Dutch Army

“ The Dutch army has a peace establishment averaging 30,000 men, which varies much owing to the short period of service. There are generally available 13,000 infantry, 3,000 cavalry, 5,000 field artillery, 3,400 garrison artillery, and I,400 engineers, pontonniers, and transport troops. The field army in war is 80,000 strong, and is made up of 64,000 infantry, cyclist, and machine-gun sections, 2,600 cavalry, 4,400 artillery, and goo engineers. It is formed into 4 army divisions each of 15 battalions, 4 squadrons, 6 batteries, and 1 section engineers. ”

“ Clothed in a military costume, they are still essentially men of peace, who would be sorry to commit an act of violence or do an injury to any one. The officers as a class are devoted to the technical part of their work, and are thoroughly well posted in the science of war. But whether it is due to the long peace, to the spread of prosperity among all classes of the community, or to the lymphatic character of the race, it is not easy to persuade one's self that the Dutch army, taken as a whole, is a formidable instrument of war. ”

“ No portion of the regular army of the Netherlands is allowed to be sent on colonial service, but individual soldiers are at liberty to enlist, by permission of their commanding officers, in the army of Netherlands India, and they form its nucleus. Native and European soldiers are generally mixed together in the same battalions, though in separate companies. The officers were all Dutch till 1908, when a trial was made of native officers from noble Javanese families. The artillery is composed of European gunners, with native riders, while the cavalry are Europeans and natives. ”

“ The Dutch Colonial Army consists of regiments of cavalry and artillery, as well as of infantry, of which the depots for recruiting as well as of arms, ammunition, and ordnance, are at home. But the service companies, when they have once embarked for their colonial stations, return no more as armed bodies—and even as individuals, neither officers nor men return until they have taken part in the avocations of colonial life. ”

“ The Dutch army is organized for home and colonial service. The home army is designed to guard the Amsterdam Position, which covers the capital, and also to garrison the New Holland Water Line, which protects the wealthiest and most important parts of the country. The army is formed partly by conscription and partly by enlistment, volunteers being in the minority. On June 1, 1900, the total strength of the army was 1911 officers and 25,762 men. On war footing it consists of 68,000 men, excluding officers. ”

“ The strength of the Dutch army lies undoubtedly in its corps of officers, a body of specially qualified men fitted to discharge the duties that devolve on the leaders of any army. The majority of these pass through the Royal Military Academy, an institution from which we might borrow some features with advantage. ”

“ For the Dutch army, composed of men who had been born in various climates, and had served under various standards, presented an aspect at once grotesque, gorgeous, and terrible to islanders who had, in general, a very indistinct notion of foreign countries. ”

“ The French monarch, however, sent a body of troops to take possession of the Spanish Netherlands, and detained 15,000 Dutch, who, in virtue of a convention with Spain, formed the garrisons of the barrier towns. The loss of so large a body of their best troops, with the advance of a French army towards their frontiers, alarmed the States General of the United Provinces, and King William sent thirteen British battalions to Holland to assist the Dutch. ”

“ While the Netherlands might seem to be a small country, still she has an active army of some five hundred thousand soldiers, and history tells how bravely the Dutch have always fought when their country was invaded.
Germany would not want to have such a foe on her flank. Besides, many of those harbors of Holland would be extremely valuable to an Allied navy seeking to strike at the heart of the gun foundry region of the Fatherland.
Giraffe was becoming more excited than ever. He fairly quivered as he reported the lessening of the distance between the fleeing car and the pursuing horsemen. ”

“ In the Netherlands, after Prince Leopold had accepted the crown, which he did in the month of June, Holland, on the 1st of August, declared the armistice to be at an end, and prepared to enforce by arms the rights which Europe had, on a former occasion, declared to belong to the king of that country. A Dutch army entered Belgium, and routed the Belgian forces at Hasselt and Louvain, which latter city it captured. This army, however, subsequently retired before a large French force which arrived at Brussels for the defence of the country. ”

“ Great demands were, at all times, made on the peasantry of the island, to recruit the ranks of the Dutch army, and to supply [Vol I Pg 75] the many other wants of the public service; the severities and consequent mortality to which the troops were liable, may be calculated, from the reluctance of the unfortunate wretches, selected as victims of military conscription, to engage in the duties of a military life. ”

“ Their advance was so gradual that, although I did not leave Antwerp until the bombardment was over, I caught up with the army of refugees before Roosendaal, just across the Dutch border.
Here Holland opened out her arms. The kindness of the Dutch—as yet personal, unorganized endeavor—was beyond conception.
Churches, houses, public halls, stations were thrown open to the multitude. You saw hundreds of Dutch soldiers join in the procession, lift babies and bundles, and walk with them for miles. ”

“ Perhaps their organization has become somewhat rusty. Reforms are admitted to be necessary. The annual contingent is altogether too small for the needs of the age; a great and efficient national reserve should be created; and in good time the army ought to be raised to the numbers that would enable it to man and hold the numerous and excellent forts which have been constructed at all vital points. The Dutch plans of defence are excellent, but to carry them all out a very considerable army would be necessary, and at the present moment Holland possesses only the skeleton of an army. ”

