Started to look today at a documentary about the peace of Westphalia on my hard disc of the TV distributor. I wanted to show it as usual from Arte overhere in French and German, but no I could even not see it on Arte myself anymore, because I am not permitted anymore to view it in Belgium as an inhibitant of a foreign nation-state. And the time of the free youtube you could find from any programm are gone too. Tried to contact Arte via the standardized contact formula, but that said everytime: there happened something wrong with your message, I think because I sent from where I live. google said already to me in what location I lived and it was exact...i will have to contact I think Arte by phonecall...

But anyway from all this trouble I started to look further because it was said that the Treaty of Westphalia was the start of the sovereingty of the nation-state
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westphalian_sovereignty


An article that I found from the international Guardian underlines what I yesterday tried to explain to Vizzer...but I have also critics on the article...
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/apr/05/demise-of-the-nation-state-rana-dasgupta
And you can say its from an Indian...but perhaps those have the most neutral point of view?...
And an article on the same subject that I not yet read...
https://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1179&context=bjil


Tomorrow more...

Kind regards from Paul.

Sovereignty was simply an optional notion that could be drawn from the various peace treaties that constituted what was rather optimistically called the "Peace of Westphalia". In effect the treaties removed one "cause belli" under which war in Europe had been engaged, but as history (quickly) revealed it did little to end war and in fact threw up a whole slew of new "causa belli", in which "defence of sovereignty", be it one's own or on behalf of an allied nation, then became an acceptable shorthand justification for aggression thereafter, though the claim more often than not simply masked all the usual root causes of tension and warfare on the continent, including dynastic establishment, territorial expansion, economic rivalry and even outright sectarian hatred.  Plus ça change, and all that.

Genuine claims to sovereignty, such as in Ireland at the time to cite only one of many examples, simply did not register as valid among the signatories, and wouldn't for a long time afterwards. In fact the opposite principle tended to apply in those cases, and any appeal to a notion of "Westphalian Sovereignty" by these communities was as often as not suppressed violently and outlawed by the very people who held the principle up to be admired as justification for their own political autonomy and right to rule. There are, in Europe, even still several communities who would dearly wish to identify as a "nation state" but who have never been allowed prosecute such a policy politically. So when people decry the "end of the nation state", and especially if they hark back to Westphalian Sovereignty as if it was an enshrined political principle under which all European people have lived for over three centuries, then they should really take up a history book or two and actually learn about their subject.

nordmann wrote:

Sovereignty was simply an optional notion that could be drawn from the various peace treaties that constituted what was rather optimistically called the "Peace of Westphalia". In effect the treaties removed one "cause belli" under which war in Europe had been engaged, but as history (quickly) revealed it did little to end war and in fact threw up a whole slew of new "causa belli", in which "defence of sovereignty", be it one's own or on behalf of an allied nation, then became an acceptable shorthand justification for aggression thereafter, though the claim more often than not simply masked all the usual root causes of tension and warfare on the continent, including dynastic establishment, territorial expansion, economic rivalry and even outright sectarian hatred.  Plus ça change, and all that.

Genuine claims to sovereignty, such as in Ireland at the time to cite only one of many examples, simply did not register as valid among the signatories, and wouldn't for a long time afterwards. In fact the opposite principle tended to apply in those cases, and any appeal to a notion of "Westphalian Sovereignty" by these communities was as often as not suppressed violently and outlawed by the very people who held the principle up to be admired as justification for their own political autonomy and right to rule. There are, in Europe, even still several communities who would dearly wish to identify as a "nation state" but who have never been allowed prosecute such a policy politically. So when people decry the "end of the nation state", and especially if they hark back to Westphalian Sovereignty as if it was an enshrined political principle under which all European people have lived for over three centuries, then they should really take up a history book or two and actually learn about their subject.

nordmann,

how right you are in your reply. And indeed, not that much changed from the Mesopotamian struggles for power, the Egyptian ones until these treaties to end the Thirty Years War and the Dutch Eighty Years War and yes as you say immediately after, you had the war of the Grand Alliance to contain the France of Louis XIV, first a James II supporting Louis, but then after the glorious revolution, William III supporting the Alliance against Louis, but when in the Spanish succession there was a chance for too much power of the HRE they changed support and obliged the weakened France to help them to contain the Emperor...what an interesting subject to read about the games of history...and it had gone that way until now...
https://www.britannica.com/event/War-of-the-Grand-Alliance
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Spanish_Succession

But I wanted only use in my title that Westphalian Peace as a starting point for a more extended discussion of the nation-state today as discussed in the Guardian article and as such my title don't cover my intentions, but to my exoneration I wanted to keep a short title without much elaboration...perhaps better a title...The end of the nation-state?

In that sense that the nation-state has no power anymore over its own economic power as it is led by international players in which small states as Belgium and even Britain can't play a role anymore as international markets are influenced by big powers as the US, the Northern US-European alliance, China, Russia, Japan. The international capitalistic markets let me recall strangely the slogans of Hitler Germany about the "international Plutocrats (Jewish Plutocrats?)" And one of my critiques of the Guardian article is just that I don't see that much difference between the world of 1648 and todays world (only that this world is a bit more sophistcated)...and as before the common man in the street is still reigned by the big players at the top...but in all this I suppose an authortarian regime as in China can act more on the markets than a democratic US?
That are my first thoughts as I haven't read fully the two articles that I mentioned and can't give an "opinion"...

Kind regards from Paul.

I now read the two articles.
The first is as I see now after research from Rana Dasgupta
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rana_Dasgupta
And I only give to start with my opinion as a personal one and based on what I know and if my critique is wrong that someone come with an alternative. I don't know if our small group is big enough to discuss such complex matter, but nevertheless I try. I expect something of a nordmann, who is nearly worth a group of contributors...
It's a long article and somewhere I thought that I read about the new thinking of the degrade of the nation-state as the right to intervene in nation-states if the human rights are not respected, but in my opinion that right is used unilaterally by for instance the US for their own political purposes, first the war by proxy against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and then the reaction against Muslim fundamentalism that they had first supported to thwart the Russians, the break up of Yugoslavia, the interventions in Iraq that lead to a lot of turmoil, the Lybian break-up...the war by proxy in Syria between Saudi Arabia and Iran...
And also the oldfashioned way of fighting by proxy between the great powers in third nation-states (the Cold War), which led to the degradation of this nation-states...
But in my opinion that is all nothing new under the sun...

But where I follow the author what in my opinion is the first task: the regulation by the big players of the international money and banking system and the escape routes from the international business groups and individuals to extract money on which nation-states have not control anymore and that they need for their national economy. And those nation-states can only gain power in that struggle by combining with others same minded clusters as the EU for instance, or Mercosur...but again in my opinion if the big players, as an US don't want to cooperate with the rest it will be dead born...

