Guerra de los Ochenta Años
La Guerra de los Ochenta Años
Nota: Este conflicto bélico se conoce en España como guerra de Flandes y en los Países Bajos como guerra de independencia de los Países Bajos.
Conflicto entre The Dutch Republic and the Spanish Empire
At its peak in the 17th century, the Netherlands possessed many such colonial outposts. In the span of less than a century, from 1581 to 1648, the Dutch Republic went from a tiny polity in northern Europe to a global empire that stretched from the Americas to Africa and Asia.1 It ruled the high seas, dominated international trade, invented the stock market, and revolutionized modern warfare, defeating the once-mighty Spanish Empire. Its path to power was simple: it followed the recipe of the liberal leviathans that had preceded it. But this outcome was far from preordained.
(p.100) Persecution under the Spanish Empire In the 16th century, the Hapsburg Empire was Europe’s foremost power. Charles V inherited the thrones of what had been several kingdoms, brought under the rule of a single person: the Holy Roman Empire, the Netherlands, Southern Italy, Austria, and Spain and its colonial holdings in the Americas. Under Charles V, more of Europe was combined under a single ruler than at any time since Charlemagne in AD 800. As he neared the end of his life, however, his empire was split, with the Holy Roman Empire and Austria going to his brother, and the Spanish Empire passing to his son Philip II in 1556.
Spain and Portugal had been the early beneficiaries of the opening up of new trade routes in the late 1400s and early 1500s, and both possessed colonies outside of Europe. Spain was growing rich from the mining of gold and silver in the Americas following its conquest of the Incas and the Aztecs. And Portugal had colonies in South America, Africa, and Asia. These Iberian powers were rivals and competed for overseas possessions and trade routes for decades, but, in 1580, Philip II inherited the throne of Portugal and merged them into a single empire.
Philip II ruled as an autocratic, divine-right monarch. This was the age of the Counter-Reformation, and Philip II was an ardent Catholic. Among his foremost priorities was enforcing religious purity among his subjects. He continued and intensified the Spanish Inquisition that had been started a century before. Jews, Muslims, and Protestants were banished from Spanish territory. Those that remained were subject to arrest, imprisonment, torture, and execution. To flee the persecution in Spanish-controlled areas, many of these minority groups fled to more tolerant societies in the north, including the Low Countries.
The “Low Countries” were a collection of seventeen small duchies and countries in present-day Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg. They took their name due to their low elevation on the Rhine river delta along the coast of the North Sea. (This is also the root of the name for the modern-day country of the Netherlands, because it is located in the “nether” or “low” lands). In the 1400s, these polities, which included Holland, Zeeland, and Flanders, were ruled by the dukes of Burgundy. To ease in the management of these tiny statelets, the dukes established a “States General” assembly in which representatives from the various provinces would get together to discuss matters of common importance and receive edicts from the dukes.
The Low Countries were incorporated into the Holy Roman Empire in 1477, and Charles V and Philip II sought to bring them more fully under (p.101) their control. In 1549, Charles V announced the Pragmatic Sanction, which unified the provinces into a single administrative entity under the crown’s authority. Under this system, a regent appointed by the crown lived in the Low Countries and ruled in close collaboration with local nobles.
Philip II continued efforts to centralize his authority, provoking a backlash from the local inhabitants. But even more troubling to his subjects were his determined efforts to enforce religious orthodoxy and to strictly prosecute heresy. While the Low Countries were still predominantly Catholic, they were more tolerant than other parts of Europe. They were heavily involved in trade and they were, therefore, more accustomed to dealing with peoples of different backgrounds and religions. Its population also included many followers of the new protestant religions, including Lutheranism, Calvinism, and Anabaptism, that had sprung up since Martin Luther had nailed his theses to the church door just a half century before. In addition, many of the Jews who had been persecuted during the Inquisition had fled north, settling in the larger cities of the Low Countries, such as Antwerp and Amsterdam.
