy - with Christianity.
In 1555 Charles V was forced to sign the Peace of Augsburg, confirming the right of German princes to choose the religion of their subjects (whether Protestant or Catholic). For the Low Countries, this meant the retention of Catholicism. Within the year, disappointed at his inability to preserve the unity of Christendom within his empire, Charles abdicated. He was succeeded by his brother Ferdinand as Holy Roman Emperor, and by his son Philip II as King of Spain and sovereign lord of the seventeen provinces of the Low Countries.
1555-1581 - Philip II
Philip II had been born and brought up in Spain and thought of himself first and foremost as a Spaniard. He knew little of the Low Countries and did not speak the language or understand the mentality of his subjects there. Philip appointed his half-sister, Margaret of Parma (1522-1586) as his governor-general. He maintained the centralised system of government introduced by his father, although the Council of State frequently saw its role usurped by Philip's private 'Spanish Council'. The nobles, including William of Orange, stadholder of Holland and West Friesland, Zeeland and Utrecht, asked Philip to allow them greater influence over the governance of the country and to withdraw his Spanish troops. Philip agreed to the latter request and moved back to Spain. Since his victory over France - confirmed by the peace treaty of 1559 - his presence in the Low Countries was in any case no longer required, whereas in Spain there were pressing problems, such as an empty treasury and the war against the Ottoman Empire in the south.
The departure of the Spanish troops did not end the great nobles' opposition to the policies of Philip and Margaret. They were equally opposed to the operations of the Inquisition and the influence of Margaret's advisor Antoine Perrenot, Cardinal Granvelle, who excluded them from the deliberations of the Council of State. He was eventually dismissed by Philip in 1564, partly as a result of pressure from Margaret.
The opposition to Philip II and his advisors was led by three members of the Council of State: the counts of Egmond and of Hoorne, and William, Prince of Orange. William of Orange was born in his family's ancestral home in Dillenburg (Germany), as the son of count William of Nassau and Juliana of Stolberg. In 1544, following the death of his French cousin René de Châlon, he inherited the title of Prince of Orange, together with valuable estates in France and in the Low Countries. In 1551 his possessions were further enlarged by his marriage to Anna of Egmond. William had been brought up as a Protestant, but Charles V demanded that he revert to Catholicism on pain of dispossession of the lands he had inherited.
William of Orange was one of the wealthiest and most powerful men of his day. It was he who, at the age of 22, lent his shoulder to the elderly and disillusioned Charles V as he hobbled to his abdication ceremony in the great hall of the Palace in Brussels. Charles' son and successor, Philip II, appointed William a Councillor of State and made him a member of the influential Order of the Golden Fleece. Even so, William continued to band together with the other nobles in opposition to the king's centralist policies. In religious matters he was tolerant. Following the death of his first wife, Anna of Egmond, he married a Lutheran princess, Anna of Saxony, and allowed her to continue practising her faith. It was this marriage that produced his son Maurice.
1566 - The Breaking of the Images
In 1565, in Spa the nobles met representatives of local Calvinist congregations and plans were made to take action against the suppression of Calvinism. The next year it was decided to present a petition to the governor-general requesting her to abandon the persecution of religious dissidents. When one of her counsellors was heard to remark scornfully that the petitioners were 'nothing but beggars', the nobles at once adopted the name 'beggars' as a badge of honour and started to wear beggars' scrips on chains around their necks as symbols of their allegiance. As the 'Sea Beggars', some of their number later became Philip's most formidable opponents.
The social disruption caused by religious persecution was not the only cause of unrest in the Low Countries in 1566. High grain prices were also a factor. The nobles presented a second petition to Margaret of Parma, this time seeking complete religious freedom and asking for the government of the country to be placed in the hands of Egmond, Hoorne and William of Orange. However, in August that year a surge of iconoclastic riots swept the country. Hundreds of Catholic churches and monastic institutions were stripped and desecrated. In response to this wave of religious violence, Margaret demanded that the nobles all swear a new oath of loyalty to the king. Orange, Hoorne, Hoogstraten and Brederode refused. A third petition was presented, again requesting complete religious freedom, but this time accompanied by a threat of rebellion if the request were not granted. On 13 March 1567 Margaret's troops clashed with those of the Calvinists near Antwerp and the latter suffered a crushing defeat. Harsh anti-Calvinist measures followed and Orange, Brederode and thousands of others fled abroad. Philip II dispatched a large army to the Low Countries under the command of Fernando Alvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alva. Alva was appointed governor-general and Margaret stood down.
Alva's arrival heralded a new era, one of great unrest, in the Low Countries. Alva had been sent with his army to punish the rebels and root out heresy once and for all. He instituted the Council of Troubles, a tribunal with powers to try and sentence all suspects, irrespective of rank or position. It was soon dubbed the 'Council of Blood' because of the death sentences it dealt out.
1568 - The Eighty Years' War
The war that broke out in the Low Countries in 1568 marked the start of a period of eighty years of intermittent armed resistance against Spanish rule. In that year, an army of mercenaries under the command of William of Orange invaded the Low Countries in four places at once in an attempt to unleash a popular uprising. To fund the move, William had sold some of his Nassau estates. Mistakes on the ground led to the failure of the plan. Unable to take William himself prisoner, Alva seized his son Philip William, who was studying in Louvain, and sent him to Spain. William was never to see him again. William's associates, Egmond and Hoorne, were executed in Brussels on Alva's orders. In addition, Alva made himself even more hated by the nobility and the general populace by imposing a 10 per cent tax (known as the 'Tenth Penny') on all sales of movable goods. Not only was this a crippling measure for a trade-based economy like that of the Low Countries, it also meant that the provinces would lose control of the system of taxation. Consequently, it aroused such resistance that Alva was never in fact able to collect the tax. He had to accept the offer of a sum in compensation, which was raised by the provinces.
Following the failure of his attempted coup, William lived for some time in France, among the Huguenots (Calvinists). There he encountered Calvinism as a religion of the nobility and the burghers, whereas in the Low Countries it was practised chiefly by ordinary people. William himself was still a Catholic, and was to remain so for some time yet. He continued to advocate freedom of worship, despite the fact that his allies, the Calvinists, forbade Catholicism in the areas they had 'reformed'.
William made two more attempts at invasion, in 1570 and 1572. In the second of these he had the support of the French Huguenots on land and of the Sea Beggars off the coast. The plan was to launch a concerted attack in June. However, the Sea Beggars acted sooner than agreed and scored the first victory against the Spaniards by taking the small seaport of Brielle (Brill) in Zeeland on 1 April. Vlissingen (Flushing) and Veere fell soon after and the hoped-for popular uprising began in Holland and Zeeland. Representatives of the rebel towns met in Dordrecht and proclaimed William of Orange stadholder of Holland and Zeeland. He was not declared sovereign ruler, because he remained convinced that the revolt was directed not against the king but against the tyranny of his representative, Alva. This conviction is reflected in a line still sung as part of the Dutch national anthem, the Wilhelmus: "To the king of Spain I've granted lifelong loyalty". The Wilhelmus is actually a piece of religious and political propaganda written by an anonymous poet in praise of William of Orange and in defence of his leadership of the revolt.
1579 - The Union of Utrecht
William's hopes of further French support were extinguished when the principal Huguenot leaders were murdered in Paris on 24 August 1572 in what became known as the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre. The victims included William's main associate, Gaspard de Coligny. The slaughter continued for three days, and more than 20,000 Huguenots lost their lives.
Meanwhile, Alva marched north, capturing town after town, until only Alkmaar remained defiant. In 1573, however, Alva left the Low Countries and was succeeded as governor-general by Don Luis de Requesens y Zúñiga. His weak rule - and his death three years later - allowed William to achieve major successes. In 1576 all seventeen provinces signed the Pacification of Ghent, agreeing to join forces to drive out the Spanish troops and to suspend the heresy laws until such time as a full meeting of the States General could decide the question of freedom of religion. It was this issue that would lead three years later to a definitive split between the northern and southern provinces.
In 1578, Margaret of Parma's son, Alexander Farnese, prince and later Duke of Parma, became the new governor-general. He managed to restore Spanish rule in the southern provinces, which were still predominantly Catholic, and this situation was confirmed on 6 January 1579 by the conclusion of the Union of Arras. Seventeen days later, the seven secessionist northern provinces responded by concluding the Union of Utrecht. This provided that the provinces were to be free to order religious matters as they saw fit, but that nobody in them was to be persecuted for their faith. William of Orange regarded the split between the northern and southern Netherlands as a personal failure.
The revolts of 1568 and 1572 had been funded by William of Orange out of his own resources and had brought him to the brink of bankruptcy. Once one of the most powerful men of his time, he was now heavily in debt. The common people still revered him and called him 'Father of the Fatherland' but his opponents had another name for him: William the Silent, because they felt that he had remained silent at the very moments when he ought to have spoken. It is generally acknowledged that William of Orange must have had unique strength of personality to have dared to stand up to two such mighty opponents as the King of Spain and the Catholic Church.