And I agree also with him that for the health of nation-states and the clusters of nation states it is important to seek for ways to have a redistribution of wealth between rich and poor to avoid tensions...and I agree it can't be built instantly, but with every acting it has at least to be the goal...

The second article from 1999 that I read I have a complete other opinion about, with for instance Belgium and Canada that the author mentioned as example...but that will be for tomorrow...

A bit about the power of big players or even one big player:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polarity_(international_relations)

Kind regards from Paul.

https://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1179&context=bjil

While it is already late in the evening to fully comment on the second entry of 1999 as promised, I would in essence say that it is my opinion  that in nation-states or in larger confederations as the EU,  one has to seek for common ground and try to work together for the gain of all, not an attitude of we and them or we are better than the others...that's perhaps easier for nation-states as Belgium and Canada where there is only a language difference and not a cultural one (I mean culture in the broad sense), and perhaps also for the new German-French entente where nowadays there is much less culture difference than before.
But it becomes more difficult, where there is a religious difference as for instance in the former Yugoslavia, while culture is greatly bound with religion, especially with a religion that wants to convince others of their religious culture or state management...but for instance that is not relevant anymore as before in the Netherlands between the Calvinists and the Catholics (at least I suppose) as the difference between the different religious cultures became irrelevant...it is perhaps still relevant between Hindous and Muslims in India?...it becomes more relevant in Indonesia? in Turkey?

Kind regards from Paul.

It would be nice if you could refer your musings on modern political theory to ... erm, history?

For example: you refer to "religious difference", which at face value seems to be self-apparently a form of demarcation but when looked at closely is anything but, though it would be wise to add that history reveals the use of religious allegiance as a politically short-hand substitute for ethnic distinction as being one that has always been fraught with danger, fundamentally because it rarely reflects accurately the actual political distinctions at play, nor does it help ascertain exactly who is using them as a political tool to their distinctly political ends. Ironically enough it was the various treaties of Westphalia (to which your thread referred to in its title but which then seems to have disappeared from your musings altogether) that probably were the first such political documents to attempt to neutralise future hijacking of religious identity as a political tool by the true power brokers of the day.

Westphalia failed with regard to its usefulness in further episodes of ante-belligerent diplomacy, at least as a precedent that could in any way be enforced long-term as a standard for rules of conduct and bottom-line definitions of sovereignty (something its participants weren't actually interested in anyway), but it did at least end a long and bloody example of such blatant hijacking that more realistic politicians across the continent had finally begun to realise was, if anything, a guarantee of political anarchy as long as it persisted, and the resolution of which therefore required a politically ground-breaking and highly complex re-definition of manageable distinctions that made sense politically, that could facilitate power-plays as they then existed, that could more accurately reflect and service actual communal claims to self-identity, and which therefore rescued diplomacy, political systems, and even warfare itself, from future incidents of being hijacked by anarchic religious fervour and ringleaders.

The notion of "sovereignty" therefore, at least as described within the terms of Westphalia, purposefully avoided reference to religious distinctions, and in fact enshrined the notion of political accommodation of religious differences withing one nation state as one very important "proof" of sovereignty when it occurred, not a challenge to it.

And regarding your other point above, again with reference to Westphalia, the notion of ethnic culture was also addressed by the treaties involved, both in the "broader sense" and in any narrow sense its participants wished to adopt. By the same token that Bavaria, for example, emerged from the treaty as a fiercely independent Catholic entity with its closest "cultural" allies in terms of future treaties professing sometimes a vehement Protestant faith, Switzerland was basically formed by the same rules as an official multi-religious, multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-lingual state, not as an affront to any one of its neighbours whose cultures it subsumed and who themselves might treat each other with suspicion and distrust, but as a logical buffer between these states through which it could henceforth act as "honest broker" in future diplomatic incidents between these states.

While Switzerland may have evolved slightly differently than intended in Westphalia, the notion of its unimpeachable sovereignty as well as its neutrality was born in Westphalia, and is probably the most visible legacy today of how religion, culture, and other ethnic considerations that previously had sparked continent-consuming warfare, were superseded by a "realpolitik" assessment of what constitutes a sovereign nation state that basically ignored all these previously divisive yard-sticks by politically accommodating them.

I look forward to your own views on Westphalia and how its legacy is visible today, if at all, as well as maybe why you brought it up in the first place when discussing modern socio-political theory?

nordmann wrote:

It would be nice if you could refer your musings on modern political theory to ... erm, history?

For example: you refer to "religious difference", which at face value seems to be self-apparently a form of demarcation but when looked at closely is anything but, though it would be wise to add that history reveals the use of religious allegiance as a politically short-hand substitute for ethnic distinction as being one that has always been fraught with danger, fundamentally because it rarely reflects accurately the actual political distinctions at play, nor does it help ascertain exactly who is using them as a political tool to their distinctly political ends. Ironically enough it was the various treaties of Westphalia (to which your thread referred to in its title but which then seems to have disappeared from your musings altogether) that probably were the first such political documents to attempt to neutralise future hijacking of religious identity as a political tool by the true power brokers of the day.

Westphalia failed with regard to its usefulness in further episodes of ante-belligerent diplomacy, at least as a precedent that could in any way be enforced long-term as a standard for rules of conduct and bottom-line definitions of sovereignty (something its participants weren't actually interested in anyway), but it did at least end a long and bloody example of such blatant hijacking that more realistic politicians across the continent had finally begun to realise was, if anything, a guarantee of political anarchy as long as it persisted, and the resolution of which therefore required a politically ground-breaking and highly complex re-definition of manageable distinctions that made sense politically, that could facilitate power-plays as they then existed, that could more accurately reflect and service actual communal claims to self-identity, and which therefore rescued diplomacy, political systems, and even warfare itself, from future incidents of being hijacked by anarchic religious fervour and ringleaders.

The notion of "sovereignty" therefore, at least as described within the terms of Westphalia, purposefully avoided reference to religious distinctions, and in fact enshrined the notion of political accommodation of religious differences withing one nation state as one very important "proof" of sovereignty when it occurred, not a challenge to it.

And regarding your other point above, again with reference to Westphalia, the notion of ethnic culture was also addressed by the treaties involved, both in the "broader sense" and in any narrow sense its participants wished to adopt. By the same token that Bavaria, for example, emerged from the treaty as a fiercely independent Catholic entity with its closest "cultural" allies in terms of future treaties professing sometimes a vehement Protestant faith, Switzerland was basically formed by the same rules as an official multi-religious, multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-lingual state, not as an affront to any one of its neighbours whose cultures it subsumed and who themselves might treat each other with suspicion and distrust, but as a logical buffer between these states through which it could henceforth act as "honest broker" in future diplomatic incidents between these states.