Like other autocrats, Philip II was able to impose a top-down strategy, but without societal backing, his plans met resistance. Local nobles in the Low Countries, led by William of Orange (also known as William the Silent) petitioned the crown to allow for religious freedom, but they were rebuked, with an advisor to the crown dismissing them as nothing more than “beggars.” (Later Dutch rebels would appropriate the name with pride, referring to themselves as the Geuzen, or Beggars.) In response to the religious persecution, a popular uprising began in 1566, with Dutch protestants defacing and destroying Catholic religious sites in the “Iconoclastic Fury,” or Beeldenstorm.
Philip II sent in the high-handed Duke of Alba, “the Iron Duke,” to restore order. Alba promptly set up a “blood court” and executed up to one thousand people accused of involvement in the uprising. Many others fled the country to avoid persecution.
In exile, William of Orange and other disaffected nobles planned a military campaign to unseat Alba. William was a Catholic and, at this point, still loyal to Philip II. But he wanted greater autonomy and tolerance for the Low Countries. He hired several mercenary armies and invaded from different directions, but his forces were defeated handily by the Spanish. In the Battle of Heiligerlee in May 1568, however, the rebels won their first victory and this date is often considered the beginning of the 80 Years’ War for Dutch independence, or the Dutch Revolt.
(p.102) The Dutch Revolt In 1571, resentment against the crown intensified when Alba imposed a large tax on the States General. Spain had been increasing taxes on the relatively wealthy Netherlands for years to fund its participation in wars in Italy and against the Ottoman Empire. Along with the increasing centralization and religious persecution, the heavy taxes further fueled anti-Spanish sentiment.
The Dutch were already a burgeoning trading power with a large fleet of commercial vessels conducting a brisk trade in timber in the Baltic region. Dutch private vessels joined the rebellion and began conducting attacks on Spanish naval craft. In 1572, these Dutch “Sea Beggars” won a surprising victory against the Spanish, taking the coastal city of Brielle. For the first time the Dutch rebels succeeded in taking and occupying territory formerly controlled by Spain.
This stunning success sparked anti-Alba uprisings throughout the Netherlands and, in the provinces of Holland and Zeeland, more cities fell into rebel hands. Later that year, William of Orange was named the official leader of the rebels, taking the title of Governor-General and Stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, Friesland, and Utrecht.
But the empire struck back. Over years of wanton destruction now known as the “Spanish Fury,” Alba and his forces reclaimed rebel cities and showed no mercy on the vanquished. Spanish forces sacked a string of towns from 1572 to 1579. After raping, pillaging, and looting their way through Mechelen in 1572, Alba bragged to Philip II that his forces did not leave even a single nail in the walls. In the same year, Philip II burned Naarden to the ground and killed all but a handful of its inhabitants.
The empire’s barbaric approach gave the rebels even more incentive to fight. Why surrender if all you have to look forward to is annihilation?
In the Siege of Leiden in 1573, the Dutch held out for months against insurmountable odds. In a brilliant military maneuver, William of Orange broke the Spanish siege by destroying the city’s dikes. The surrounding fields were flooded, washing away Spanish forces. The Sea Beggars sailed in to relieve the starving population. The event is still celebrated annually in Leiden with a feast of herring and white bread, the same provisions brought by the rebel forces.
By this point, Spain was facing economic difficulty. Unlike in the commercially minded Low Countries, Spanish nobles flaunted their status by living lives of leisure. Even nouveau-riche merchants did not stay active for long. Instead of reinvesting in their businesses, they bought titles and land and retired in order to mimic the lifestyles of the nobles. The influx of (p.103) silver and gold from the new world helped finance Spain’s wars, but it also caused economic problems. It gave Philip II few incentives to devise a more efficient means of raising taxes and crowded out the development of other aspects of the Spanish economy. Indeed, nobles were exempt from taxation entirely. In addition, the massive influx of gold and silver caused inflation that hurt Spain’s working classes and exports, leaving Spain with a constant trade deficit.2 With Dutch Sea Beggars and other foreign privateers attacking and capturing Spanish specie shipments from the new world, Philip was in trouble.