In 1580, proclaimed an outlaw by Philip II, he wrote with the assistance of his chaplain Villiers his still famous Apology, which set out his theories regarding the right to rebel against a tyrannical ruler. In the following year the seven provinces responded to the offer of a reward for William's assassination by issuing the Act of Abjuration, a solemn declaration that Philip could no longer be acknowledged as sovereign lord because he had not honoured his obligations to his subjects.
In 1582 there was an assassination attempt. William was badly wounded and his third wife, Charlotte de Bourbon, whom he had married in 1575, nursed him so selflessly with her own hands that she herself died soon after his recovery. Two years later, in 1584, a second assassination attempt succeeded. William of Orange was shot and killed by Baltasar Gérard at his marital home, the Prinsenhof in Delft. He was survived by his fourth wife, Louise de Coligny, daughter of the Huguenot leader, and his baby son Frederick Henry.
After William's death, the States General met and decided to continue the struggle. One of those present was Maurice, William's son, still only 17. The situation of the rebel provinces was deteriorating fast. When the Duke of Parma captured Antwerp, the leading city in the Low Countries, many of its inhabitants fled to Amsterdam, which consequently supplanted Antwerp as the main centre of trade. The States General were more than ever convinced that only force could bring a solution to Spanish domination, and that they needed foreign assistance.
Accordingly, the States General offered the sovereignty of the provinces in revolt first to Henry III of France and then to Queen Elizabeth of England. Both were afraid of risking war with Spain if they accepted the offer, but Elizabeth did send an army to the Netherlands under the command of the Earl of Leicester. Acting against her wishes, Leicester had himself proclaimed governor-general. However, he ignored the views of the States General and quickly forfeited the confidence of the country. In 1588 the States General decided to give up their search for a head of state and to assume sovereign power themselves. The Republic of the United Provinces was born.
The Dutch Republic at War: 1568 - 1813
1588 - The Republic of the United Provinces
In 1588 the Republic of the United Provinces consisted of the seven sovereign provinces of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Friesland, Groningen, Overijssel and Gelderland, the most powerful being Holland. Each of the provinces elected a Stadholder. The office of Stadholder had originally been intended for the King of Spain's representative or proxy but under the Republic the Stadholder became the servant of the States and an entirely new form of government came into being. This was headed by the States General, which was made up of representatives of the seven sovereign provinces and met in The Hague. Because unanimity was required in voting on matters relating to defence and taxation, and because such issues had to be debated by the provincial assemblies first, it was difficult for the States General to act decisively and decision-making was subject to long delays. Each of the provinces also had a paid legal adviser or 'Pensionary', known in Holland as the Advocate. These were influential officials, especially in a powerful province like Holland, since they acted as spokesmen for their provinces in the States General and also as intermediaries between the States and foreign powers. Johan van Oldenbarnevelt and Johan de Witt were the most influential of these Advocates or Grand Pensionaries, as they were later called.
Following the departure of the Earl of Leicester in 1587, the situation seemed desperate. He took with him the troops under his command and the States were left to rely wholly on their own resources. Moreover, the might of Spain seemed about to subjugate Protestant England through the efforts of the Armada, backed by the land-based forces of the Duke of Parma. However, the expedition was a disaster. Admiral Justinus van Nassau was able to prevent Parma's army from joining forces with the Spanish fleet and the English navy was able, with the assistance of ships from Zeeland and Holland, to smash the 'invincible' Armada. Further decimated by storms, the remaining ships sailed north round Scotland to limp home to Spain. Of the original 130 ships, only about 80 survived. This triumph over Catholic Spain won the Protestant states great respect in Europe.
With the help of the political strategist Oldenbarnevelt, William of Orange's son Maurice improved the organisation of resistance to Spain. He reorganised the army and introduced new techniques of warfare. Oldenbarnevelt provided him with the necessary funding by uniting the States and promoting Maurice as the new Stadholder. Leicester, who had come from England to help defend the provinces against the Spanish but then usurped more and more power, certainly helped to encourage the development of Oldenbarnevelt's political genius and the growth of unity within the States. Maurice's greatest successes were the capture of Breda in 1590, when he smuggled 68 young men into the town in the hold of a ship carrying peat, and the defeat of the Spaniards at Nieuwpoort in 1600. His closest military associate was William Louis, Count of Nassau and Stadholder of Friesland, Groningen and Drenthe.
1602 - United East India Company
The Portuguese discovered the sea route to the Far East towards the end of the 15th century. They were quickly followed by the Spanish and for some time Portugal and Spain were the only European nations with a presence in the region. The fledgling Republic saw its chance clear to gain a share of this lucrative trade and the first Dutch ships set sail for the Far East in 1595. The voyage took two years but the prospects seemed encouraging. Various 'distant trade companies' were rapidly set up in the Republic and competed fiercely with each other. In order to avoid confrontation with the Spanish and Portuguese, the Dutch sought an alternative north-easterly passage, but driven back by the harsh climatic conditions they abandoned these attempts and returned to the known route round Africa.
In 1602 Johan van Oldenbarnevelt managed to bring together the rival companies into the United East India Company (VOC). This was based on the example of the English East India Company, but swiftly outgrew its rival because of its far greater starting capital. Shares were issued to the value of 6.5 million guilders and could be bought by any resident of the Republic. With the resulting capital, the company built a substantial armed merchant fleet. The VOC had six local branches or 'chambers', which represented the towns of Amsterdam, Middelburg, Delft, Rotterdam, Hoorn and Enkhuizen in the governing body, known as the 'Heeren XVII'.
The States endowed the Company with wide powers including the monopoly of trade and navigation between the Republic and the Far East, authority to conclude alliances, equip land and seaborne forces, appoint governors and judges and administer justice in relation to its employees. In its day, it was the most successful commercial enterprise in the world. It also became an economic, political and military weapon against the Spanish and Portuguese. At the height of its power, the VOC had trading stations in Persia, India, China, Japan and the East Indies. On Java, it founded the town of Batavia (present-day Jakarta), which became the hub of VOC trading operations in the Far East. In Japan, it represented for many years (right through to 1854) the only European power permitted to trade and from 1602 to 1799 the VOC enjoyed an absolute monopoly of Dutch trade with the Far East.
In 1621 a similar enterprise - the Dutch West India Company (WIC) - was established to trade with Africa and the West Indies. In 1623 Piet Heyn was appointed vice-admiral of the fleet. The best-known feat of his career was the seizure of the Spanish treasure fleet off the coast of Cuba in 1628. The booty was worth 12 million guilders: an unprecedented sum at that time. This success was part of a plan systematically to attack ships carrying silver from the New World to Spain. In fact, it was in privateering - a form of piracy licensed by the States - that the WIC achieved its greatest successes. Maurice and Oldenbarnevelt felt that Piet Heyn's abilities as a commander and strategist made him the best person to reform Holland's fleet and in 1629 he was appointed Lieutenant-Admiral of Holland. Unfortunately, he was killed before the year was out in a campaign against the Dunkirk pirates.
1609-1621 - The Twelve Years' Truce
By around 1600, the Republic had become a great power. Back in 1596, France and England had recognised the Republic by forming a triple alliance with it. As a result, the war with Spain became part of a wider anti-Habsburg campaign headed by France. In 1600, Prince Maurice, who was both Stadholder and commander of the Republic's land and sea forces, was instructed by the States General and the great merchants to occupy the towns along the Flemish coast and extirpate the pirates based at Dunkirk, who posed a constant threat to the Republic's growing merchant fleet. Maurice undertook the expedition very much against his better judgement. His forces clashed with those of Archduke Albert, governor-general of the southern Netherlands and son-in-law of Philip II of Spain, in the dunes at Nieuwpoort. Maurice managed to win the battle but was unable to fulfil his mission of seizing the Flemish towns and Dunkirk. At sea, too, the war continued, with Jacob van Heemskerck overcoming a Spanish fleet near Gibraltar in 1607. This was the first major naval victory by the Republic and was of great strategic value. Van Heemskerck himself perished during the fighting.
In 1608 Spain and the Republic held peace talks in The Hague, with England and France present as mediators. This culminated in the signing of the Twelve Years' Truce in 1609. The issue led to a confrontation between the two most powerful men in the Republic: the Stadholder, Prince Maurice, would have preferred hostilities to continue, while the Grand Pensionary, Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, championed peace. It was not the only issue dividing them. Within the Reformed Church, a bitter conflict had broken out between two groups calling themselves Remonstrants and Counter-Remonstrants. The prince took the side of the Counter-Remonstrants, who advocated doctrinal orthodoxy, while Oldenbarnevelt supported the more moderate Remonstrants. Feelings ran high and civil war seemed imminent. The Counter-Remonstrants emerged victorious from the Synod of Dordrecht in 1618. Subsequently, a specially constituted tribunal found Oldenbarnevelt guilty of high treason and he was executed in The Hague on 13 May 1619. The religious controversy, and particularly the attitude adopted by Prince Maurice, inflicted lasting damage on the relationship between the States General and the House of Orange.
