Anglo-Dutch Wars

“ German troops are lined across her border, ready to walk over her prostrate body as they walked over the body of Belgium; to shoot her civilians if they express sympathy for themselves against the German enemy; to burn down her schools, her libraries, and her cathedrals, as the Germans burned down those in Belgium. Holland is cowed.
A brave race are the Dutch. They faced Spain in its pride and power, with the help of England. They fought and died for liberty to speak and to worship. ”

“ The fear of a revolution [157] compelled the States-General to refuse the only terms by which war could be avoided. The die was cast. The Dutch ambassadors left England, June 30, and the struggle between the two maritime powers for supremacy, which had been so frequently imminent but so long delayed, at last began. ”

“ When the Jacobin propaganda of murder and massacre was ended, several of the powers of the coalition determined to make peace with France. Prussia and Spain had drawn no profit from the war, and had lost men and money in it. Accordingly they withdrew their armies and acknowledged the Republic. Holland had been overrun by the French in 1794, after the Duke of York's defeat, and forced to become the ally of her conqueror. Hence the strong and well-equipped Dutch fleet is found for the rest of the war on the side of France. ”

“ At the same time the French king launched a great army over his northern frontier, overran the Spanish Netherlands, and penetrated far into Holland. The Dutch were only saved from destruction by their desperate resistance. Their fleet fought a drawn battle with the English at Southwold, and staved off a naval invasion. Meanwhile the young William of Orange, the heir of the old stadtholders, saved Amsterdam from the French by breaking down the dykes and inundating South Holland. ”

“ The Dutch Netherlands had perhaps somewhat fewer people than England, but surpassed her in wealth. These two allies were pitted against the greatest military power that had existed in Europe since the days of Constantine the Great. To many the struggle seemed hopeless. For England the true policy was limited by circumstances. She could send troops across the Channel to help the Dutch in their stubborn resistance, but to try to land a force in the Spanish peninsula for aggressive warfare would be sheer madness. The shores of America and the open sea were the proper field of war for England. ”

“ The French revolution added a third party to the factions which divided Holland, and it may be doubted whether the majority of the Dutch nation entered cordially into the war with France. The republican party looked up to France as the only power capable of delivering them from the yoke of the stadtholder, and the influence of England; and it is well known that when the Austrian and British troops bravely disputed every inch of ground, the Dutch forces opposed a very feeble resistance to the French army. ”

“ In the hands of the English enemy, whose name was an object of absolute detestation throughout England, the enrolment of such an army would be sure to excite the most stubborn resistance even from those who had hitherto been disaffected or mutinous. For the English people, and, for the matter of that, the Dutch, however much they may have quarrelled or grumbled when danger was remote, have always forgotten their differences and made an effective truce as soon as ever danger is near. ”

“ We may therefore conclude that the wealth and defencelessness of the Dutch Netherlands lured on the enthusiasts and intriguers of Paris to an enterprise the terrible results of which were unsuspected by them. Nothing is more remarkable than the full assurance of victory which breathes in the letters of Dumouriez, the despatches of Lebrun, and the speeches of the French deputies. ”

“ They required the payment of the arrears of toll due for the fishing on the British coasts, the surrender of the Spice Islands, the punishment of the survivors of those concerned in the Amboina massacre, satisfaction for the murder of Doreslaar, and the payment of the indemnities due for losses sustained by Englishmen at the hands of the Dutch in various parts of the world. It is clear that these demands were practically an ultimatum. The [156] Netherlanders were required to choose between coalition or humiliation, and in case neither were accepted, war. ”

“ If one searches through history, one can never find a single case in which public opulence can he traced to foreign conquest, in which the cost to the public of occupying and maintaining such conquests has not been greatly in excess of all the profit which private interests have secured from them. This is clearly discernible in the conquests of Spain, France, and even England. The trading companies of the Dutch effected the financial ruin of Holland.
In 1639, another Spanish fleet was annihilated by Tromp in a naval battle off the English Downs. ”

“ But the archdukes gave such unequivocal assurances of abstaining from interference, and the desire for peace was so strong both in the obedient and in the United Provinces, that the question of the duchies was postponed. It was to serve as both torch and fuel for one of the longest and most hideous tragedies that had ever disgraced humanity. A thirty years' war of demons was, after a brief interval, to succeed the forty years' struggle between slaves and masters, which had just ended in the recognition of Dutch independence. ”

“ Nevertheless there was genuine alarm in the Netherlands that the continuance of the war between France and England would be injurious to their interests by forcing one of the combatants to seek the alliance of Spain. The missions of Cats to England and of Carleton to the Hague, though they failed in bringing about any real settlement of the differences between the two powers, at least effected an understanding that, for a time at any rate, grievances were not to be pressed. ”

“ In the Netherlands they have not arrived at this idea by any means; but the Dutch have ever been noted for playing a mere selfish policy which blinds them to outside things. What does it matter to them, they say, what happens to other countries, so long as they are left in peace, they quite forgetting that any war between two Great Powers in Europe must affect them, and seriously. Who can say what is coming? For instance, many Dutch people have said to me that, in the supposition of a war between Germany and Great Britain, the British would defend them. ”

“ But if their union was of service to Germany, it brought danger to England. France was its ancient foe. The commercial supremacy of the Dutch was threatening English trade. The junction of their fleets would at once enable them to challenge the right of dominion which England claimed over the Channel. And at this moment rumours came of a scheme of partition by which the Spanish Netherlands were to be shared between the French and the Dutch, and by which Dunkirk was at once to be attacked and given into the hands of France. ”