In 1575, Spain declared bankruptcy. The crown was unable to pay its army, and the troops mutinied. This only added to the Spanish Fury, as unpaid Spanish troops looted and pillaged Dutch towns in anger. In 1576, they sacked Antwerp and massacred an estimated eight thousand people in three days. The catastrophe led to the decline of Antwerp’s long-standing position as the leading city in the Low Countries and paved the way for the later rise of Amsterdam.
Opposition to Spanish brutality helped to temporarily unite the previously fractious Dutch provinces. In the 1576 Pacification of Ghent, the seventeen provinces of the Low Countries agreed to fight together against the Spanish in order to protect religious tolerance. Only three years later, however, the ten more heavily Catholic southern provinces split from the group, declaring their continued allegiance to Spain. This divided the provinces, with the seven northern provinces forming the Union of Utrecht in continued opposition to Spain. This split had an important effect on contemporary geography. These United Provinces formed in the Union of Utrecht would eventually became the independent Dutch Republic and, later, the Netherlands. The Catholic provinces of the Spanish Netherlands in the South eventually formed the core of present-day Belgium and Luxembourg.
The United Provinces in the North had had enough of titular Spanish rule. In the 1581 Act of Abjuration, the rebels declared their secession from Spain. Not yet imagining that they, a small set of provinces, might possibly be qualified to rule themselves, they sought other European monarchs to become their masters. None of these arrangements worked out for a variety of reasons, however, and the United Provinces became independent largely by default. The Dutch Republic was born.
Many inhabitants of the Low Countries preferred the freedom of the Dutch Republic to Spanish tyranny, and people voted with their feet and fled north. The population of Antwerp fell dramatically in the late sixteenth century, while the population of Amsterdam soared.
(p.104) This new Dutch Republic became the first free republic of early modern Europe. The seven provinces each sent representatives to the legislative body, the States General. Each province had a single vote and a veto in the legislature. This meant that major decisions, including on war and peace, were arrived at by consensus. According to law, the provinces were equal, although Holland was by far the wealthiest and most influential of the bunch. In the Dutch Republic, as in Venice, the capitalists and merchants were able to interact with the government far more equally than other states, as the overlap between the two classes was significant.3 This helped to facilitate the development of inclusive economic institutions. The chief executive of the system was the stadtholder. This person was appointed by the provinces and served as the commander of chief of the armed forces and held sway over government appointments.4
Autocracies have a hard time accumulating power without provoking counterbalancing coalitions, and Philip II had made plenty of enemies throughout Europe. In addition to the Dutch Republic, Spain was also at war with England, France, and the Ottoman Empire in the late 16th century. These states were happy to see Spain’s troubles with the Dutch. England, in particular, decided to openly aid the rebel forces.
England was an irritant to Spain for other reasons as well. Its pirates, like Sir Francis Drake, raided Spanish shipments from the new world. Moreover, England was a Protestant power and an obstacle to Philip II’s efforts to impose Catholicism on the rest of Europe.
In 1588, Philip II attempted to deal a game-ending blow to England. He sent the mighty Spanish Armada of over one hundred ships with a plan for regime change. He would overthrow Queen Elizabeth I and her Protestant government and set up a Catholic government that would better suit his preferences. Instead, the expedition of the Spanish Armada ended in utter disaster. A combined English and Dutch fleet defeated the Spanish. The Dutch fleet blockaded the Low Countries and prevented Spanish ships from linking up with reinforcements on the ground in the Spanish Netherlands. In addition, the English sent “fire ships” into the Spanish fleet that burned some Spanish vessels and disoriented others. In its retreat, the Spanish Armada was then caught in a violent storm. Almost half the Spanish ships and most of its sailors were lost.