The Twelve Years' Truce expired in 1621. An initial desire to replace the Truce by a definitive peace treaty foundered in the face of unacceptable demands on the Spanish side. On 23 April 1625, Prince Maurice died. He was succeeded by his half-brother Frederick Henry, Count of Nassau and Prince of Orange, William of Orange's youngest son born to his fourth wife Louise de Coligny. Frederick Henry breathed new life into the conflict with Spain, taking many towns from the Spanish and thereby earning the name 'stedendwinger' (conqueror of towns). He owed his military training to Prince Maurice and Simon Stevin, a mathematical engineer employed by the Stadholder.
In 1639 a second Spanish Armada was dispatched to the Low Countries with 20,000 men on board, in a further attempt to subdue the rebel States. Admiral Maarten Tromp sailed against it with a much smaller fleet and destroyed the Armada in the Battle of the Downs.
1648 - The Treaty of Münster
Despite Frederick Henry's victories, the southern Netherlands were still largely Catholic and in Spanish hands. Negotiations had already taken place with France about the division of the region. Frederick Henry died on 14 March 1647 after peace negotiations had opened in Münster between France, Spain and the Republic. The following year, these resulted in the Treaty of Münster, under which both the King of Spain and the Holy Roman Emperor recognised the United Provinces as a free and sovereign state. This brought an end to 80 years of warfare with Spain and terminated the formal ties between the Republic and the Holy Roman Empire. Since the existing front lines became the new national frontiers, the Republic gained sovereignty over a number of conquered territories, not only in Brabant, Flanders and Limburg but also in the East and West Indies. The territories in the southern Netherlands were placed under the direct authority of the States General and were thereafter known as the 'Generality Lands'.
Frederick Henry was succeeded as Stadholder by his son William II, who, in 1641, had married Mary Stuart, the ten-year-old daughter of the British King Charles I. Like his father, William II was fiercely opposed to peace with Spain. The States, however, were glad to be relieved of the financial burden of war and refused to go on funding the troops. William retaliated by marching on Amsterdam in an attempt to force them to keep the army up to strength. On 6 November 1650, however, he suddenly died of smallpox, just a week before the birth of his son, William III. Guardianship of the infant prince was initially shared between his mother, Mary Stuart, his grandmother, Amalia van Solms, and his uncle, the Elector of Prussia. However, after Mary Stuart died in 1661, the States of Holland assumed responsibility for the upbringing of the orphan boy, termed 'the child of state'. In 1653 Johan de Witt became Grand Pensionary of Holland and hence one of the most influential people in the Republic. The period of William III's minority, between 1650 and 1672, is known as the 'first Stadholderless period'.
1672 - Year of Disasters
Britain and the Republic, both Protestant powers, shared many political interests but clashed increasingly from 1651 on because of their conflicting trade interests and maritime rivalry. The main cause of tension was the English Navigation Act of that year. Its purpose was to undermine the monopoly enjoyed by Dutch ships in Europe and in the East and West Indies, and it roused great indignation. The States reacted by equipping 150 merchant ships for use in battle and 1652 saw the outbreak of the first Anglo-Dutch War. Maarten Tromp, Michiel de Ruyter and Witte de With achieved some successes, but also suffered losses against the English. In 1654 peace returned between the two countries, but a few years later King Charles II declared war on the Republic again. This second Anglo-Dutch War lasted from 1665 to 1667. To strengthen the Republic's hand in the reopened peace negotiations of 1667, Michiel de Ruyter sailed a Dutch fleet into the Medway, to the Chatham naval base, where he destroyed a large part of the English fleet and captured the flagship, the 'Royal Charles'. In July, peace was concluded by an agreement substantially modifying the provisions of the Navigation Act.
1672 is known in Dutch history books as the 'Year of Disasters'. In that year, Louis XIV concluded an alliance with Charles II and two German prince-bishops and declared war on the Republic. The Republic was invaded from the south by the French and from the east by their German allies, while the French and English fleets formed a constant threat at sea. Only Holland and Zeeland and the city of Groningen did not fall to the invading forces. Meanwhile, a power struggle was going on in the Republic itself. Grand Pensionary Johan de Witt was a fierce opponent of the powerful House of Orange and took the side of those who wished to abolish the post of Stadholder, while the clergy and the proletariat were enthusiastic supporters of the House of Orange. The States of Holland enacted an 'Eternal Edict' proclaiming the abolition of the post of Stadholder and effectively stripping the House of Orange of all its powers. This frustrated the ambitions of William III, who was now old enough to lay claim to the command of the armed forces and the title of Stadholder. However, the States of Zeeland appointed William as Stadholder and the other provinces followed suit. The power of Johan de Witt was broken. He was blamed for the invasion, on the grounds that he had neglected the army and underestimated the threat of a French invasion. Before the year was out, he and his brother Cornelis were murdered by a frenzied mob of William's supporters in The Hague.
In the following year, under the command of William III, the Republic's armies drove out all the enemy troops; Michiel de Ruyter defeated the Anglo-French fleet, and in 1674 the Republic and Britain signed a new peace treaty. Peace was also concluded with the bishops of Cologne and Münster and in 1676 peace negotiations began with France. In the same year, Michiel de Ruyter perished in a naval battle in the Mediterranean. Despite the war, Louis XIV showed his respect for the great admiral by ordering a salute to be fired by all the French coastal batteries as the vessel carrying De Ruyter's body passed by. Two years later, a peace treaty was signed in Nijmegen, under which the Republic regained all its southern territories occupied by France.
1688 - The Glorious Revolution
In 1677 William III married Mary Stuart, the elder daughter of the Duke of York and the direct heir to the British throne. William III was an astute politician and statesman who sought to preserve the balance of power in Europe by means of alliances and was especially anxious to thwart Louis XIV's expansionist aims and his religious zeal. In 1685 Louis revoked the Edict of Nantes, which had granted the Huguenots freedom of worship. In response, 400,000 skilled and educated Protestants fled the country and sought refuge in the Republic, Britain and the Protestant German principalities. This gave rise to a new wave of anti-French feeling in the Republic. In Britain, the Catholic James II (William III's father-in-law) came to the throne. He quickly introduced pro-Catholic measures and concluded an alliance with France. The English parliament pleaded with William and his wife Mary to intervene. In November 1688, with the consent of the States General, William set sail with a great army to restore the laws and freedoms of England. James II promptly fled to France and the 'Glorious Revolution' resulted in a constitutional monarchy. When in 1689 the English parliament proclaimed William and Mary joint monarchs, William III became a King, as well as being Stadholder of the Republic.
William III's constant aim had been to create a grand alliance against the French. He finally succeeded in the same year as he was crowned King in England. The anti-French coalition included the Austrian emperor, several German states and even Spain. But by that time war had already broken out between the Republic and France. It was to last nine years and bring little success. The heavy costs involved inflicted great damage on the economy, leading to higher unemployment. This provoked a popular uprising among the people of Amsterdam, who were tired of costly wars.
1702-1713 - The War of the Spanish Succession
William III was first and foremost a political animal, and in that sense the most internationally minded Prince of Orange ever. He left the governance of the Republic to his faithful followers, whom he had appointed to key posts. In 1700 the last Habsburg king of Spain, Charles II, died childless. Louis XIV of France thought he had a hereditary claim to certain Spanish possessions and managed without too much difficulty to place his grandson Philip, Duke of Anjou, on the Spanish throne. However, his claims were disputed by William III and by the Holy Roman Emperor, himself a Habsburg. The result was the War of the Spanish Succession, which broke out in 1702. In the same year, William himself died childless following a riding accident. In Britain, the throne passed to Anne, the sister of William's late wife, Mary Stuart. In most of the Republic, his death ushered in a second Stadholderless period. Friesland, however, retained its own Stadholder: Johan Willem Friso, whose grandmother was Frederick Henry's daughter. This aspect of his genealogy gave him a claim to become Stadholder of all the other provinces in the Republic. William III had in fact wanted to make him his successor, but the idea was opposed by the States of Holland.
The War of the Spanish Succession marked the start of a period of economic decline in the Republic. As in previous centuries, the southern Netherlands became the scene of incessant hostilities. Once again, the bone of contention was the territories subject to competing French, British and Dutch claims. And, once again, the people clamoured for a leader. In 1707 Johan Willem Friso, Stadholder of Friesland, was appointed to head the army. Many prominent figures in the Republic were in favour of appointing him Stadholder of the remaining provinces, but in 1711 he accidentally drowned while crossing the Hollands Diep. His son, Karel Hendrik Friso (later William IV), was born posthumously.
In 1713 the Peace of Utrecht was signed between Britain, Prussia, Portugal, Savoy and the Republic on the one hand and France on the other. Peace with Spain followed the year after. To obtain it, however, the Republic had to make major concessions. The southern Netherlands came under Austrian rule. The Republic retained only Venlo and Stevensweert and the right to garrison forts in the south. The principality of Orange reverted to France, but the title Prince of Orange was retained by William IV and his heirs.