While Switzerland may have evolved slightly differently than intended in Westphalia, the notion of its unimpeachable sovereignty as well as its neutrality was born in Westphalia, and is probably the most visible legacy today of how religion, culture, and other ethnic considerations that previously had sparked continent-consuming warfare, were superseded by a "realpolitik" assessment of what constitutes a sovereign nation state that basically ignored all these previously divisive yard-sticks by politically accommodating them.

I look forward to your own views on Westphalia and how its legacy is visible today, if at all, as well as maybe why you brought it up in the first place when discussing modern socio-political theory?

nordmann,

thank you very much for this excellent links of today history with the treaty of Westphalia. I learned a lot from it. And you are right about my title and yes the Westphalia peace was only an occasion to start a thread about the nowadays nation-state and I apologized already about it:
"But I wanted only use in my title that Westphalian Peace as a starting point for a more extended discussion of the nation-state today as discussed in the Guardian article and as such my title don't cover my intentions, but to my exoneration I wanted to keep a short title without much elaboration...perhaps better a title...The end of the nation-state?"

I hope I will be able to better make a connection with history in the thread: Are we back to the Thirties?. But it will always be invalid as history never fully repeats itself.

About Switzerland, that's really an interesting nation-state and as I have now some information from research on the internet that I did due to family living there for the moment. From all this information I have the impression that the real trick of the country are the cantons, where most decisions are made independentally from other cantons, and the Swiss nation-state is only an umbrella organisation for the extern international connections. But I am not sure about this and I will try to deepen my knowledge, for instance by asking a Swiss citizen (French language) on the French forum where I post too.

Anyway, I thank you again nordmann for the as usual insightfull comments that you made about this subject.

Kind regards from Paul.

I was musing on the state of the British Isles at the time of the Treaty of Westphalia - apologies if any of it is not deemed relevant.

The British Isles was in 1648 divided into three kingdoms (England, which included Wales, Scotland, and Ireland) ruled by the same monarch, Charles I.  However, it was in the midst of a series of civil wars which had caused a level of loss of life that, it is estimated, exceeded that of the two world wars put together in terms of the percentage of the population.  In Ireland, which Nordmann referred to, the loss of life was even worse. 

None of the 3 kingdoms had taken part in the Thirty Years War that ended with the Treaty of Westphalia; although large numbers of individuals had fought as soldiers in the various European armies, especially Scots fighting in the Swedish army.  None of the three kingdoms would have been considered significant powers at this time too.  That, however, had changed by the next time that Europe squared upon for a major war - the Nine Year War (1688 - 1697) - and by the time of the Spanish War of Succession (1701 - 14) England/Great Britain was a world power with the largest oceanic navy in the world.

1648 though had seen in England a Royalist revolt in the south which had been defeated by Fairfax, the commander of the New Model Army - in theory under the control of the English parliament.  It had also seen a Scottish invasion in support of Charles I which had been defeated at Preston by the New Model Army second in command - Cromwell.  Following Preston, the army was to move both to take Charles under its control and also to purge parliament of any MPs of which it did not approve.  

Scotland had been under the control of a group known as the Engagers who had signed the treaty with Charles I to restore him to power.  However, with the defeat at Preston and with Cromwell marching into Scotland, the Engagers lost power to Argyle who had previously sided with the English parliament against Charles I.

The Irish Catholics had revolted against Protestant domination in 1641 and the subsequent war caused a massive loss of life, much of which happened before the arrival of Cromwell and the New Model Army in 1649.  The situation in Ireland in 1648, as well as being grim, was very complicated with the presence of an Irish Catholic Confederate army in alliance with English Royalists, a renegade Confederate army which did not accept the alliance with the English Royalists, an English parliamentarian army under the command of a Welshman Michael Jones who had at one time fought for Charles I, and a Scottish Covenanter army.  As an example of the complexity of the fighting during 1648, the Scottish army which, under the terms of the agreement between Charles I and the Scottish Engagers, had changed sides to join the Catholic-Royalist alliance, moved to besiege the Parliamentarian forces in Londonderry.  However, a renegade Irish Confederate army marched to lift the siege in exchange for receiving supplies from Parliament.

Thank you very much Tim for this exposé about the contemporaneous Britain of the time of 1648.

I always appreciate input on British history, while contrary to the continental history, where the territory of the nowadays Belgium was many times linked with France, Spain, the Dutch Republic, Austria, the English and later the British was not interfering that much overhere or it had to be later from Waterloo on.
When I did research on the net about Cromwell and the Rump parliament, I felt especially my ignorance as I explained to you:
https://reshistorica.forumotion.com/t1281-rump-parliament-democratic

Even with a William III where we had also a bit to do with, I had in the excellent book of the author Troost about William III, only interest in the part of his Stadholdership for the Dutch Republic and not for the Glorious revolution and his later career.

Kind regards from Paul.

Hi Paul 

some English intervention in the Low Countries prior to the Act of Union in 1707

English involvement in the Dutch revolt against the Spanish began in 1572 when a group of Dutch pirates known as the sea beggars captured the ports of Flushing and Brielle in the Netherlands.  Ironically the sea beggars did this because they had just been expelled from England.  Although Elizabeth had allowed them to attack Spanish shipping, they had also attacked neutral and even English merchant ships.  However, 300 English and Welsh volunteers moved to support the Dutch rebels at Flushing.  In July Elizabeth sent 1200 troops, officially ‘volunteers’, under the command of Sir Humphrey Gilbert; ironically these were not sent initially against the Spanish but because Elizabeth was worried that the Dutch revolt would lead to the French taking control of the Netherlands.  What she wanted was a return to the Dutch autonomy under Spanish rule, the idea of an independent Netherlands did not seem feasible to Elizabeth at that time.  

On 24th August 1572, the French King Charles IX unleashed the St Bartholomew’s Day massacre of thousands of Huguenots (French Protestants).  This led to renewed civil war in France and removed the threat of a French invasion of the Netherlands.  However, this in turn allowed the Spanish authorities under the duke of Alba to concentrate on the crushing the Dutch revolt which they did using a policy of deliberate viciousness.  When towns were captured the garrisons were slaughtered and often the civilian population was massacred as well.