In 1584, William of Orange, who by this time had converted to Protestantism, was assassinated by a Spanish loyalist. Following his death, his son, Maurice of Orange, was elected stadtholder and took command of the Dutch forces. Maurice is often credited with ushering in a military revolution in modern Europe, as the first to fully exploit the benefits of firearms on the (p.105) modern battlefield.5 A majority of the Spanish infantry were still armed with pikes—not that different from the spears of the ancient Greeks. In contrast, Maurice equipped the majority of his forces with muskets. To increase their rate of fire and to protect musketeers while reloading, he introduced a system of volley fire. The frontline soldiers would fire their weapons, then retreat to the rear of the formation and reload. The next line of soldiers would step forward and fire before retreating themselves, and so on. This system generated a steady stream of fire on the enemy and protected the reloading musketeers from enemy attack. To work, however, the system required clear doctrine and constant drilling, which Maurice also introduced. Soon, the repeated steps of marching, firing, countermarching, reloading, etc., became second nature to his forces. Constant practice required more professional standing armies and a move away from the temporarily hired mercenaries that had been the standard practice in previous centuries. Maurice was ridiculed at first for attempting this unorthodox method of warfare, but it proved to be so effective that it was eventually copied throughout the rest of Europe.
Throughout the 1590s, Maurice conquered and fortified most of the important cities of the Dutch Republic still contested by the Spanish. While the war would continue for another half century, from this point forward, the homeland of the Dutch Republic was never again in danger.
Maurice’s more ambitious forays into the Spanish Netherlands, however, were thwarted. Having fought to a standstill, the two sides agreed to a Twelve Years’ Truce in 1609. The agreement was signed in The Hague and mediated by the English and the French. The purpose was to create the time and space to negotiate a more lasting peace. It was a major milestone in the history of the Dutch Republic, as it was, for the first time, officially recognized as an independent state by other major powers.
The Dutch Golden Age The Dutch Republic would use these dozen years productively and ushered in what has become known as The Dutch Golden Age. The Dutch Republic was an open and tolerant society, and it benefited from a massive brain drain. Skilled migrants, including protestants and Jews, persecuted in the Spanish Empire and elsewhere in Europe, found refuge in the Dutch Republic. During the revolt, over 10 percent of the population of the southern Low Countries migrated to the north to escape Spanish brutality, including a large proportion of the south’s banking and merchant class.6 These new arrivals greatly contributed to the economic vitality of the fledgling republic.
(p.106) Like other open states, the Dutch Republic became an economic innovator. It dug canals, which allowed for the rapid transportation of goods and passengers. Democracies tend to be more open to international trade, and the Netherlands was no different. For years, the Low Countries had engaged in trade in timber and other products in the Baltics and the rest of northern Europe. To up their game, the Dutch invented a new form of ship, the Fluyt. While other maritime powers, like Portugal and Spain, built ships that did double-duty as both cargo vessels and warships, the Dutch designed a ship optimized for trade. It was cheaper to build and operate, and carried much more cargo. The Dutch became the world’s most efficient traders and by the 1590s, they began challenging Portuguese trading routes in the “Spice Islands” of Southeast Asia. At this time, Dutch cargo capacity was at least double that of both Spain and England.7
One of the most important innovations of the Dutch Republic, however, was the creation of the world’s first corporation, the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC), often translated into English as the Dutch East India Company. The VOC was created in 1602, when several rival trading companies merged into one. The States General granted it a monopoly on Dutch trade in Asia. To secure its trading routes, the VOC possessed the right to use force and establish ports and colonies. The VOC soon became a dominant force in global trade. Its logo was a globally-recognized trademark, and the VOC served as a model for subsequent global businesses. Its commercial activities greatly contributed to the Dutch Republic’s global empire. In 1621, the States General also created the Dutch West India Company, Verenigde Westindische Compagnie, (WIC) in a bid to match the VOC’s success and to compete for trade in the Americas.