1747 - Stadholder William IV
The period between 1702 and 1747, when William IV became Stadholder of the Republic, is known as the 'second Stadholderless period'. From 1715 on, the international political power of the States was severely reduced by internal divisions and the time-consuming system of government. Following the Peace of Utrecht, the regents, as represented in the States General, took the attitude that the Republic no longer needed to play a prominent role in international politics. This decision was prompted on the one hand by a sense of reality and on the other by a penny-pinching calculation that the costs outweighed any likely benefits. The general crisis of confidence was also caused by the tendency of the affluent classes to invest their money in neighbouring countries, where the economic situation was more encouraging. It was therefore difficult to get investment in the Republic off the ground. The period also saw two disastrous epidemics: one of pileworm and the other of cattle plague. The pileworm, which had come in from the Caribbean, bored holes not only in the wooden ships of the period but also in the wooden piles reinforcing the river dikes and sea defences. Catastrophic flooding was frequently only narrowly averted. The cattle plague was a disaster not only for the farmers, but also for exporters of dairy products.
In 1729, William IV reached the age of majority and assumed the post of Stadholder in four of the provinces. In 1740, a new war of succession broke out, this time between Austria and France. The Republic gave its support to Austria, prompting French troops to invade the south of the country. The people clamoured for William IV to be appointed Stadholder of the entire Republic. In May 1747 this was eventually done and at the same time the post was made hereditary. William was given more extensive powers than his predecessors but in the four years of his rule made little use of them to stamp out abuses such as high taxation and the sale of political offices. After a long illness, he died in 1751, leaving a three-year-old son as his successor. The child's mother, Anne of Hanover, became regent, assisted by the Austrian Duke of Brunswick (Braunschweig-Wolffenbüttel), Willem Bentinck and the Grand Pensionary of Holland, Pieter Steyn. When Princess Anne herself died in 1759, the Duke of Brunswick was appointed to act as William V's guardian until he came of age in 1766.
1781 - The Patriot Movement
The outbreak of the American War of Independence was followed with considerable sympathy in the Republic, if only because the American proponents of independence from the British were inspired by the 16th-century Dutch revolt against Spain. They were especially interested in the idea expressed by William of Orange in his Apology that circumstances could justify deposing a ruler.
In 1776, an American rebel brig, the Andrew Doria, appeared off the Dutch-held island of Sint Eustatius, now part of the Netherlands Antilles. The governor of the island ordered the firing of a salute, making the Republic the first country to accord de facto recognition to the United States as a sovereign state. William V found himself isolated in his sympathy with Britain and could see no value in the government reforms demanded by the democratic Patriot movement.
In 1780 an accord between Amsterdam and the American rebels on a future trade agreement led to the outbreak of the fourth Anglo-Dutch war. The Republic had seriously neglected its fleet and was now no match for the British navy. Many merchant ships fell into British hands or were forced to take evasive action, causing great damage to trade. These political and economic setbacks provoked widespread unrest. This was reinforced by the influence of the French Enlightenment, proclaiming an optimistic belief in the potential and reason of the individual, and prompting a push for democracy among the educated bourgeoisie. The wealthy merchant families had by this time evolved into a closed regent caste in control of all major political posts. Relations between the supporters of the House of Orange, who adhered closely to orthodox Protestant doctrine, and the emerging Patriots became increasingly strained. The situation culminated in the publication of a pamphlet addressed 'To the People of the Netherlands' written by an aristocratic Patriot called Joan Derk van der Capellen tot den Pol. This stated the aims of the Patriot movement and identified the House of Orange as the root of all evil. The pamphlet called for the modernisation and democratisation of the mouldering Republic. The years that followed saw clashes between the Patriots and supporters of the Stadholder, even amounting to the threat of civil war. In 1785, under threat from the Patriotic militias known as 'Free Corps', William V moved from The Hague to Nijmegen. In 1787, William's brother-in-law, the King of Prussia, dispatched troops to the Republic to restore order and many Patriots sought refuge in France.
In 1789 France was engulfed in revolution. In Brabant, which was under Austrian rule, there were also two opposing parties: the conservative Statists and the democratic Vonckists. Eventually, in 1789, this 'Brabant Revolution' led to the area's invasion and annexation by France. In the north, William V was reinstated as Stadholder and took up residence in Het Loo Palace in Apeldoorn.
1793 - The Batavian Republic
The restoration of William V's power as Stadholder as a result of Prussian intervention proved to be an illusion. The many Patriots who had fled to France and witnessed the revolution there were inspired to hope that they might likewise be able to bring about the overthrow of the ruling class in their own country. Events were triggered in 1792 by France's declaration of war on Austria and Prussia. French troops once again invaded the southern (Austrian) Netherlands, but were driven out again by Austrian forces. A year later, in 1793, France declared war on the Republic and on Britain and finally managed to occupy the southern Netherlands. In 1795 Utrecht and Amsterdam were also occupied by French troops and William V fled to England. Trees were planted throughout the Netherlands to celebrate the country's liberation. Whereas the revolution in France was accompanied by copious bloodshed, the overthrow of the Dutch ancien régime is sometimes referred to as the 'velvet revolution'. Throughout the country, the ruling members of the regent class were replaced by Patriots and the States General was replaced by a National Assembly elected by all members of the male population over the age of 20 and meeting certain other qualifications. Henceforth, the 'Batavian Republic' was to be ruled by the ideals of the French revolution.
In the same year, France and the Republic concluded the Treaty of The Hague. Among its stipulations was the provision that the Republic was to provide the French with the support of half of its land-based and naval forces, maintain 25,000 French troops, pay France reparation of 100 million guilders and cede to France the towns of Venlo and Maastricht. The imposition of even more stringent conditions was averted by the intervention of Pieter Paulus, president of the still surviving States General. The signing of the Treaty of The Hague caused Britain to declare war on the Republic and occupy the Dutch colonies.
In 1796 the National Assembly appointed a committee to draft a written constitution but opinions were initially divided on whether the traditional autonomy of the provinces should be replaced by a centralised unitary state. The strength of feeling on both sides led to a number of attempted coups d'état but ultimately, in 1798, the proponents of central government carried the day. Another innovation was the equal status accorded to all religious denominations, allowing non-Protestants to take an active part in political life for the first time since the Eighty Years' War.
1806-1810 - The Napoleonic era
In 1804 Napoleon Bonaparte seized absolute power in France and had himself crowned emperor. He held talks in Paris with the Dutch envoy, Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck, about the introduction of a single head of government in the Republic. The Dutch electorate approved the proposition and Schimmelpenninck was appointed Grand Pensionary. This strengthened Napoleon's hold on the Republic and guaranteed him valuable Dutch assistance in his war against Britain. Although he held office for only one year, Schimmelpenninck managed to effect major reforms, including a new centralised system of government finance and taxation, the organisation of the postal service, statutory regulations governing the practice of medicine, the standardisation of Dutch spelling and a statutory basis for compulsory education.
In order to undermine the British economy, Napoleon set up a 'Continental System' of trade: basically an embargo on all trade between Britain and the European mainland. Britain responded by blockading all the European ports, prompting large-scale smuggling along the Dutch coast. This obliged Napoleon to strengthen his hold on the Republic still further. He forced Schimmelpenninck to resign and in 1806 sent his brother Louis (1778-1846) to rule what was now to be known as the Kingdom of Holland.
Louis Napoleon pursued an independent course. He genuinely tried to understand his subjects and did much to promote their interests, for example by turning a blind eye to the smuggling. He also established the Royal Institute of Science, Literature and Fine Arts and founded the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
In 1810, Napoleon responded to Louis' reluctance to enforce the embargo on trade with Britain by incorporating the southern provinces into France. Louis abdicated a few months later, whereupon the entire Kingdom of Holland was annexed to France. French laws were applied throughout the country, including the obligatory registration of births, deaths and marriages, and compulsory military service. In 1812, when Napoleon launched his Russian campaign, the departing troops included 15,000 Dutch conscripts, of whom only a few hundred were ever to return.
In the following year Napoleon was defeated at the Battle of Leipzig and French troops began to withdraw from the Netherlands. There were disturbances in Amsterdam, accompanied by the shouting of Orangist slogans. The Orangist regents Gijsbert Karel van Hogendorp and Count Van der Duyn van Maasdam issued a proclamation setting themselves up as joint provisional rulers in anticipation of the forthcoming return of the Prince of Orange, William Frederick, son of the now deceased William V. On 30 November 1813, William Frederick landed in Scheveningen. He accepted the throne and promised to honour the constitution. In 1815 he took the title of King William I of the Netherlands.
The Golden Age: 1600 - 1700
The 17th century is known in Dutch history as the 'Golden Age' because it marked a period of unprecedented cultural flowering and economic growth in the Low Countries. This was in stark contrast to the economic stagnation and decline experienced elsewhere in Europe right through to 1750. In the Republic, the new political structures put in place in the 16th century were expanded and refined. They were dominated not so much by the nobility or the clergy, as elsewhere in Europe, but by a middle-class elite drawn mainly from the wealthy merchant families and known in Dutch history as the regent class. Consequently, political decisions were taken less (as in neighbouring countries like England or France) with a view to gaining greater power or influence in Europe or elsewhere in the world, than to promote or safeguard the nation's trading interests. Amsterdam evolved into the world's leading port and commercial centre. The key to its success was its status as an entrepot, indispensable to the selling on, transhipment, warehousing and processing of imported products.