The English forces were initialling involved, none too successfully, in attempts to extend Dutch control in the Walcheren Islands.  From his base at Flushing, Gilbert launched two attempts to capture the town of Ter Goes.  The first was a complete fiasco and the second, carried out with Dutch support, was defeated when a Spanish commander led 3,000 veteran troops through flooded land to attack the besiegers from the rear.  In 1573 Thomas Morgan brought over another 1,500 troops who took part in the failed attempt to relieve the siege of Haarlem, which fell on 13th September.  However, despite these set-backs, the number of English and Welsh fighting in the Netherlands had by 1578 increased to around 3,000.  Also fighting against the Spanish were 4,000 Scots.  Having fervently embraced Protestantism and with Scotland and England at peace, Scots were to serve in large numbers in support of the Protestant cause in Europe in both the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 

The fighting in the Netherlands mainly consisted of sieges and small scale actions but on 31st July 1578 the English, commanded by John Norris, took part in one few large scale battles at the village of Rijmenan in what is now Belgium.  The army of the Dutch ‘States General’ as the government of the rebel provinces was known, in fact consisted mainly of English, Scottish and Huguenot troops.  Don Juan, who had replaced Alba as the Spanish governor-general chose to attack the States General army, despite having inferior numbers.  In this he was opposed by his second in command Parma.  The States army was drawn up in what appeared to be a fortified position in front of the village with both flanks secured by forest.  When the Spanish attacked they managed to fight their way into the village, but then discovered that they had in fact been drawn into a trap.  The true fortified camp was behind the village and now the States artillery opened up on the Spanish.  The troops who had entered the village were in danger of being wiped out but, through a clever manoeuvre for which he was to become famous, Parma managed to extricate the troops.   The Spanish suffered around 1,000 casualties while the States army suffered about half that number.  

Rijmenan provided a considerable boost to Dutch morale and made Norris’ name as a soldier but despite that he suffered problems with other English officers trying to undermine his authority or poaching men from his regiments to make good the shortfall in their own units.  Don Juan died soon after the battle and was succeeded by Parma as governor-general.  Initially he was not able to progress the reconquest of the Netherlands as in 1580 most of the Spanish troops had been sent to help conquer Portugal but in 1582 they returned.  Parma had a brilliant grasp of strategy and could work out exactly where to attack to isolate and capture key fortresses, often without having to even assault them directly.  In 1583 he captured most of the Flemish seaports, although not Ostend. 
The English troops in the Netherlands often suffered from not being paid or even provided with rations.  In November 1583 the officers commanding the English garrison at Aalst near Ghent sold the town and garrison to Parma in exchange for food and a months pay.  It seems that the rank and file soldiers were not privy to the deal and subsequently most deserted back to rejoin Norris’ forces.  However, the capture of the town paved the way for Parma to capture Ghent and, not surprisingly, soured relationships between the English and the Dutch.  The problem was that the finances of the States General were in a complete mess and they just could not raise enough money to pay the soldiers defending the rebel provinces.  On more than one occasion they had to disband troops and reduce the size of the army, not because the military situation had improved but because the troops could not be afforded.  One could hardly imagine Churchill in 1940 disbanding divisions in the British army because the government could not afford to pay them.  The net result was that Spanish gold or silver could often accomplish what Spanish guns could not.

During 1584 Parma captured all of Flanders other than Ostend, Ghent fell without a direct attack on it.  The main Dutch leader, William the Silent, was also assassinated in 1584.  Brussels fell in February 1585, again isolated and starved into surrender, and now Palma threatened Antwerp, the most important Flemish city.  It had a five mile circuit of powerful and modern fortifications and was considered impregnable.  However, Parma had an 800 yard long bridge built across the Scheldt so cutting of Antwerp from the sea.  The Dutch, to try and break the siege, launched a small flotilla of ships filled with explosives; some designed to explode on impact and some with delayed fuses.  They killed at least 800 of the besiegers and even Parma was blasted by the shock waves.  The attack failed in its objective in that Antwerp was later to fall but the memory of the ‘hell-burners’, as the exploding ships were christened, went deep into the Spanish psyche and possibly affected the Armada crews when the English fire ships drifted towards them.

As stated previously, it was clear that the English policy of opposing Spain through a mixture of ‘volunteers’, subsidies to the Dutch and privateering was not sufficient.  Either England would have to cut its losses and revert to a policy of ‘Fortress England’, as many of Elizabeth’s councillors urged, or move to a state of open warfare with Spain.  The queen decided that it was better to fight Spain with the Dutch as allies than possibly have to fight Spain alone at a later date.  On 2nd August 1585 Elizabeth signed the treaty of Nonsuch with the Dutch whereby an English army would be sent to support them.  In exchange the ports of Ostend and Sluis would be pledged as security to the English.  Following the fall of Antwerp, in a revised treaty, it was also agreed that the English would garrison Flushing and Breille, originally captured by the sea beggars.  It was not that Elizabeth wanted to add them to her domains, she had already turned down the idea of becoming queen of the Netherlands, but she wanted to get her money back if at all possible.  Two English were appointed to the Dutch Council of State with the hope that could sort out the total mess that was the Dutch finances and Elizabeth would appoint a governor-general of the Netherlands.  In order to save themselves from Spanish rule, the Dutch had agreed to become effectively an English protectorate.

rgds Tim

I'll have to take some time when I have more liberty (at present I'm just taking a break from typing) to digest Tim's insightful posts on this thread.  I thought (and I'm sure I'm not the only one) about the UK via Brexit perhaps trying to re-establish itself as a nation state.  I can't see that we can go back in time.

"This realm of England is an Empire" - what exactly did Cromwell - Thomas, not Oliver - mean by that?

Was this not the first declaration of "nationhood"?



Few phrases in an English Statute can have left such an indelible imprint as the opening words of the Act in Restraint of Appeals of 1533...
...In this context 'empire' means a polity where ultimate authority flowed from the head of the polity itself, not from an outside figure (the Pope).
There seems to be some historical controversy over whether the statute was using 'empire' in a novel way to describe a new kind of political arrangement (a kind of proto sovereign national state), or whether it was just used for its rhetorical power.

Tim,

thank you very much for your suberb survey. I will comment it as soon as possible and I have some other items from you too to comment on this board, but this evening engaged on the Passion Histoire for the umpteenth time about the question: Was the treaty of Versailles too harsh? It was one of the first debates I participated in as an "apprenti" on the BBC history messageboard in 2002.
And still to reply to nordmann in the 11 November thread...

Kind regards from Paul.

Tim,

"some English intervention in the Low Countries prior to the Act of Union in 1707

English involvement in the Dutch revolt against the Spanish began in 1572 when a group of Dutch pirates known as the sea beggars captured the ports of Flushing and Brielle in the Netherlands.  Ironically the sea beggars did this because they had just been expelled from England.  Although Elizabeth had allowed them to attack Spanish shipping, they had also attacked neutral and even English merchant ships.  However, 300 English and Welsh volunteers moved to support the Dutch rebels at Flushing.  In July Elizabeth sent 1200 troops, officially ‘volunteers’, under the command of Sir Humphrey Gilbert; ironically these were not sent initially against the Spanish but because Elizabeth was worried that the Dutch revolt would lead to the French taking control of the Netherlands.  What she wanted was a return to the Dutch autonomy under Spanish rule, the idea of an independent Netherlands did not seem feasible to Elizabeth at that time."

Yes Vlissingen and Den Briel were a turning point in the start of the Dutch Revolt and yes thanks to the support of the English and the Welsh. I mentioned it already on several fora. The Dutch pirates had received letters of marque from William of Orange-Nassau in his quality as Prince of Orange and became thus officlal "privateers", although they behaved still as "pirates" .
But that of Elizabeth's fears for France taking control of the Netherlands is new to me. So one learns everyday something new...

