Netherlands revolt (1567-1648), or Eighty Years War. The long struggle that eventually gave birth to the nationality called ‘Dutch’ in English is complicated by the fact that the identity itself did not exist before the war. The seventeen provinces of the Netherlands were first united under Philip of Burgundy in the 15th century and inherited by the Habsburg Emperor Charles V, but each province and even each of the great merchant cities had different political and religious customs, and jealously treasured their individual prerogatives. For as long as imperial authority was exercised lightly, the only desire they had in common was to trade and enjoy steadily increasing prosperity.
The Netherlands revolt and wars of religion in France
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Under Philip II, self-appointed leader of the Counter-Reformation, the delicate balance of tacit religious toleration was disturbed, a process exacerbated by an outbreak of Calvinist iconoclasm in 1566. The main figures in the early part of the revolt were the enigmatic William ‘the Silent’, whose diplomatic skill and tenacity more than compensated for his many military failures, and Philip's captain general the Duke of Alba, whose competent generalship was accompanied by a brutal oppression that gave the provinces a common cause against Habsburg rule. By the dispossessions of the infamous Council of Blood (1567-74), Alba made an enemy of the previously temporizing William and created a class of embittered lesser nobility and fanatical Calvinists who became the ‘Geuzen’ ((Sea) Beggars), privateers operating from England into the maritime provinces of Zeeland and Holland. By simultaneously imposing a 10 per cent sales tax, he also united Catholic and Protestant merchant magnates. Finally, by the judicial murders of counts Egmond and Hoorne he removed William's principal rivals for leadership of all Netherlands factions.
The first phase of the revolt witnessed military failures by William and his brothers, and growing success in the guerrilla campaign waged by the Sea Beggars from bases in England. Evicted from these in 1572, they seized Brielle and the maritime provinces rose in spontaneous revolt, inviting William to lead them, which he did to a string of almost unbroken defeats on land. At sea it remained another matter, and one of the features of the campaign was the manner in which the rebels could flood terrain to halt the advance of Spanish armies. It was a grinding war of sieges, among the more notable being the heroic resistance of Leyden for eleven months in 1573-4, but imperial brutality such as the ‘Spanish Fury’ in Antwerp, where 7, 000 inhabitants were killed, preserved rebel unity.
The second phase began when disorder among the Spanish emboldened all the provinces to proclaim William their stadtholder, neatly reaffirming his imperial title while underlining their relative independence. This unity did not survive the appointment as imperial captains general of the two ablest generals of the period, Don Juan of Austria and his diplomatically as well as militarily gifted successor Parma. It was the great misfortune of Maurice of Nassau that the latter was his opponent when he succeeded his assassinated father, and by 1579 the provinces were divided into the Protestant (Dutch-speaking) northern provinces allied by the Union of Utrecht and the Catholic (French-speaking) south that acquiesced to continued imperial rule by the Union of Arras.
Once again only topography and the unlimited scope of Habsburg ambition saved the now United Provinces. England, uneasy about helping a rival in maritime trade, was an undependable ally even after the Spanish Armada fiasco of 1588, although this had the beneficial effect of demoralizing the Spanish and removing the deadly Parma from the scene. Maurice enjoyed a period of military success until his bad luck resumed with the appearance of the brilliant Genoese soldier of fortune Spinola to breathe new life into the imperial cause. Happily for the Dutch, the Spanish court distrusted him and despite an unbroken string of victories he was obliged by lack of funds to agree to the Twelve Years Truce in 1609, which de facto recognized the independence of the United Provinces.
The third phase formed part of the greater Thirty Years War. Maurice died while besieged by Spinola at Breda in 1625, the fall of which was immortalized by Velázquez and reckoned to be among the most remarkable military achievements of the period. Once again the Spanish court sabotaged its brilliant field commander and let the United Provinces off the hook. The tide finally turned when the Dutch won a crushing victory against the Spanish fleet at the battle of the Downs in 1639, while French intervention ensured that they made no headway on land. In 1648, as a part of the Treaty of Westphalia, the exhausted Habsburgs wrote off 80 years of ruinous expense and persistent strategic vulnerability, and at last gave de jure recognition to the fact of Dutch independence.
— Richard Holmes