Around 1670 the Republic had some 15,000 vessels - five times the number in the English fleet. This gave it a virtual monopoly of the carrying trade around the world. The economy benefited particularly from trade with distant lands. Spices, pepper, silks and cottons were imported from the East Indies, Bengal, Ceylon and Malacca, while the triangular trade between the west coast of Africa, Brazil and the Caribbean, and Europe was chiefly in plantation goods like sugar, salt, tobacco and brazil wood. Later, slaves were added to the list. Initially, the Dutch merchantmen sailed to Africa solely in search of gold and ivory and eschewed the slave trade. But eventually they came to accept it as a fact of life. To justify their dealings in slaves, they turned to the Bible and claimed that Africans were the sons and daughters of Ham, who was cursed and condemned to servitude by his father, Noah, and had (they said) passed on the curse to the whole population of Africa.
The status of Amsterdam as the financial capital of the world was due mainly to the Amsterdam Exchange Bank, set up in 1609 as an official body to facilitate financial transactions. These were complicated by the many different forms of coinage in circulation. The Exchange Bank accepted cash of all kinds and registered its value in guilders in the owner's bank account. This laid the basis for the cashless transfer of funds.
But the Golden Age is known not only as a time of economic boom. Culturally too, the Republic towered over the rest of Europe. An unusual feature for the time was the marked influence of the bourgeoisie on the various arts. This was especially true of painting, a field in which the best remembered practitioners of the period include Frans Hals, Johannes Vermeer, Jan Steen, Pieter de Hoogh, Jacob van Ruysdael, Gerard Dou and - greatest of all - Rembrandt van Rijn. Rembrandt (1606-1669) was born in Leiden, the son of a local miller, and spent a year at the academy there before being apprenticed to a local artist, Jacob van Swanenberg, and later to the Amsterdam painter Pieter Pietersz. Lastman. In 1625 he returned to Leiden and set up as an independent artist. Seven years later, however, he moved back to Amsterdam and took lodgings with the art dealer Hendrik van Uylenburgh, whose cousin, Saskia van Uylenburgh, he married a year later. Of their four children only one, Titus, survived.
After Saskia's death in 1642, Rembrandt's financial circumstances became increasingly difficult, culminating in bankruptcy and the distraint of many of his paintings and other possessions. By that time he was living with Hendrickje Stoffels, who bore him a daughter, Cornelia. Hendrickje and Titus acted as Rembrandt's agents, finding sufficient commissions for him to settle his debts. Most of these commissions came from the wealthy citizens and merchants of Amsterdam. Rembrandt died in 1669 and was buried in the Westerkerk in Amsterdam.
Rembrandt painted many portraits, including the world-famous group portrait known to posterity as The Night Watch. Biblical scenes and self-portraits are a major feature of his oeuvre. His best-known works include the Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp, Portrait of Saskia as Flora, The Sampling Officials of the Drapers' Guild (De Staalmeesters), The Bridal Couple ("The Jewish Bride") and The Holy Family. Nowadays, Rembrandt's works are dispersed throughout Europe and the United States. Major collections can be found in the print room of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Boymans-Van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam, the Teylers Museum in Haarlem, the print room of the British Museum in London, the Albertina in Vienna and the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York.
In the field of literature too, the Republic produced famous names like Jacob Cats, Pieter Cornelisz. Hooft, Bredero, Constantijn Huygens and Joost van den Vondel (a poet whose most famous works included his classical tragedies Gijsbrecht van Amstel and Lucifer, which are still regularly performed). Another figure worth mentioning is Hugo Grotius (1583-1645), a Dutch jurist who was a distinguished theologian, classicist, historian, statesman and diplomat. One of his best known works was the legal masterpiece On the Law of War and Peace, in which he defended the doctrine of the just war if a dispute could not be settled in any other way. One section of this work, on the doctrine of the freedom of the seas, argues that (apart from a narrow three-mile coastal zone) the seas cannot be regarded as subject to any particular power. This study is still regarded as the basis of the law of the sea.
During the Golden Age, Amsterdam attracted immigrants from all over Europe and beyond. All kinds of people migrated to this metropolis, where religious dissent was tolerated and work was freely available. Flemish, Portuguese, English, French, German and Polish visitors flocked to admire the city. Their number even included the Russian Tsar, Peter the Great, who studied the latest shipbuilding techniques in Zaandam, just north of Amsterdam, with a view to modernising the Russian fleet. The father of Baruch Spinoza, a Jew fleeing religious persecution in Portugal, was another newcomer to Amsterdam. His son (1632-1677) became famous throughout Europe and corresponded with a host of major contemporary figures. His contacts with liberal Christians and free-thinkers eventually led to his expulsion from the Jewish community and his departure from Amsterdam. His most celebrated work is the Ethics, in which he used mathematics to unite the Jewish mystical tradition and rational scientific thought in a single all-encompassing vision. His work, together with that of Voltaire and Descartes, had a great influence on the Enlightenment.
In the mid-17th century, England and France intensified their attacks on the economic hegemony of the Republic. England promulgated the Navigation Act in 1651 and on land the Republic waged exhausting wars against Louis XIV of France. The economic burdens imposed by these events eventually brought about the end of the Golden Age. By the early eighteenth century, it was all over.
The Kingdom of The Netherlands: 1813 - 1914
1813 - King William I
At the 1815 Congress of Vienna, the victorious powers decided to create a buffer of strong states to contain the expansionist tendencies of France. The new Kingdom of the Netherlands, with William I as its king, was one of these. This unification of the southern and northern Netherlands was not universally welcomed. The south (present-day Belgium) was still primarily Catholic and continued to regard the northern Calvinists as heretics. It had particularly strong objections to the guarantees of equality offered by the new constitution of 1814 to all existing religious denominations. The bicameral parliament of the new state possessed few means of exercising influence on the government of the kingdom. As crown appointees, the members of the Upper House were popularly referred to as 'la ménagerie du roi'. The members of the Lower House were elected and included equal numbers of representatives from north and south. The parliament was initially docile but as time went on offered increasingly bitter resistance to matters such as the king's attempts to influence the curricula of the Catholic seminaries and the introduction of Dutch as the official language, even in the French-speaking provinces. Opposition was exacerbated by the decision to consolidate the debt burden of the two countries. This was seen as unreasonable because the debts of the north were much greater. The personality of William I did nothing to improve relations. He saw himself as an enlightened despot, an attitude which was accepted in the north but not in the south. He preferred to rule by Royal Decree, which did not require the approval of parliament. This made him even less popular.
King William I's services to the Netherlands were mainly economic. They earned him the nickname of 'the merchant king'. His attempts to weld the southern and northern Netherlands into a single state were motivated by commercial considerations. He recognised that the trading spirit of the north and the industrial activities of the south were complementary and that the apparently conflicting interests of the two regions could in fact work to the advantage of both. However, his hopes of forging a unified state out of the two countries were to be frustrated.
William invested heavily in new projects and expanded his own powers. He insisted that the Lower House should cede to him much of the right to decide on government finances and parliament had no say at all in the government of the colonies, which Britain had now returned to the Netherlands.
William instigated the establishment of a series of bodies designed to improve the national economy: in 1814, the Bank of the Netherlands, which was to start issuing Dutch bank notes; in 1818, a society (Algemene Maatschappij voor Volksvlijt) to encourage industry and combat the impoverishment of the country; and in 1824 the Netherlands Trading Society, founded to succeed the Dutch East India Company in the hope of winning back a major share of world trade. William also commissioned the construction of innumerable canals in both the north and the south and initiated the introduction of steam railways. His efforts to introduce modern industrial methods were chiefly successful in the south, but could not prevent the north remaining for a long time a country of poor farm labourers and artisans. The colonies - and in particular the Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia) - retained their economic importance. Although fewer than in the 17th and 18th centuries, they were still very extensive.
1830 - Belgian independence
Belgium opposed the involuntary unification of the two countries from the start. The first disturbances broke out in Brussels in 1830 and soon escalated into a full-scale revolt. William I dispatched troops to Brussels under the command of his son, Prince Frederick, but street-fighting broke out and they were forced to withdraw after three days. Shortly afterwards, the secession of Belgium was proclaimed. Initially an attempt was made to resolve the differences by introducing separate administrations for north and south or by amending the constitution, but William rejected all proposals to this effect and in 1831 launched a military attack on Brussels. In the course of this 'Ten-Day Campaign' he defeated the Belgian army but was forced to withdraw when French forces came to its assistance. Britain and France took the side of the Belgians and called on William to abandon his aspirations. When the king refused, they imposed an embargo on all Dutch shipping and blockaded the ports.
On 4 June 1831, Leopold of Saxe-Coburg was elected King of the Belgians. In 1831, at the London Conference held between Britain, France and the Netherlands, the secession of Belgium was agreed in a treaty containing 24 articles. The embargo was lifted, but Britain and France still maintained their armies on a war footing. It was not until 1838 that William finally accepted the secession, leading to the signing of a final treaty with Belgium the following year.