“ If he is not to be ranked with the first generals whom the present contest has produced, he undoubtedly deserves to hold a distinguished place among the leaders, who have covered with laurels the arms of the French republic. His conduct as general of the army which conquered Holland, is represented by the Dutch as extremely amiable. ”

“ What [Pg 447] we want is to be able to garrison Holland with twenty thousand men so as to have as soon as possible after the conquest of it the means of disposing of our whole army now there. It is a very doubtful question, I think, whether our Militia volunteering would be more or less promoted if we confined our proposal to that particular service, and sent our Militia battalions into the Dutch garrisons, employing the army now there in the active service, or if we took the offer generally for foreign service, and made such distribution between the two as might best suit our convenience. ”

“ This practice is fairly general on the Continent, although it is never resorted to by the British, who are less acquainted with the organization of Continental armies than is the case with even third or fourth-rate States.
The headquarters of the Dutch Engineers are at Utrecht, of the Artillery at Zwolle, of the Infantry at The Hague, and of the Cavalry at Breda. Utrecht is the most important of these military stations, because the Engineers are the most important branch of the army, and also because it is the centre of the canal and dyke System of Holland. ”

“ The interests of the United Provinces and those of the reformed religion being intimately connected, their cause was popular in England; and when the king disbanded a great part of his army on the settlement of the peace in 1674, many officers and men voluntarily entered the Dutch service, particularly from the old Holland Regiment, which was reduced on that occasion from eighteen to ten companies. ”

“ The only remaining corps [6] of the numerous bands [2] of English lancers, cuirassiers, carabineers, archers, musketeers, harquebusiers, pikemen, and battle-axemen, who fought in the Dutch war of independence from 1572 to 1648, was recalled from Holland on the breaking out of hostilities between the English and Dutch in 1665: during the negociations for the peace of London in the winter of 1673-4, the States General pressed King Charles II. to recall his troops from the service of France [7] , and solicited permission again to employ in their army a British division. ”

“ The Dutch navy, although small in comparison with its past achievements and with its present competitors, is admitted to be well organized, efficient in its condition, and manned by a fine personnel. It is generally said, perhaps unjustly, that the pick of the manhood of Holland joins the navy in preference to the army. One fact shows that there is no difficulty in obtaining the required number of recruits to man the fleet, for while the nominal law is that of conscription for the navy as well as for the army, all the necessary contingent is obtained by voluntary enlistment. ”

“ 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. ”

“ At the head of a force, which courtesy and policy called an army, of three hundred national guards badly armed, fifty citizens carrying fowling-pieces, fifty soldiers of the old Dutch guard, four hundred auxiliary citizens armed with pikes, and a cavalry force of twenty young men, the confederates oddly proclaimed the Prince of Orange, on the 17th of November, 1813, in their open village of The Hague, and in the teeth of a French force of full ten thousand men, occupying every fortress in the country. ”

“ Moreover, the various Government officials scattered through the Archipelago are responsible to the Secretary for the Colonies. There are colleges established both in Holland and in Batavia in which the young men intended for the colonial service can receive a suitable training.
The physical sanction upon which the Dutch authority rests is an army of thirty thousand men, composed of Dutch, Germans, Swiss, Italians, and natives, but officered exclusively by Dutchmen, and a navy of fifty ships. ”

“ 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 French revolution found an unembarrassed introduction into Holland, and the feeble resistance which the Dutch troops opposed to the French armies, pretty clearly demonstrates the estimation in which the country held its unworthy ruler, and the desire they had of delivering themselves from him and the influence of England upon their councils. It is well known, that in the last war, the Dutch refused the sick and wounded of their allies, the British army, admission into Delft, and a body of burghers was formed at Amsterdam, to prevent the entrance of foreign troops ”

“ Its governor, the Duke of Nemours, brother of Mayenne, aided by the three Spanish delegates, the Cardinal Gaetano, and by an army of priests and monks, sustained the spirits of the population; and though the people starved by thousands, the city resisted until towards the end of August. In that month the army of the League, united with twelve thousand foot and three thousand horse from the Netherlands under Parma himself, advanced to its assistance; while Maurice of Holland, with a small body of Dutch troops and reinforcements from England, had strengthened the army of the king. ”

“ There were three thousand sailors of Holland and Zeeland on board, the best mariners in the world, and two thousand two hundred picked veterans from the garrisons of the Netherlands. These land-troops were English, but they belonged to the States' army, which was composed of Dutch, German, Walloon, Scotch, and Irish soldiers, and it was a liberal concession on the part of the republican Government to allow them to serve on the present expedition. ”

“ Had the expedition against Holland been attempted at an earlier period of the year, or had the army advanced after its first successes, before the French and Dutch had time to concentrate their forces, it is highly probable that possession might have been gained of Amsterdam, and a great part of the republic reduced to obedience to the stadtholder. ”

“ The first division of the Belgian army, which had been the last to leave Antwerp, and had been engaged170 in rendering the place useless to the besiegers, retreated fighting with the Germans north of the Scheldt a succession of rearguard actions.
In the face of impossible odds, the 1st British Naval Brigade, now without the support of their heavy guns, were forced, fighting tenaciously, across the Dutch frontier at Huist. A division of the Belgian army were also compelled to cross the boundary into Holland. ”