The VOC motivated the Dutch Republic to innovate in another way: to invent the world’s first stock market. Previous trading expeditions, as we saw in Venice, were set up for a single voyage with a small group of investors who could recoup their investment when the expedition ended. Now, with the VOC, there was a larger company meant to operate permanently. Some of the investors did not want, or could not afford, to have their funds in the company tied up indefinitely. They wanted to sell their share of the firm and, in 1602, a stall was set up in the Amsterdam’s harbor market to do just that. Shares were made available to the public and were traded alongside fish and other commodities. As demand for the shares increased with the success of the company, speculators realized they could profit simply by buying and selling shares. New financial practices (including some that we might assume were more modern innovations) such as trading in derivatives and short selling, were created within months. Indeed, in 1637, the Dutch Republic also (p.107) gave the world its first speculative bubble in “tulip mania” as prices of the then-exotic flowers were bid up to astronomical levels only to quickly come crashing back down. Fortunately, this early financial crisis did not have a noticeable impact on the power and wealth of the rising Dutch Republic.
The States General also followed in the footsteps of Venice and offered government bonds for sale in this market. Buying Dutch debt was a safe investment. Dutch politicians themselves were major investors, and as Paul Kennedy explains, they had a strong interest to ensure “the principles of sound money, secure credit, and regular repayment of debt [were] upheld.”8 The market spread government debt across a larger section of the population, and even foreigners began investing in Dutch bonds. The high demand for Dutch debt meant that the States General only needed to pay low (~4 percent) interest rates to attract investors.9 This allowed the States General to raise large amounts of money without dramatic tax increases.10
Amsterdam soon became the center of global finance. The Bank of Amsterdam, established in 1609, was arguably the world’s first central bank. Foreign traders relied on institutions in Amsterdam for currency exchange and to facilitate trade with other countries. As late as 1763, London merchants, for example, went through Amsterdam for trade with Russia.11
In contrast, the Spanish monarchy had to offer much higher interest rates to attract investors, up to 20 percent. This imposed additional financial strain on the feeble Spanish economy, and the overstretched Spanish Empire repeatedly defaulted on its debt in 1575, 1596, 1607, 1627, 1647, 1652, 1660, and 1662.12
The Netherlands was likely the wealthiest and fastest-growing country in the world at this time. It is estimated the GDP per capita in the United Provinces was at least double that in Spain, and its economy was growing at double-digit rates.13
Amsterdam also enjoyed significant soft power as its freewheeling model facilitated developments in the arts and sciences. Today, many remember this period for the Dutch Masters, such as Rembrandt, Johannes Vermeer, and Jan Steen. Philosophers and writers working in Amsterdam at the time included monumental figures in the history of human thought, including Rene Descartes, Hugo Grotius, and Baruch Spinoza.
To protect its growing commercial interests, the Dutch built a large military. In the mid-1600s, the Netherlands possessed one of the largest armies in Europe, with 110,000 men under arms compared to only 70,000 in Spain.14
In the same time period, Dutch Admiral Michiel de Ruyter brought the military revolution, started by Maurice on land, to sea. By this time, galleys were eliminated in favor of the man o’ war. Navies followed Venice’s lead (p.108) in arming ships with cannons, and sails replaced oars as the main power source. But early naval gun battles, like the Battle of Lepanto between Venice and the Ottoman Turks in 1571, were chaotic frays. Ruyte designed rational operational concepts that maximized the technology’s potential, operating ships in carefully orchestrated formations and concentrating firepower on the enemy. The stronger naval presence was created just in time as the war with Spain was about to resume.
The Thirty Years’ War The Twelve Years’ Truce broke down due to intractable disputes over religion and trade. The Dutch were willing to offer Catholics the freedom to practice their religion in the Dutch Republic, but the Spanish were unwilling to grant similar rights to Protestants in the Spanish territories. In addition, the two sides disagreed over international trading routes. While the Dutch had signed the Twelve Years’ Truce with Spain, it did not have a similar agreement with Portugal (which, as the reader will recall, was also under the control of the Spanish crown at the time). The Netherlands exploited this loophole and the downtime during the Truce to enhance its trading position at the expense of Portugal’s overseas empire.