The name Belgium is derived from the Belgae, a group of Celtic tribes which inhabited the area in Roman times. The Emperor Augustus dubbed the area the Roman province of Belgica.The new country had already enjoyed a brief foretaste of independence during the Brabant Revolution of 1789 and the forces striving for Belgian independence had continued to agitate during the period of union with the northern Netherlands.
William I was deeply disappointed by the secession of Belgium. Downcast by this event and by the vigorous opposition to his forthcoming second marriage to the Catholic Henriëtte d'Oultremont de Wégimont, he abdicated in 1840. His death followed on 12 December 1843.
1848 - Constitutional reform
The secession of Belgium necessitated a revision of the constitution. Some liberals, including Johan Thorbecke and Dirk Donker Curtius, wanted to exploit the opportunity to effect sweeping reforms giving greater authority to the States General, but these were opposed by the new king, William II, who had come to the throne on 7 October 1840. During the reign of William I, the ministers had been responsible only to him, and pursued their policies independently of parliament. The reformers urged the adoption of the principle of ministerial accountability to the 'elected' Lower House of parliament. Their arguments to this effect were unsuccessful in 1840, as were their pleas for more open government and direct elections.
Then came the wave of 1848 revolutions aimed at establishing liberal political systems in the German states, in Austria and in France. In February, Louis-Philippe was swept from power in France, and in March a revolution in Austria was suppressed with much bloodshed. In Germany, Frederick William IV of Prussia made some concessions, but dissolved the national assembly when it refused to comply with his wishes. Unrest also broke out in The Hague and Amsterdam. Afraid that it would spread further, William II abandoned his opposition to constitutional change. His fear of revolution was sufficient to convert him to liberalism literally overnight.
Within the year, a new constitution had been drafted under the guiding hand of Johan Rudolf Thorbecke (1798-1872). Its main provisions were the direct election of the Lower House and the provincial and municipal councils, the election of the Upper House by the provincial councils, the opening up to the public of all meetings of representative assemblies and the introduction of the principle of ministerial responsibility. (This meant that ministers, not the monarch, were to be answerable for the actions of government.) The new constitution also introduced freedom of education, freedom of association and assembly, freedom of expression (including freedom of the press) and freedom of religion.
The new constitution not only gave the Netherlands a completely new political system in which primacy lay with the Lower House, it also established a number of fundamental civil rights. William III (1817-1890), who had succeeded his father in 1849, clashed with the Lower House on several occasions. He was in the habit of dissolving parliament whenever he disagreed with proposed legislation, in the hope that a new election would return a majority more sympathetic to his views. His right to do this was fiercely contested by the liberals under the leadership of Thorbecke. Faced by a largely liberal assembly, he finally conceded the point and agreed that governments would henceforth only be forced to resign if they had lost the confidence of the Lower House. The Netherlands changed from a country with a ruling élite and a monarch wielding great personal power to one in which the monarchy would henceforth play only a minor role in the government of the state.
In 1880, Princess Wilhelmina was born of William III's second marriage to the 20-year-old German princess Emma van Waldeck-Pyrmont. As their only child, she became heir to the throne at the age of four, following the deaths of the two surviving sons from William's first marriage, William (in 1879) and Alexander (in 1884).
1870 - The Dutch East Indies
The 1860s and 1870s saw the rise of a new class of entrepreneurs who derived their wealth and influence from a concentration on production and corporate growth. These first Dutch 'captains of industry' emerged in the steel (Stork), textile (Ten Cate), electronics (Philips), oil (Shell) and food (Unilever) industries. It was also the time of the discovery of mass markets. Increasing affluence brought a rising population. Whereas in 1840 the population of the Netherlands numbered approximately three million, by 1914 it had more than doubled and exceeded six million.
The liberal belief in progress, based on an optimistic view of the future and a faith in human perfectibility, enabled the masses to better themselves. Faith in progress was also nourished by the development of technology, which gave rise to economic as well as political liberalism. This in turn allowed the development of welfare economics.
However, government was concerned not only with internal affairs. There were also overseas colonies to be administered. The most important of these was the Dutch East Indies. The liberals wished to reform the traditional 'culture system' there, which obliged the indigenous population to work for a pittance to cultivate and supply tropical export crops like coffee and sugar. At least 45 per cent of the population of Java was involved in this system. Between 1850 and 1860, profits from the colonies accounted for over 30 per cent of the Netherlands' total revenue. However, there was increasing opposition to the system on humanitarian grounds. This gained a voice in the person of Eduard Douwes Dekker, who had worked in the East Indies colonial administration at Lebak. In 1860, writing under the pseudonym 'Multatuli', he published a novel entitled 'Max Havelaar or the Coffee Auctions of the Netherlands Trading Society'. Dekker had already resigned in protest at the exploitation of the local people by indigenous rulers. The novel was not anti-colonial. Dekker intended it as a denunciation of the injustice that was being done to the people of the country and permitted or even encouraged by the Dutch administration. The impact of 'Max Havelaar' on Dutch public opinion helped to bring about the gradual abolition of the culture system and its replacement by a free labour system. A new 'ethical policy' movement emerged, powered by the conviction that the interests of the peoples of the colonies should take precedence over those of the Netherlands.
The Netherlands also possessed colonies in the western hemisphere. These consisted of Suriname and six islands in the Antilles. The former was profitable because of its plantations but declined following the abolition of the slave trade by Britain and America in 1807 en 1808 respectively. It was 1814 before the Netherlands followed suit and as late as 1863 before it finally abolished the actual institution of slavery.
1879 - The 'school conflict'
Between 1840 and 1890 the Netherlands was transformed from a country of agricultural workers and artisans into an industrialised society. The rail network expanded rapidly and canals were constructed linking Amsterdam and Rotterdam with the sea. Large-scale mechanisation replaced traditional manual methods of production. The living and working conditions of factory workers were extremely poor. Employees had few if any rights and child labour was taken for granted. Gradually, however, mounting social criticism encouraged workers to unite to achieve better conditions of employment.
Religious issues also played a major role in the political life of the 19th century. Among the provisions of the 1848 constitution were the freedom of association and assembly and the separation of church and state. This gave Dutch Catholics the chance to re-establish the structure of their church in the Netherlands, which had been lost in the Eighty Years' War when the Netherlands had been designated an area of missionary endeavour by Rome. Now that the Pope was able to restore the episcopal hierarchy, he almost immediately appointed five new bishops. The Protestants, united in the April movement, were vehemently opposed. Fearing Catholic domination and the return of the inquisition, they petitioned the king to prevent the restoration of the Catholic hierarchy. His discreetly worded sympathy with their views was sufficient to trigger the resignation of the liberal head of government, Thorbecke. This led to the dissolution of parliament and a new government submitted fresh legislative proposals which gained wider acceptance.
The fight for the right to subsidised education in specifically Catholic and Protestant as well as non-denominational schools helped to reconcile the two churches. The idea was opposed by the liberals, who dominated the Dutch political scene during much of this period. They insisted that state-subsidised education must be religiously neutral. In 1878 the Elementary Education Act obtained royal assent despite a petition against it signed by 300,000 people. The Act's failure to provide for subsidised denominational education prompted Protestants and Catholics to join forces. So it was the battle for the hearts and minds of the nation's children that generated the first coalitions of like-minded parliamentarians.
Prior to 1878, parliamentarians had not formed political parties. In that year, however, the Anti-Revolutionary Party was established on the basis of a tightly worded manifesto drafted by Abraham Kuyper. Kuyper was a true Calvinist: a man who believed in the complete sovereignty of the deity and the duty of government and the people to recognise that government existed in the service of God. The party was called 'anti-revolutionary' because it was diametrically opposed to the principles of the French revolution, which had rejected this Christian view of the world. In the same year, the Social Democratic Association was set up, inspired principally by the doctrines of Karl Marx. In response to these developments, the Catholics formed their own religiously based electoral associations. In 1881 Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis founded the Social Democratic Union, concerned chiefly with the conditions of the workers. His weekly paper Recht voor Allen (Right for All) advocated a radical redistribution of property. This segregation of the political parties along socialist, liberal and religious lines (commonly known as 'verzuiling' or 'pillarisation') was to dominate Dutch politics for many decades thereafter.
1890 - The regency of Queen Emma
Economic developments in the Netherlands brought into being a large industrial working class, which comprised some 70 per cent of the working population between 1870 and 1900. The Netherlands benefited from the rapid industrialisation of the German Ruhr: a major factor in the expansion of Rotterdam to become the leading port in Europe. The new industrial working class had little political influence and endured poor living conditions. Poverty was increasingly apparent, notably in the fast growing towns. Poor relief was provided by church and voluntary organisations, but poverty was increasingly being perceived as a social and political problem rather than the result of individual failure or improvidence. In Amsterdam, the 'Eel Revolt' was violently suppressed by the army, but it was clear that revolution was in the air. This forced the government to concede to demands for wider suffrage and in 1887 a reform of the constitution gave the vote to all men who satisfied the criteria of 'social standing and suitability'. In the general election of 1888, an electorate numbering around 300,000 (200,000 more than previously) voted a right-wing majority into power. However, Domela Niewenhuis was also returned as the first socialist member of parliament and a ban on child labour followed soon afterwards, together with provisions regulating the labour of young people and women.