Kind regards from Paul.

Tim,

"On 24th August 1572, the French King Charles IX unleashed the St Bartholomew’s Day massacre of thousands of Huguenots (French Protestants).  This led to renewed civil war in France and removed the threat of a French invasion of the Netherlands.  However, this in turn allowed the Spanish authorities under the duke of Alba to concentrate on the crushing the Dutch revolt which they did using a policy of deliberate viciousness.  When towns were captured the garrisons were slaughtered and often the civilian population was massacred as well."

There is a lot of discussion about the St Bartholomew's Day. I read in a French novel that I think commented here, about the role of Mary de Medici and De Guise, but I read also about Spanish agents...and at school in Dutch we learned it always as "Sint Bartholomeusnacht" Perhaps from the French: La nuit de Saint-Barthélemy
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_de_la_Saint-Barth%C3%A9lemy
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartholomeusnacht
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Bartholomew%27s_Day_massacre

Nobody believed me when I said in the time of the BBC that there were 9 wars of religion in France
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Wars_of_Religion


But when this war saved the Spanish armies in their reconquest of the North of the Low Countries perhaps with Philip II's agents, he made a mistake when he ordered the able Parma to go to help in another French religious war in support of the Catholics. With a Parma, who was near to win the war of reconquest, a mistake in my opinion and seemingly also in the opinion of some historians.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Farnese,_Duke_of_Parma

"Farnese was to have turned his attention back to the northern Netherlands, where the Dutch rebels had regrouped, but on 1–2 August 1589, Henry III of France was assassinated, and Farnese was ordered into France, in support of the Catholic opposition to Protestant Henry IV of France. This enabled the Dutch rebels to turn the tide in favour of the Dutch Revolt, which had been in ever deeper trouble since 1576. In September 1590 he moved to relieve Paris from the lengthy siege it had been placed under by Huguenots and Royalists loyal to Henry IV.
On 20 April 1592 he repeated the same deed at Rouen, but was subsequently wounded in the hand during the Siege of Caudebec whilst trapped by Henry's army. Having escaped from there he withdrew into Flanders but with his health quickly declining, Farnese called his son Ranuccio to command his troops. He was however removed from the position of governor by the Spanish court and died in Arras on 3 December 1592, aged 47."

Kind regards from Paul.

Tim,

I thought again on the what if Farnese (Parma) was not ordered to France to help the French Catholics. In the struggle with the later Dutch Republic it could be even more desastrous for Spain with a more Protestant France perhaps at the side of the Dutch and England...? Therefore what ifs are mostly outside reality, because there are too many intangibles to guess what could have happened in reality...

Kind regards from Paul.

Hi Paul

thanks for your responses, below is my continued take on the involvement of the English Elizabethan army in the low countries

Elizabeth went into the war most reluctantly and also wanted to extricate herself from it as soon as possible, although it was not to have ended by the time she died in 1603.  With that in mind, Elizabeth’s generals were forbidden from undertaking offensive actions, which were to be left to Drake, operating at sea.  Despite this Norris, probably realising that it was necessary to undertake some offensive in order to attempt to disrupt Parma’s steady conquest of the Netherlands, decided to launch some probing attacks on Parma’s positions near Arnhem.  The queen was furious with Norris and ordered him to withdraw.  The Spanish promptly attached the Dutch forces left behind to hold the allied line and routed them.  

The earl of Leicester, at one time Elizabeth’s favourite, arrived in December 1585 to become governor general.  He found an army short of funds and wasting away, the reinforcements sent over from England were proving to be of poor quality.  Leicester was to prove to be no match for Parma as a general but he also managed to very rapidly make an enemy of Elizabeth.  Leicester decided to have himself installed as effectively the ‘absolute ruler’ of the Netherlands; he probably felt that a single figurehead was needed to co-ordinate the war effort.  Elizabeth was beside herself with fury, she was always suspicious of men’s desire for the ‘glory of war’, only ever fought for specific political purposes, and considered that Leicester was setting up a power-base independent from her.  He became subject to a barrage of criticism from her which only subsided when Burghley, her chief minister, threatened to resign unless the queen stopped undermining Leicester’s authority with the Dutch and, as a result, the war effort.

Parma opened the campaign of 1586 by sending forces to besiege the town of Grave.  Leicester managed to scrape together about 3,000 English and Dutch commanded by Norris and in a furious battle in heavy rain, which rendered firearms useless, the Spanish were driven back with heavy losses.  The Spanish were to come to see the English troops, when sober, as good as soldiers as themselves.  Leicester was overjoyed by the victory, but his celebrations were premature as Parma himself took the field capturing Grave and several other towns on the Meuse and then besieged Neusz on the Rhine.  Due to lack of funds Leicester army was virtually in rags and close to mutiny and his attempt to relieve the town failed.  Neusz was stormed, the garrison massacred, and the town virtually destroyed in an orgy of violence.

In mid July the Anglo-Dutch forces received a boost to their confidence when a force led by Sir Philip Sidney, Lord Willoughby and the rising leader of the Dutch, Maurice of Nassua, captured the town of Axel.  The troops attacked at night with a small group of soldiers swimming the moat, climbing the ramparts, and opening the gate - Sidney excelled in the assault.  In revenge for Neusz, the Spanish garrison were all killed.  Following this Leicester decided to threaten the Spanish held town of Zutphen.  He led an army of 7,000 infantry (of which 5,000 were English) and 2,000 cavalry but Parma quickly moved to protect the town.  On 22nd September Norris and Sir William Stanley, a friend of Leicester, were sent with 200 heavy cavalry and 300 pikemen to intercept a convoy travelling to reinforce the town.  The English were joined by a group of about fifty English aristocratic ‘young bloods’ and their squires spoiling for a fight.  The convoy was found to be much stronger than expected consisting of 2,500 infantry and 600 light cavalry; the Spanish had stopped using heavy cavalry and instead only used their cavalry for scouting and skirmishing.  Despite being outnumbered by twelve to one, the English cavalry charged straight into the escorting troops.  Full body armour actually reached its apogee during the sixteenth century for its lightness, ease of use and protection that it afforded; a film at Bodiam castle shows an Elizabethan knight equipping himself in such armour.  The attack of the English heavy cavalry and knights proved an unpleasant shock to the Spanish with the heavy armour deflecting Spanish weapons and even bullets while the English lances, swords and axes inflicted heavy casualties on the Spanish.  However, the Spanish were experienced troops and the commander concentrated on ensuring that the wagon train of supplies safely reached Zutphen, which he did despite taking heavy casualties in the process.  The English were elated that they could take on veteran Spanish troops even when heavily outnumbered, but the elation faded when Sir Philip Sidney, the hero of Axel, died of his wounds.  His funeral in London became the focus, not just for the many eulogies for him but also as a means of raising support for the war, which was starting to decline.  The charge of the English cavalry was, in its day, as famous as the charge of the light brigade while achieving more like the success of the charge of the heavy brigade; it is a pity that it is now almost completely forgotten.