In 1603, the VOC seized a Portuguese trading ship and its prized cargo. The Portuguese protested, but the Dutch defended their actions. Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius formulated his ideas about the freedom of the seas in response to this incident, and his views still influence international maritime law to this day.15 Later that year, the Dutch established their first overseas trading colony in Indonesia and Batavia (present-day Jakarta) was named the capital of the Dutch East Indies. The Dutch and Portuguese clashed over Goa in 1604, Mozambique in 1607, and Malacca in 1615.
In 1621, the 80 Years’ War formally resumed. It merged into the broader Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648), also a war primarily between Protestants and Catholics raging across the rest of Europe. On land, the Dutch captured several cities from the Spanish Netherlands, including Maastricht. But efforts to take the more important cities in the South, such as Brussels and Antwerp, were repulsed. Contrary to Dutch expectation, the people of the Spanish Netherlands did not rise up and greet them as liberators. By this time, the population was thoroughly Catholic and content to be ruled by the Spanish crown.
Rather, the major action in this second phase of the war was over Spain and Portugal’s colonial empires. In this theater, the war was decisively (p.109) decided in the Netherlands’ favor. In 1624, the Dutch East India Company established a colonial outpost on Formosa (present-day Taiwan), and in 1642, they took the entire island from Spain. In 1638, a small group of islands in the Indian Ocean was seized from Portugal and renamed Mauritius, in honor of Maurice of Orange. In 1640, the Dutch established their foothold in Galle (the city described in the beginning of this chapter), and in 1658, they succeeded in claiming all of Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka). In 1648, the Dutch took Malacca (in present-day Malaysia). This was an especially important gain for the Dutch, because the Malaccan Straits serve as an important choke point for all Asian trade. The conquests of the Dutch East India Company were rounded out in 1663, when they took the Malabar Coast of India from Portugal.
As the VOC was making hay in the East, the WIC, was doing the same in the new world. In 1624, it established a colony in North America to serve as a fort and fur-trading post. This port of New Amsterdam would later become a small town we know today as New York City. In the same period, the WIC established a colony at Portugal’s expense in Brazil to engage in the lucrative sugar trade. It also gained other possessions in South America and the Caribbean including Suriname, Aruba, and Curacao. The Dutch Republic also got into the slave trade. It took Luanda in present-day Angola from Portugal in 1640 and conquered the Portuguese Gold Coast (present-day Ghana) in 1642. In 1652, the Dutch established the Cape Colony in present-day South Africa.
This was the beginning of the end for Spain’s attempts to subdue the Dutch, and things came to a head in the Battle of the Downs in 1639. With France’s entry into the Thirty Years’ War, Spain could no longer transport forces over land into the Spanish Netherlands. It, therefore, looked to reinforce its ground forces by sea. When they anchored at the Downs, near the English Chanel, the Dutch navy engaged them in battle, winning a conclusive victory and forever ending Spain’s status as a naval power.
Autocracy’s greatest weakness is domestic political instability, and the Spanish Empire was no different. In addition to the Dutch Revolt, Philip II’s successor, Philip III, had to put down two additional uprisings. Spanish Catalonia revolted against the crown in 1640. Inspired by this example, Portugal decided it was time to reclaim its independence from Spain. These uprisings would end with Spain losing Portugal and ceding parts of Catalonia to France.
In 1648, the broader Thirty Years’ War came to an end with the Peace of Westphalia. This peace settlement is often considered the foundation of the modern nation-state system. After fighting over religion for nearly a century, (p.110) the countries of Europe agreed to the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity. Nation-states would have the power to determine matters within their own borders, such as the practice of religion, without external inference.
More importantly for our purposes, Spain and the Dutch Republic also made their peace in the related Treaty of Munster. The agreement granted the Dutch Republic independence. The Netherlands emerged stronger from the conflict as arguably the wealthiest and most powerful country in the world, with a global empire and possessions across Asia, Africa, and the Americas. The outcome was a humiliating defeat for Spain. It had lost territory in Europe and around the world, and was no longer a major naval power.