King William III died in 1890, leaving his wife Emma to act as regent until their only child, Wilhelmina, reached the age of majority. Known as the Queen Mother, Emma did much during her regency to restore the good name of the House of Orange. This had been discredited by the behaviour of William III, who had ignored the hardships suffered by his subjects while flouting public morality by more or less openly maintaining a number of mistresses and living the life of a landed aristocrat and fervent huntsman on his estates at Het Loo.
Queen Emma restored the popularity of the House of Orange among the ordinary folk by taking her daughter Wilhelmina to visit places all over the country. She also used Wilhelmina's birthday as an excuse to organise popular celebrations ('Queen's Day', which is still marked throughout the Netherlands by mass public displays of traditional merrymaking and loyalty to the crown).
On 6 September 1898, at the age of eighteen, Wilhelmina was proclaimed queen in the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam. In 1901 she married Duke Hendrik van Mecklenburg-Schwerin, who became the father of Princess Juliana. Wilhelmina's fifty-year reign saw momentous changes in the Netherlands but she is remembered with particular affection and respect for her great courage and resolution during the Second World War.
1894 - Foundation of the SDAP
Expectations ran high when Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920), who had always advocated social legislation, became Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior in 1901. When the expected measures failed to materialise, a railway strike was called in 1903. It rapidly spread to other sectors of industry. Harsh measures drove the strikers back to work and a law was passed prohibiting industrial action by public sector employees. Even so, these events hastened the enactment of social legislation. However, compliance was far from complete.
Abraham Kuyper, founder and political leader of the Anti-Revolutionary Party, was the Netherlands' first Prime Minister in the modern sense. As a clergyman, he had long been active in religious matters and had become the spokesman for the ordinary members of the Calvinist congregations. He wanted to preserve the orthodox doctrines of Reformed Protestantism, but to modify them in the light of changes in society. He advocated a 'free church' with autonomous congregations and without a synod dominated by the free-thinking bourgeoisie. In 1886, these ideas produced a schism within the Dutch Reformed Church.
At the other end of the political spectrum was another clergyman: Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis, founder of the first socialist party in the Netherlands, the Social Democratic Union. Its ideology was revolutionary, anti-clerical and anti-royalist. Domela Nieuwenhuis opposed all forms of parliamentarian rule as a matter of principle. He loathed politics and tactical compromises to such an extent that he was able to persuade the Union not to participate in the general election of 1893. This led in 1894 to the establishment of a new Marxist political party, the Social Democratic Labour Party, headed by Pieter Jelles Troelstra, who was to remain its parliamentary leader right through to 1925.
The period between 1870 and 1920 was marked not only by political change but also by a blossoming of the arts and sciences. In the visual arts, a 'Hague School' of painters emerged, made up of artists like Jozef Israëls, J.H. Weissenbruch, Jacob and Willem Maris and Anton Mauve, all of whom were Impressionists carrying on the tradition of the great 17th-century landscape painters. At the same time, Vincent van Gogh - one of the most famous Dutch painters of all time - was developing his own intensely personal style. The Potato Eaters, a masterly early work, reflects his deep concern with contemporary social issues, whereas his later Expressionist paintings depict landscapes and scenes from everyday life. In literature, a group of young poets concerned with 'Art for art's sake' and the unity of form and content formed the Eighties Movement and published their poems in a periodical called De nieuwe Gids (The New Guide). Prominent among them were Willem Kloos, Albert Verwey and Jacques Perk, with Herman Gorter, Henriëtte Roland Holst and Frederik van Eeden joining later.
In the sciences, the physicists Hendrik Antoon Lorentz, Pieter Zeeman and Heike Kamerlingh Onnes all won Nobel prizes (the first two in 1902 and the third in 1913) and restored the Netherlands to the leading position it had once enjoyed in the field. They were assisted in this respect by the meteorologist C.H.D. Buys Ballot and biologist Hugo de Vries. Meanwhile, jurist Tobias Asser was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1911 and architect Hendrik Petrus Berlage (1856-1934) became famous for his new stock market building in Amsterdam, the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague and a new residential area on the south side of Amsterdam.
1917 - The Pacification
Turn-of-the-century Dutch foreign policy was directed at protecting the colonies and establishing a leading position in international trade and finance. In European power politics, the country adopted a neutral stance. It was anyway too small to exercise much influence. In 1871 the balance of power in Europe shifted dramatically when the German states united to form the German empire, allied to the Austro-Hungarian empire and Italy. The other European power bloc consisted of Britain, France and Russia, which had united in opposition to the growing economic might of Germany. The two blocs invested vast sums in the accumulation of huge arsenals of the most up-to-date weapons. Meanwhile, the Netherlands minded its own business and observed a policy of strict neutrality, as did Belgium and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.
Economically, the Netherlands was prospering. In the cities, department stores were being built to sell large ranges of consumer goods. Horse-drawn trams had given way to electric ones, the rubber-tyred bicycle had been introduced, the first few Dutch-built Spyker automobiles were appearing on the roads and in Haarlem Anthony Fokker constructed his first aircraft.
Dutch workers were beginning to organise themselves into unions and the emancipation of women was beginning to be an important issue. The first activist for women's rights and the first woman to enrol at a university on leaving secondary school was Aletta Jacobs (1854-1929). At that time, women were not expected to practise a profession and it was very rare for them to enter higher education. Aletta Jacobs fought principally for women's suffrage and social reform. As a general medical practitioner in Amsterdam, she became extremely concerned about the conditions of working class women's lives and tried to improve their lot by providing free lectures and baby clinics.
The liberal politician P.W.A. Cort van der Linden (1846-1925), prime minister from 1913 to 1918, attempted to reconcile the left and right on the issue of subsidies for denominational schools and universal suffrage. These problems had dominated Dutch politics for many years but were now finally resolved by the 'Pacification' of 1917. The socialists and radical liberals got their way as regards the introduction of universal male suffrage and the religious parties as regards the equal funding of denominational and non-denominational schools. This put an end to the festering 'school conflict'.
On 28 June 1914, the heir to the Austrian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and his wife were assassinated in Sarajevo by a Serb nationalist called Gavrilo Princip. This sparked a series of accusations and ultimatums between the two opposing power blocs and the long-expected outbreak of hostilities followed in August that year, after Germany invaded neutral Belgium, prompting Britain to declare war on Germany.
World Wars and post-war Reconstruction: 1914 - 1966
1914-1918 - The First World War
The economic and social progress achieved in early 20th-century Europe created a general mood of optimism. Materialism was in the ascendant and industry strove to achieve ever higher turnover, sales and profits. The newspapers were full of jubilant accounts of booming coal and steel production, ever bigger ships, accelerating population growth and expanding armies. But the new technologies born of the industrial revolution were also being used to produce new and improved weapon systems. On 28 July 1914, when the assassination of the heir to the Austrian throne, Franz Ferdinand, and his wife in Sarajevo prompted Germany's ally Austria to declare war on Serbia, nobody had any inkling of the eventual consequences. This first all-out war in world history, with its combination of antiquated military strategies and up-to-the-minute weaponry, was to prove disastrous to those who served in it. The 'Great War', as it was known at the time, cost the lives of 10 million men and the limbs of 20 million more. Within four years it cut a broad swathe through the male population of Britain, Germany, France and Russia.
At the start of the war, the Dutch government reaffirmed the Netherlands' traditional neutrality, but announced that it would mobilise the country if Germany failed to keep its commitments. Germany's invasion of Belgium (which was also neutral) in August 1914 caused turmoil in the Netherlands. Within a few days, the Dutch economy went into melt-down. Goods were hoarded, money withdrawn from the banks, industrial production reduced and workers dismissed on a massive scale. The country also had to cope with thousands of Belgian refugees. Despite the panic, the government managed to restore calm. The Minister of Agriculture, Trade and Industry, Willem Treub, was especially successful in using economic measures to halt the general collapse in confidence. The government issued a statement in parliament appealing for political differences to be forgotten for the duration and even P.J. Troelstra's Social Democratic Labour Party (SDAP) agreed.
The Netherlands succeeded in preserving its neutrality because of the associated benefits to the belligerent nations. Britain was glad that German troops were denied access to the North Sea coast and Germany was happy to be able to transport goods via the Netherlands. Even so, both countries continued throughout the war to put pressure on the Netherlands to give up its neutrality. Dutch diplomats were kept busy negotiating with the aim of keeping the Netherlands out of the war.
In 1917, despite the proximity of hostilities, the government succeeded in obtaining parliamentary approval for a revision of the constitution. This satisfied major demands of both the left and the right. The left gained universal male suffrage and the right financial equal treatment of denominational and non-denominational schools. Other important provisions concerned the introduction of compulsory voting and proportional representation, putting an end to the system of constituency voting which had often necessitated many further ballots.