Another success was achieved at Zutphen on 6th October when the English managed to capture one of the outer forts.  In a scene almost from out of a Hollywood epic, the assault on a breach in the walls was close to failure when one officer, Edward Stanley, personally took on nine or ten defenders, first with his pike and then with his sword, inspiring the rest of his men to hold the breach and hence take the fort.  However, this triumph was completely undone when in January 1587 Sir William Stanley, who was a Catholic, took his regiment of largely Irish infantry and Welsh officers over to the Spanish and with it the captured fort.  This defection was to make Elizabeth even more suspicious of the loyalty of English Catholics and Stanley’s Irish regiment was later to become a renowned unit in the Spanish army.  It also made the Dutch, who were already contemptuous of the English troops for their shear poverty, the army had completely run out of money during the winter, now positively hostile towards them.  

In June Parma moved to besiege the port of Sluis and Leicester was unable to relieve it.  Despite a heroic defence the garrison, which included 800 English, surrendered on 6th August.  For once the garrison were not slaughtered but were allowed to march out with full military honours.  In 1588 some English units and Leicester returned home to strengthen the militia raised to defend England if the Spanish Armada should succeed in landing.  In August the English garrison at Ostend mutinied over not just failure to be paid but also over being supplied with inedible supplies and, what was worst, undrinkable beer.  

However, the situation changed following the defeat of the Armada, which raised the spirits of both the English and Dutch troops.  In mid September Parma moved to besiege the strategically important town of Bergen-op-Zoom.  It seemed that it would quickly fall as the Anglo-Dutch garrison was relatively weak and the supplies of food in the town had been run down by officers determined to feed their starving troops.  However, Parma was unable to prevent river access to the town and Willoughby, who had taken over from Leicester as the English commander, managed to raise £2,000 worth of supplies and arms on his own credit.  The garrison began to conduct a very aggressive defence against the Spanish forces which quite disconcerted them.  Parma was therefore relieved when two English deserters offered to betray the town’s northern fort in exchange for money.  So on the night of 10th October these deserters led the Spanish to take control of the fort but then suddenly, just as the Spanish thought they had secured the place, muskets opened up from all around them and the next the Spanish knew, they were being attacked from every side.  The Spanish had been led into an ambush and Parma lost several hundred of his best men before he was able to extricate his troops.  The two ‘deserter’ were in fact part of a stratagem agreed between Willoughby and the Dutch leader, Maurice of Nassau, son of William of Orange.  Given the frequency with which troops had betrayed their own side, it had been completely believable; but the fact was that Parma had been outwitted and defeated.  Parma was forced to abandon the siege showing that for the first time the greatest soldier of the age, had been personally defeated.  Following on from the defeat of the Armada, the Spanish had been shown to be beatable on land as well as at sea.

Although the siege of Bergen-op-Zoom may seem a very minor action compared with the siege of Orleans or Stalingrad; Bergen-op-Zoom, like the other two, proved to be the turning point in the war.  From then on the Spanish were more often on the defensive while the Anglo-Dutch forces were frequently on the offensive and the Spanish reconquest of the Netherlands was, to a significant extent, rolled back.  Even the defection of the German garrison of the town of Geetruidenberg, who were in the pay of the Dutch, in 1589 to the Spanish failed to prevent that tide from turning.  

There was also a change in the relationship between the English and the Dutch, Willoughby; who did not get on with the Dutch left the Netherlands.  His replacement Vere did not try to run the war, instead the English field army became an integral part of Maurice’s multinational army and Maurice proved to be a general to rival Parma.  Maurice had studied Roman military manuals and set about drilling his troops in the most effective use of their weapons.  Musket firing, for example, was broken down into forty two separate actions.  He also changed from the Spanish ‘tercia’ formation, which could be up to fifty men deep, to smaller more ‘linear’ infantry formation, although still ten deep.  Gustavus Adolphus II, king of Sweden, during the Thirty Years War, was to refine Maurice’s system and use even smaller more flexible infantry units only six deep.  Maurice was also aided in that in 1590 Philip II decided to divert Parma’s army to support the Catholic faction in the French civil war, which had flared up again in 1589; Parma was to die in 1592.  Other factors that favoured the Dutch were that from 1589 onwards the Spanish army regularly mutinied due to not being paid and when Henri of Navarre emerged as the victor in the French civil war, he cut the ‘Spanish Road’.  This was a route through Spanish controlled territory by which Spain was able to send reinforcements to the Netherlands by land, rather than by sea. 

Maurice may have read the Iliad as well as Roman military manuals for in February 1590 some men were smuggled into Breda in a boat full of turf.  They then opened the gates to let in the assault force, which included Vere and 600 English troops, who captured the town.  In 1591 Maurice captured a number of towns including Nijmegen, Deventer and Zutphen.  Vere’s troops played a prominent part in most of these operations.  While Maurice generally directed the army from the rear, Vere would lead from the front dressed in a bright red coat; English redcoats go back further than is generally realised.  Vere’s troops became increasingly professional as a result of Maurice’s training methods and the English army in the Netherlands was to provide a core of professional troops for operations elsewhere, such as in Ireland.  The war in the Netherlands was to drag on for many more years; in fact it was not until 1648 that Spain fully recognised the independence of the Netherlands, to the Dutch the war is known as the Eighty Years War.  However, the revolt was never again in real danger of being crushed as it was in 1585 when Elizabeth signed the treaty of Nonsuch.  The English intervention succeeded in its aim of preventing the Netherlands being dominated by either Spain or France but it unintentionally created a new European power that in the seventeenth century was, for a period, to overtake England as a maritime power and dominate the world’s oceanic trade.

regards 

Tim

Tim,

thank you very much for a new chapter of the Egnlish support to the Dutch in the 80 years war. I learned from it.

"There was also a change in the relationship between the English and the Dutch, Willoughby; who did not get on with the Dutch left the Netherlands.  His replacement Vere did not try to run the war, instead the English field army became an integral part of Maurice’s multinational army and Maurice proved to be a general to rival Parma.  Maurice had studied Roman military manuals and set about drilling his troops in the most effective use of their weapons.  Musket firing, for example, was broken down into forty two separate actions.  He also changed from the Spanish ‘tercia’ formation, which could be up to fifty men deep, to smaller more ‘linear’ infantry formation, although still ten deep.  Gustavus Adolphus II, king of Sweden, during the Thirty Years War, was to refine Maurice’s system and use even smaller more flexible infantry units only six deep.  Maurice was also aided in that in 1590 Philip II decided to divert Parma’s army to support the Catholic faction in the French civil war, which had flared up again in 1589; Parma was to die in 1592.  Other factors that favoured the Dutch were that from 1589 onwards the Spanish army regularly mutinied due to not being paid and when Henri of Navarre emerged as the victor in the French civil war, he cut the ‘Spanish Road’.  This was a route through Spanish controlled territory by which Spain was able to send reinforcements to the Netherlands by land, rather than by sea."