“ If that war had taken place in our days, Dutch statesmen would probably have said, on the eve of its outbreak: “Not a single question can arise between Holland and England, capable of causing a war between two civilised nations who are also bound to each other by links of blood.” A crowd of people unable to form a judgment of their own would have accepted such cheap wisdom with enthusiasm, and would have abundantly denounced all those who held different opinions as jingoes, super-patriots, and so forth. ”

“ Our course should be to stand aloof. The English are covetous and enterprising, the Germans are covetous and beggarly, and we should not present our trade to to the one and our florins to the other. We can easily get ample guarantees from France, and a substantial barrier on the Flemish frontier. There is no price which Louis will not pay for our neutrality.” So I find that the Dutch party which was unfriendly to the war argued during the interval between the succession of Philip and the outbreak of war. ”

“ They raised a constant, and for a long time ineffectual, protest against the barbarous custom of privateering, and the dangerous doctrine of contraband in war, a doctrine which, if carried out logically, would allow belligerents to inderdict the trade of the world. The Dutch are the real founders of what people call international law, or the rights of nations. They made mistakes, but they made fewer than their neighbours made. The benefits which they conferred were incomparably greater than the errors which they committed. ”

“ Until the conclusion of a general European peace there should exist an offensive and defensive treaty between the two countries. Against England this treaty would be binding forever. Flushing must receive a French garrison. A number of small cities in the Dutch part of Flanders must become French. The colonies must be opened to French trade. The Dutch must equip and maintain a French army of 25,000 men, and fifty million guilders must be paid outright, with another fifty million to come in regular rates.
The Batavian Republic now could make up a little trial balance. ”

“ As the French advanced, their party among the Dutch gathered strength; the stadholder fled to England, the Dutch troops separated from the British, Amsterdam received the invaders, and on the 30th the Dutch fleet, which lay frozen up in the Texel, was captured by French cavalry. Meanwhile the British suffered terribly from the severe cold; and their sick and wounded were often exposed to ill-treatment by the people. The government decided to withdraw the army and bring it back by Bremen. ”

“ The Stadtholder fled to England, and the Dutch revolution was effected.
It is very possible that many of those who formed and developed the French revolution were men of high purposes and patriotic ends. But France was bankrupt, its finance aggravated the mischief, and at first, constrained to defend itself, and then led to aggressive war, it naturally made war support itself. The Dutch paid dearly for the revenge which they took on William. ”

“ Although the Dutch maintained their independence in the sixteenth century against the most formidable regular army in Europe, and also did their fair share of fighting in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, they have long ceased to aspire to the rank of a military Power. The separation from Belgium in 1830-31 put an end to the Orange policy of creating a powerful Netherland State from Lorraine to the North Sea which could hold its own with either France or Prussia, and since that period Holland has gradually sunk, and seemingly without discontent, into the position of a third-rate Power. ”

“ The Dutch, whose engagements and whose interests are the same as our own, have not yet made any addition to their expenses, nor augmentation of their troops; nor does a single potentate of Europe, however united by long alliances to the house of Austria, or however endangered by revolutions in the empire, appear to rouse at the approach of alarm, or think himself obliged to provoke enemies by whom he is not yet injured. ”

“ England, then, in addition to the war with her rebellious colonies, had to meet the forces of France, Spain, and Holland. Nevertheless, the new accession to the number of her foes was of no detriment to her, for the Dutch were no longer powerful: it was better to have them open enemies than treacherous friends; England's geographical position enabled her to prevent their fleet from joining those of her other enemies, and their commerce and colonies fell an easy prey to her ships. ”

“ One year more saw the term of this long-continued state of warfare by the Peace of Cambray, between Charles and Francis, which was signed on the 5th of August, 1529.
This peace once concluded, the industry and perseverance of the inhabitants of the Netherlands repaired in a short time the evils caused by so many wars, excited by the ambition of princes, but in scarcely any instance for the interest of the country. Little, however, was wanting to endanger this tranquillity, and to excite the people against each other on the score of religious dissension. ”

“ And though the differences between England and the States on the one hand, and France on the other, led the Spanish party to offer another truce, the Dutch were disinclined to forego the advantages which, in their opinion, they were obtaining and consolidating by the continuance of hostilities, for every year made the Dutch East India Company more powerful, its trade more lucrative, and its influence more secure. ”

“ I shall now conclude my remarks oh the revolution of Holland, with a short detail of the probable future state of the country, according to the ideas of well-informed persons in it, whenever a general peace shall take place.
Greatly as the Dutch nation has suffered by the war, as well before as since its conquests by the French, its condition is not yet desperate, or its salvation hopeless. ”

“ During this retreat they were less harassed by the French, who fell off to occupy Utrecht and Rotterdam, than by the fury of the winter and the hostility of the Jacobinised Dutch, who cursed them as the cause of all the sufferings of their country. Such was the end of Britain's campaign for the defence of her Dutch allies. Holland was proclaimed a free Republic under the protection of France, and Britain immediately commenced operations for indemnifying herself, by seizing the ships and colonies of her late ally in every quarter of the globe. ”

“ His first attempt was to isolate Holland, and having purchased the King of Sweden, he bribed Charles II of England, uncle of William of Orange, to enter into a secret treaty against the Netherlands.
The principal events of the war are narrated by Davies, who shows how the old spirit of the Dutch returned to them in this supreme hour of new peril to their liberties.
The Dutch, though, in defence of their religion and liberties, they had beaten the first soldiers in the world, were never essentially a military nation ”