The new electoral system produced a minor landslide in the next year's general election. The main losers were the liberals and the winners the confessional parties. The SDAP won some seats but was disappointed at the proletariat's failure to achieve the expected socialist revolution via the ballot box. The main victor was the Roman Catholic State Party which, together with the other confessional parties, was to maintain its grip on the Dutch political scene for most of the next half century.
1929 - Economic crisis
The First World War was followed by a series of socialist revolutions in many parts of Europe, perhaps inspired by the successful Russian Bolshevik revolution of 1917. In the Netherlands too, the socialist SDAP thought that the time was ripe for the proletariat to seize power. The party leader, Pieter Jelles Troelstra, made an inflammatory speech in parliament more or less demanding the resignation of the government in favour of his party. However, this proved to be a miscalculation: the public responded by demonstrating their loyalty to queen and country and the revolution failed to materialise. In 1920 the Netherlands became a member of the League of Nations (the precursor to the United Nations). The League had been established to increase international cooperation and promote peace and security. In 1922 another change to the constitution gave women the vote and opened the way to greater autonomy for the colonies.
In 1929 the world was shaken by the crash on the New York stock exchange. This led to a serious worldwide economic crisis. The Netherlands and the Dutch East Indies were hard hit. Because of the contemporary belief in boom and bust liberal economics, it was initially assumed that the economy would revive automatically and that the depression would be followed by a period of strong economic growth. However, the government's policy of keeping the guilder on the gold standard actually exacerbated the crisis and led to an unprecedented decline in exports. The consequences were alarming. By 1935, unemployment was running at 40 per cent and in 1936 the Netherlands was finally forced to abandon the gold standard. It was the last country in the world to do so.
Despite these problems, the period between the two world wars was not all gloom and doom. It was marked by an influx of new fashions, new music and new mass media entertainment from the United States. Clothing became less constrictive and formal, especially for women. New cinemas opened to show the films arriving from Hollywood and fashionable clubs and bars began to swing to the sound of jazz. The first radio broadcast in the Netherlands was made in 1924 and a national public broadcasting association (AVRO) was set up in the same year. However, its lack of special political or religious affiliation made it unacceptable to large parts of the strongly segmented Dutch society of the time, and it was soon followed by the Protestant NCRV, the Catholic KRO, the socialist VARA and finally the dissenting protestant VPRO. Even today, all of these broadcasting organisations still compete for time on the Dutch air waves.
In the cultural arena, the leading Dutch figures on the international scene were architects Jacobus Johannes Pieter Oud and Gerrit Thomas Rietveld and the painter Piet Mondrian. They were all associated with a periodical called De Stijl ('Style'), which artist Theo van Doesburg had established in 1917. The principles of the movement initiated by this periodical included the banishing of any reference to perceived reality, a philosophy taken to the ultimate extreme in Mondrian's completely non-representational paintings. The movement had a major influence on the contemporary arts, extending beyond architecture, painting and sculpture to inspire poets and writers to seek to reveal and express the universal harmony which, it maintained, controlled the universe and human life.
Queen Wilhelmina's mother, Emma, and her husband, Prince Hendrik, both died in 1934. Three years later, her only daughter, Princess Juliana, married a young German prince, Bernhard van Lippe-Biesterfeld. The marriage was to produce another direct heir to the throne, Princess Beatrix, and three other daughters.
1940-1945 - The Second World War
The years of economic malaise between the wars provided fertile soil for extremist parties in many European countries. One of them was the German Nazi party headed by Adolf Hitler. In the Netherlands, Anton Adrian Mussert, a hydraulic engineer, founded the National Socialist Movement (NSB) in 1931. Compared with parties like the Fascist League and the League of Dutch-speaking National Solidarists, which closely emulated the Nazi party but were a minor force in Dutch politics, the NSB was initially fairly moderate. In 1935 it achieved a major electoral victory but subsequently forfeited its popularity by adopting ever more openly anti-semitic policies. By this time, Hitler's power was entrenched. Unwittingly helped by a Dutch revolutionary socialist called Marinus van der Lubbe, who had set fire to the Reichstag as a protest against fascism, he had been able to convince the German parliament that he alone could lead the German people. A series of acts giving him special powers enabled him to establish a dictatorship. Van der Lubbe was executed as a communist. In the Netherlands, Hendrikus Colijn, leader of the Anti-Revolutionary Party and head of the government, revived the policy of neutrality, believing that this would shield the country from involvement in the impending war. Hostilities eventually commenced with the German invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 and the Netherlands was immediately mobilised.
Despite German promises to respect Dutch neutrality and the fact that no ultimatum or declaration of war had been issued, German troops crossed the border on 10 May 1940. Airborne troops were dropped near The Hague with orders to capture the government and the royal family. The plan was thwarted by determined military resistance and the government and royal family were able to escape to England on 13 May 1940. Despite its out-dated weapons and equipment, the Dutch army managed to hold back the German attack until 14 May but was finally forced to capitulate following the bombing of Rotterdam. The capitulation did not, however, apply to Dutch overseas territories. The government in exile continued to administer the colonies from London and on 8 December 1941 responded to the invasion of the Dutch East Indies by declaring war on Japan.
The first few months of the German occupation of the Netherlands were relatively quiet. Believing in a certain fraternal feeling and ideological affinity between the Netherlands and Germany, the Nazis allowed the country a civil rather than a military administration. This was a concession made to no other occupied country except Norway. However, the character of the occupation changed when it became evident that 'Nazification' was not proceeding as smoothly as expected. The political parties were dissolved and measures were taken against the Jewish community. This led to disturbances in Amsterdam and elsewhere, with one German fatality. In reprisal, three hundred Jews were rounded up and deported to a concentration camp. This provoked a spontaneous rail strike, which the occupying authorities broke two days later with a massive display of military muscle. It was the only open protest in Europe against the persecution of the Jews.
Over the next few years, more than a hundred thousand men, women and children, comprising some 75 per cent of the Jewish community in the Netherlands, were to die in German concentration camps. Many Jews tried to evade persecution by going into hiding. Among them was the family of a thirteen-year-old girl called Anne Frank, who is now world-famous for the diary she wrote describing her experiences.
The Allied landings in Normandy on 6 June 1944 gave the Dutch new hope. By September, Allied forces were advancing through Belgium and the southern Dutch provinces were eventually liberated. The failure of a massive drop of airborne troops near Arnhem in an attempt to capture the bridges and advance towards Germany led to a difficult winter for the provinces in the north and west. Devastating food and fuel shortages combined with exceptionally severe winter weather caused the deaths of thousands of people from cold and starvation. The liberation of the whole country was finally achieved in the spring of 1945. The German capitulation was signed on 5 May by General Blaskowitz in the presence of the Canadian General Foulkes and Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands.
1941-1945 - Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies
The war had not been confined to Europe. On 27 September 1940, Japan, Germany and Italy signed a pact and on 7 December 1941 Japan bombed the US Pacific Fleet naval base at Pearl Harbour. It went on to invade and occupy Burma, Malaya, Singapore and the Dutch East Indies with very little difficulty. The Allied fleet under the command of Dutch Rear Admiral Karel Doorman was defeated in the Battle of the Java Sea with the loss of almost all the Australian, British, American and Dutch vessels involved and thousands of men on board them (including 900 Dutch citizens).
The Dutch land-based troops in the region were forced to capitulate after three months. Over the next few months, all Dutch citizens in the region were interned in separate men's and women's camps. In itself the experience was deeply humiliating for the Dutch colonial elite and the ill-treatment they received in the camps at the hands of the Japanese military made it even worse. The prisoners were subject to strict discipline and a starvation diet, and many died.
The attitude of the Indonesians was initially ambiguous. They were uncertain whether to regard the Japanese as liberators or occupiers. Prior to the outbreak of the Second World War, the country had already had a nationalist movement headed by Sukarno and his Partai Nasional Indonesia (PNI). The Japanese exploited this movement for their own ends and the whole nation was yoked to the Japanese war effort. Hundreds of thousands of Indonesians were treated as slave labourers, as were the male Dutch prisoners of war.
In the summer of 1942, America was able to halt the Japanese advance. The US navy gradually gained the upper hand in the Pacific with victory in the Battle of the Coral Sea (7-8 May 1942) and the Battle of Midway (3-6 June 1942), and US forces returned to the Philippines in October 1944. On 6 August an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima killing 140,000 people, followed three days later by another on Nagasaki killing an estimated 70,000 more. This ended the war. Japan formally capitulated on 2 September 1945 and immediately began its withdrawal from the areas it still occupied.
1945 - Indonesian independence
The end of the Second World War brought a period of immediate decolonisation. On 17 August 1945 Sukarno proclaimed the Republic of Indonesia. Sukarno was a civil engineer who had been active in politics from an early age. In 1927 he had set up a political party - the Partai Nasional Indonesia (PNI) - to campaign for independence. Between 1929 and 1932 he was a political prisoner, and in 1933 he was again imprisoned by the Dutch authorities until finally liberated by the Japanese in 1942. During the occupation, he | | | | | | | |
