’he rebellion of the Dutch provinces against their Spanish overlords broke out in 1568, It was initially, on the whole, a military disaster, with the Dutch unable to stand in the field against the veteran Spanish tercios. As a result, the war descended into a series of sieges of the many fortified towns and cities in the Low Countries.
Around 1590, partly inspired by classical works by authors such as Aelian and Vegetius, Maurice and William Louis of Nassau began to reform the army. The cavalry were converted from lancers and mercenary reiters into charging cuirassiers who used their pistols as close combat weapons rather than missile weapons. In this they may have been partly inspired by the reforms of the Huguenot cavalry by Henri of Navarre (Henri IV of France), some of whom served as volunteers in the Dutch army. Additionally, the infantry were reorganised into smaller, handier, battlefield formations called “hopen”, which were formed by dividing larger regiments, or by combining companies of smaller regiments.
Despite these undoubted improvements, field battles remained rare, with encounters such as Nieuwpoort in 1600 being very much the exception rather than the rule. However, by maintaining a credible army in being, the Dutch forced the Spanish to likewise maintain a large force in the field. This, given the parlous state of Spanish finances, worked to the advantage of the Dutch, as they were better placed economically to endure a prolonged war.
Indeed, the Spanish crown was forced to admit to bankruptcy on more than one occasion, and was chronically
Unable to pay its troops regularly, unlike the Dutch, and so suffered constant desertions as a result - often to the Dutch, who promptly enrolled such troops in their army.
By 1609 both sides were exhausted and needed peace, but the Spanish could not yet face up to losing the valuable provinces, and so a 12-year truce was agreed and the two sides dramatically reduced their armies. By the time the truce expired in 1621, the Dutch had become involved in the opening stages of the Thirty Years’ War by their support of their fellow Protestants in the Rhine Palatinate. An attempt was made to extend the truce, but this was a failure and war with Spain was resumed.
As previously, the war in the Low Countries was marked by a lack of field battles, and was again a series of sieges and manoeuvres by the respective armies with, from 1635, the Spanish being hampered by also fighting against the French. By the late 1640s the Spanish had finally come to accept that they would never regain control of the Dutch provinces, and peace was agreed between the Dutch Republic and Spain as part of the negotiations that brought the Thirty Years’ War to an end.
This list covers the armies of the Dutch Republic from the military reforms of Maurice and William Louis of Nassau from 1590 until the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 ended both the Eighty and Thirty Years’Wars. The armyofthe initial revolt from 1568 until 1589 is covered in Field of Glory Renaissance Companion 2: Trade and Treachery.
World History