See also my thread the "new model Dutch army" on the War and Conflicts...
Perhaps unintentionally you made a résumé of it. I only extended to the Cromwell "New Model Army"

Kind regards from Paul.

The 30 years war and thus the Treaty of Westphalia were the subject of yesterday's "In Our Time" on BBC Radio 4. Only caught bits of it, but will listen later for anything germane.

Further to Tim's comments above about English support of the Dutch in the Eighty Year's War and also Paul's on the 'Dutch New Model Army' thread ...

It is perhaps worth noting that the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia also marked the point at which The Netherlands ceased to be an ally of Protestant England, together aligned against the Catholic Habsburgs in Spain/Central Europe, and against Catholic France. With Dutch independence the Netherlands and England rapidly became bitter rivals in their mutual attempts to seize Spanish and Portuguese overseas possessions, and to carve trading empires of their own in the Americas, the Carribbean and the Far East. This competing mercantilism was in addition to centuries of rivalry over control of the Baltic trade, North Sea fisheries and textile industries, which until then had largely been suppressed in the cause of Protestant solidarity. In England there were also several more recent perceived slights: the Dutch were considered to have shown themselves insufficiently grateful for the aid they had received against the Spanish; they vociferously stuck to the principle of free trade to avoid paying taxes in the English colonies; and during the English Civil War many Dutch had supported the Royalist cause and subsequently during Cromwell's Commonwealth the Netherlands provided a sanctuary for many escaped Royalists. On the Dutch side they had seen English solidarity against Spain begin to waver since Charles I's reign when he had sought to improve English-Spanish relations and when he had made a number of secret agreements with Spain specifically directed against Dutch sea power.

All out war betweed the former allies broke out in 1652 just four years after the Treaty of Westphalia. To protect its position in North America, in October 1651 the English Parliament passed the first of the Navigation Acts, which required that all goods imported into England must be carried by English ships or vessels from the exporting countries, thus excluding (mostly Dutch) middlemen. This measure did not as such particularly hurt the Dutch as the English trade was relatively unimportant to them, but it was used by the many pirates operating from British territory as an ideal pretext to legally take any Dutch ship they encountered. The Dutch responded to the growing intimidation by enlisting large numbers of armed merchantmen into their navy. Then, the English, in trying to revive an ancient right they perceived they had to be recognised as the 'lords of the seas', demanded that other ships strike their flags in salute to their ships, even in foreign ports. On 29 May 1652, the Dutch Admiral, Maarten van Tromp, refused to show the respectful haste expected in lowering his flag to salute an encountered English fleet. This resulted in a naval skirmish, the Battle of Goodwin Sands, after which Cromwell's Commonwealth declared war in July 1652. The war lasted until 1654 when, because the English Republic was now at war also with Spain over control of Carribbean possessions and so desired peace with the Dutch, it was concluded with the signing of the Treaty of Westminster, but the commercial rivalry was not resolved with the English having failed to replace the Dutch as the world's dominant trade nation.

The Treaty of Westminster also contained a secret, anti-Royalist measure, the Act of Seclusion, forbidding the infant Prince William III of Orange (his mother was Mary daughter of Charles I so he was a potential heir to the English throne) from becoming stadtholder of the province of Holland. This measure provided a future cause of discontent because after the English Restoration in 1660 Charles II tried to get his nephew, the now adult Prince William, nominated as Stadtholder of the Republic. At the same time Charles promoted a series of anti-Dutch mercantilist policies, which led to a surge of anti-Dutch jingoism in England and anti-English sentiment in the Netherlands. Almost inevitably the second Anglo-Dutch War (1665-1667) broke out, followed by the third war (1672-74). It was only with William III's 'Glorious' revolution/conquest of England in 1688 that Anglo-Dutch relations were improved, and then they were not so much restored as re-established on an entirely new basis.

Green George wrote:

The 30 years war and thus the Treaty of Westphalia were the subject of yesterday's "In Our Time" on BBC Radio 4. Only caught bits of it, but will listen later for anything germane.

Yes Gil. I will listen as soon as I have time.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0001fv2

Kind regards from Paul.

Meles meles,

thank you so much for your survey of the post Westphalia history. And as you see it this history had a lot to do with economics, as seemingly the same still in the 21th century.
I studied this economic warfare of this period and the accompanied politics in three books:
https://www.amazon.com/Dutch-Republic-Greatness-1477-1806-History/dp/0198207344
And in Dutch but now available in English too:
https://www.amazon.com/William-III-Stadholder-King-Political-Biography/dp/0754650715
And about the reasons, among others for Louis XIV to invade the Dutch Republic, the nearly personal abhorrence of Louis XIV for those free thinking merchants without monarch, in fact the Stadtholderless period of the brothers De Witt, even more stirred up by a Colbert, who saw his policies counteracted by these bloody Dutch merchants...
https://www.fayard.fr/histoire/colbert-9782213006918


And as I thought that the Stadtholderless period was very important to the period you described, I read this very good and lengthy wiki that I read compeltely this evening. It is nearly a book, and I suppose it is composed by an American because it is in American English and I see that he/she took most from the book of Jonathan Israel that I mentioned above.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Stadtholderless_Period

For me the Regents were a kind of democratic oligarchy, which was in continuous conflict with the Orangists, who were the old way sectarian protestant and longing to a monarch, who they only obtained in 1815...
But perhaps that these merchants republic neglected too long the standing army, perhaps for cost reasons until it was too late in the Annus Horibilis or it can be that the Dutch Republic was not strong enough against the combined might of two of the great powers of that time: the United Kingdom and France...
In any case the two protagonists of that period were in my opinion for the Republic: the Regents and William of Orange, the later William III in the UK.


And the regents class had even a theoretical base of their politics: "the true freedom"
From the wiki:
"The rejection of the dynastic claims of the House of Orange therefore was not just a matter of defending the political patronage of one particular political faction, against the aspirations to lucrative political office of another faction. It was a matter of principle to the States Party: they were against the notion of any "eminent head" of the Dutch state, not just the Prince of Orange. The absence of such an "eminent head" was to them a mark of superiority of the Dutch political system over other forms of government. The fact that compromise was a constant feature of the Dutch political landscape, and that often the pace of decision-making was glacial, was also viewed in a not necessarily negative light. (Besides, as was abundantly proved during the reign of William III, when he had obtained the stadtholdership after 1672, an "eminent head" did not necessarily eliminate the need for compromise, or speed up decision-making). Like his contemporaries as statesmen, such as Mazarin, De Witt was a raison d'état statesman, but his raison d'état had a different content. Unlike the princely version, his disdained territorial aggrandizement, military capability for its own sake, and concentration of power in the central state. Instead, he strove to ensure security of the Dutch state, its independence from outside interference, and advancement of its trade and industry, all elements being intended to benefit the society of which the regent class were the proper representatives. The Republic, in De Witt's view, sought to attain goals which were commensurate with the interests of its citizens, not in conflict with them, as the goals of absolutist rulers often were.^[60]

And in that were they perhaps already the forebears of the American constitution?