Democracy versus Autocracy The story of the Dutch Republic’s revolt against Spain provides significant support for the democratic advantage theory. The Dutch Republic rose from a collection of small polities under the rule of another empire to become an independent nation with a global empire of its own (Figure 7.1). Consistent with the democratic advantage thesis, the Dutch Republic’s open model of politics was a major reason for its rise to power. Its inclusive economic institutions facilitated economic growth. Tolerance created a massive influx of talented migrants that contributed to its human capital. Like other open states, it became a leader in global trade. Its most impressive economic innovations, however, were in finance. Amsterdam succeeded Venice as the capital of capital. It was the home of the first modern corporation, stock market, and central bank.
Diplomatically, it was able to amass power and wealth without provoking resistance. It also succeeded in enlisting outside help, including from England and France, in its cause against Spain. Contrary to claims that democracies cannot persist in any grand design, the Dutch Republic remained laser-focused on its war with Spain for eight consecutive decades and eventually came out on top.
In military matters, the Dutch Republic’s large economic base supported its military power. The Dutch Republic possessed the world’s largest navy and one of the largest armies. It repeatedly defeated the Spanish and the Portuguese as it gained independence and established a global empire. It was also a military innovator. The Dutch Republic ushered in a revolution in military affairs, designing coherent operational concepts for the new and disruptive gunpowder revolution on both land and sea.
The outcome for Spain was quite different, as it was afflicted by the common problems of autocracies. Its extractive economic institutions led to inefficiency, massive inflation, and repeated bankruptcy. Diplomatically, it was not able to amass power without provoking a counterbalancing coalition; instead, it was at war with much of the rest of Europe for the better part of a century. In military matters, it was forced to divide its attention between foreign and domestic challenges as it faced internal insurrections, including revolts from the Netherlands, Catalonia, and Portugal. Its military decision-making was often heedless, as the disaster of the Spanish Armada clearly illustrates.
It is true that the crown was able to make big, top-down decisions, but this proved to be a curse, rather than a blessing. Philip II’s crusade to impose religious orthodoxy on his people sparked a costly decades-long war. It also caused the best and brightest in Spain to flee north to Amsterdam to avoid persecution. Philip was not constrained by moral or legal inhibitions, but atrocities committed in the Spanish Fury merely gave the Dutch additional reason to fight for independence. If Philip II had a strategic long-term plan, a supposed strength of autocracies, it is not clear what it was.
The Dutch Golden Age lasted throughout the 17th century, but it would not endure forever. For, just across the English Channel, there was another small, seafaring nation envious of Dutch success. As a monarchy, England tried and failed to subdue the Netherlands. Indeed, in the Anglo-Dutch Wars (1652–1674), London competed to wrest away Dutch trade routes, but only ended up losing a series of embarrassing naval battles. In one remarkable episode, the Raid on the Medway in 1667, Admiral de Ruyte sailed up the Thames River, broke through England’s defenses, lit the English fleet on fire, and captured England’s flagship.
If England was going to compete successfully, it would need to do things differently. It would need a new and better system. So, London copied Amsterdam’s model of global domination, right down to its domestic political institutions.
* [[Batallas de la Guerra de los Ochenta Años]] * [[Bioko]] * [[Brasil colonial]] * [[Ceilán holandés]] * [[Indias Orientales Holandesas]] * [[Formosa holandesa]] * [[India holandesa]] * [[Guerras de religión europeas]] * [[Mártires de Gorkum]] * [[Merck toch hoe sterck]] * [[India portuguesa]] * [[San Martín (isla)]] * [[Formosa española]] * [[Camino español]] * [[Unión de Delft]]
República Holandesa, Edad de Oro Holandesa, Imperio Español, Revuelta Holandesa, Compañía Holandesa de las Indias Orientales, Felipe II, Guillermo de Orange, Mauricio de Orange, revolución militar, Armada Española