Netherlands

E

2

Internal Developments

William the Silent had been succeeded by his son Maurice, who in turn was followed by his brother Frederick Henry. These men governed in conjunction with the States-General, an assembly composed of representatives of each of the seven provinces but usually dominated by the largest and wealthiest province, Holland. William and his successors became the “first servants of the Republic”, and held the title “Stadtholder”. The stadtholder’s power varied, depending on his individual qualities of leadership, and the office eventually became hereditary in the House of Orange.

Under Maurice, the republic was divided by a religio-political conflict between the Arminians (Remonstrants) and the Gomarists (High Calvinists), two factions within the Reformed (Calvinist) Church. The Arminian cause was championed by the province of Holland under its leader, Jan van Olden Barneveldt; the other provinces and Maurice sided with the Gomarists, who prevailed. The dispute ended with Olden Barneveldt’s execution for treason in 1619.

Frederick Henry’s son, William II of Orange, became involved in a bitter quarrel with the province of Holland, and after his death no stadtholder was appointed in Holland and four other provinces for more than 20 years. William III of Orange, who held the title of Stadtholder from 1672 until his death in 1702, was also King of England after 1689.

F

Decline of the Dutch Republic

Inevitably, the commercial rivalry between the Dutch and the English, the leading maritime trading nations of the world, erupted into military conflict. The issues between the two countries were contested, but not settled, by the two Anglo-Dutch Wars, the first waged from 1652 to 1654 and the second from 1664 to 1667. As a result of the latter conflict, the Dutch lost New Amsterdam (renamed New York) in North America but acquired Dutch Guiana (now Suriname). Other wars, costly in men and money, followed against France as well as England.

After the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714), in which the Dutch were allies of the government of the newly created United Kingdom against the French, the economic and political power of the Netherlands began to decline. Eventually the Dutch Republic was overshadowed by the expanding power of the United Kingdom on the sea and France on land.

When William III died without heirs in 1702, a distant relative of his, John William Friso, successfully claimed the Orange title. In 1747 his son became Stadtholder in all seven provinces as William IV.

In the late 18th century a struggle broke out between the party of the House of Orange, which had become conservative, and the Patriot Party, which desired democratic reforms. The Orange party enjoyed a brief triumph with the help of an invading Prussian army in 1787, but in 1795 French troops and a force consisting of self-exiled Dutch citizens replaced the republic of the seven United Provinces with the Batavian Republic, which was modelled on the revolutionary French Republic.

G

Napoleonic Era and Union with Belgium

The Batavian Republic survived only until 1806, when Napoleon transformed the country into the Kingdom of Holland. In 1810 he incorporated it into the French Empire. While the Dutch were under French rule, the British seized Dutch colonial possessions. After the fall of Napoleon, the independence of the Netherlands was restored in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna. In addition, the territory now comprising Belgium was made part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

This forced reunion of the two regions was not a happy one, for they had become widely disparate in politics, tradition, religion, language, and economy. In 1830 the Belgians revolted and established their independence as a sovereign state. A conference in London of the major European powers formulated the conditions of separation in 1831. The stipulations were accepted by the Dutch king, but when they were later revised by the conference in favour of the Belgians, a Dutch army invaded Belgium and routed the opposing forces. The conditions of separation were again revised and were finally accepted by both countries in 1839.

H

Development of Parliamentary Democracy

The second half of the 19th century was marked by a liberalization of the Netherlands’ government under the impact of the revolutions that swept Europe during the 1840s. The seeds of reform were contained in the new constitution of 1848, which became the foundation of the present democracy. Under its provisions, arbitrary personal rule by the monarch was no longer possible. The members of the First Chamber of parliament, who had formerly been appointed by the king, were thereafter elected by the provincial states (assemblies). Members of the states and of the Second Chamber of parliament were chosen by all males paying taxes in excess of a stipulated minimum. The almost solidly Roman Catholic southern provinces of Limburg and North Brabant, treated as conquered territories under the republic, had been given equal status with other provinces under the monarchy. However, it remained for the constitution of 1848 to remove the religious restrictions against their citizens. Thus a powerful Roman Catholic political party was able to form and to contend with the Liberal group and the emerging conservative Protestant parties. During the late 19th century, suffrage was gradually extended, and agitation for social reform increased markedly. The rise of a strong Labour Party and the organization of workers into trade unions resulted in further social reforms.

Administration of the colonies was also reformed. In Indonesia, the area under Dutch control was increased, burdensome taxation was gradually abandoned, and, after 1877, no financial surpluses from the colony were transferred to the treasury of the Netherlands.

From about 1880 to 1914 the Netherlands enjoyed an era of economic expansion. This period ended with World War I. The country remained militarily neutral, but the Dutch economy was hard hit by the loss of trade caused by the Allied blockade of the Continent. The Netherlands’ principal post-war problems were also economic, and were aggravated by the depression of the 1930s.

I

World War II and After

At the outbreak of World War II in 1939, the Netherlands again declared its neutrality. However, in 1940 the country was overrun by Nazi forces, following an aerial bombardment that destroyed the greater part of Rotterdam. Much destruction was also wrought in other parts of the country, not only by the Germans, but also by the Dutch resistance, who opened many dykes as desperate defence measures, and later by the Allies in aerial assaults on German-held positions. The Germans occupied the country until they were ousted during 1944 and 1945.

The years following World War II were marked by intensive efforts to rebuild the country and to restore its trade and industry. In 1945 the Netherlands became a charter member of the UN. In 1948 it received funds through the European Recovery Programme. The Netherlands joined with Belgium, France, Britain, and Luxembourg to form the Brussels Treaty Organization in 1948, and was a founder member of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1952. The country joined NATO in 1949, the European Defence Community Treaty in 1952, and the London-Paris Accords in 1955, thus becoming a full member of the western European multinational defence establishment. The late 1940s and early 1950s were also a time of rising prices, generally unfavourable trade balances, and governments dominated by the Labour Party.

The 1940s also saw the Netherlands lose a war against Indonesian nationalists in the East Indies, and in 1949 the Netherlands formally transferred sovereignty in the East Indies (excluding Netherlands New Guinea) to the Indonesian government. Netherlands New Guinea remained under Dutch rule until 1962. Also, in 1954, Suriname and the Netherlands Antilles became equal members of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.