Kind regards from Paul.

I think a remnant of the time that the Netherlands and England were at loggerheads still remains in English speech (or it did in my childhood/adolescence which admittedly was half a century or so ago).  A bit like "If Team X is a good football team then I'm the Lord Mayor of London" - the inference being that Team X were anything but a good team.  In the phrase I'm thinking of instead of "I'm the Lord Mayor of London the expression would be "I'm a Dutchman" or (Dutchwoman).  Example "If Dick Van Dyke does a good English accent I'm a Dutchwoman" - the inference being that Mr Van Dyke's "English" accent is inaccurate.*

Were there not two De Witts?  I remember commenting when there was some discussion on the accuracy/inaccuracy of the TV series Versailles that the said series only referred to Jan and not to Cornelis.  I seem to remember something about the de Witts' corpses being at least in part cannibalised?  Ugh.

* When the film of Mary Poppins came out I was too old to read the book really though I've heard quite a lot was changed in adaptation (not uncommon with Disney films).  Although I may have found DVD's cockney accent not to be very cockney I did like his singing and dancing.

Temperance wrote:

"This realm of England is an Empire" - what exactly did Cromwell - Thomas, not Oliver - mean by that?

Was this not the first declaration of "nationhood"?

It’s certainly a statement of sovereign independence but not necessarily of ‘nationhood’. Neither was it the first. The Declaration of Arbroath in 1320, for example, and taken at face value, is very much a national tract. It claims to be not just a declaration from the barons and freemen ‘barones et liberetenenetes’ but also from ‘tota communitas regni Scocie’ i.e. the whole community of the kingdom of Scotland. This is a quite remarkable claim coming as it did in the 14th century.

It also includes a rather bizarre ‘roman national’ by which the Scottish nation ‘Scottorum nacio’ is described as having originated in ancient Scythia (roughly in the vicinity of the Caspian Sea) who travelled (for reasons unspecified) all the way to northern Britain where, firstly, they ethnically-cleansed the Britons and then exterminated the Picts - ‘expulsis primo Britonibus et Pictis omnino deletis’. This proud boast is given in a document intended for the attention of Pope John XXII. He was a famously phlegmatic and reformatory French pope in Avignon, who was more interested in fostering a diplomatic rapprochement with the nominally Moslem khanate of the Golden Horde than in pandering to blood-curdling national myths in the British Isles. An added irony being that the Golden Horde occupied that region of Eastern Europe and Western Asia (i.e. ancient Scythia) from which the drafters of the Declaration claimed that the Scots had originated.

By contrast, the Peace of Westphalia had almost nothing to do with nations or nation states. Whereas the Declaration of Arbroath uses the words ‘nacio’ and ‘gentes’, these words simply don’t appear in the texts of either of the 2 Munster treaties or of the Osnabruck treaty. As nordmann has pointed out the Peace of Westphalia was focussed more on sovereignty rather than nationhood as such. Specifically it could be said to have set the scene for the development of inter-sovereignty law (today commonly called ‘international law’).

The treaties merely deal with the settlement of the disputes between the varying protagonists of the Thirty Years War and also called for ‘fida vicinitas’ - trustworthy neighbourliness. It was this idea of ‘trustworthy neighbourliness’ which raised the concept of territorial sovereignty to a new level. Princes were henceforth expected to respect each others borders and not casually interfere or declare war for sectarian or other reasons. Coming 130 years after the Reformation, this idea may have seemed revolutionary and in many respects it was. But it certainly wasn’t new. Even the drafters of the Declaration of Arbroath made as their main plea that as a small neighbour ‘minoribus proximis’ (of England) all they (the Scots) really wanted was just ‘in pace dimittat’ to be left in peace.

Vizzer,

"The treaties merely deal with the settlement of the disputes between the varying protagonists of the Thirty Years War and also called for ‘fida vicinitas’ - trustworthy neighbourliness. It was this idea of ‘trustworthy neighbourliness’ which raised the concept of territorial sovereignty to a new level. Princes were henceforth expected to respect each others borders and not casually interfere or declare war for sectarian or other reasons. Coming 130 years after the Reformation, this idea may have seemed revolutionary and in many respects it was. But it certainly wasn’t new. Even the drafters of the Declaration of Arbroath made as their main plea that as a small neighbour ‘minoribus proximis’ (of England) all they (the Scots) really wanted was just ‘in pace dimittat’ to be left in peace."


Thank you very much for this message about nationhood and you are right about the treaty more about territorial sovereignity and the trustworthy neighbourliness, but de facto they happily acted furhter as before.

But while you mentioned "nationhood" it brought me back to the endless discussions on Historum, on the French Passion Histoire and even transferred overhere in discussions essentially with nordmann, about nation-state, nation, nationhood and ethnicity.
It kept me the whole evening to read about it again...
As the difference between the concept of "la nation" of Renan and the "Volk" of Herder. I see now that they speak of civic and ethnic nationhood, but the last years there is really an explosion of academic studies about the question and one would lose the way in all that as there seems to be no clear definitions as the same word is used along the perceptions in different concepts.
What I read about Renan and Herder (the old thinking) seems to be in contrast with the modern studies, but if they bring also an enlightenment is also a question...
http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199743292/obo-9780199743292-0217.xml
I am still reading this two entries and will give tomorrow my take on nationhood, etnicity and nation-state.
https://www.humboldt-foundation.de/pls/web/docs/F29575/roshwald.pdf
http://hyllanderiksen.net/Ethnicity.html


Perhaps something this evening about my take:
On Historum we had a discussion about nation-state and ethnicity...A Turkish one said that the Europeans would become a minority in Europe due to the higher birthrate of the Turkish community in Europe. That is of course as populist as the nattional right populism of an Orban in Hungary. He referred or was it someone else to Belgium and the ethnicities, meaning the Flemish and the Walloons. First of all those of Brussels speak also French and are not so-called Walloons. I said that in my opinion there is only a difference of language and no cultural difference, as I found the cultural difference between the "Arab" communities, as the Turks and the Moroccans, much much greater than this between the French and Dutch speaking community in Belgium. Even the Turkish more different as the Moroccans adopting more and the Turkish ones more vociferous about "their" nationhood...
About the concept of "les Arabes", we had an interesting discussion on Passion Histoire about an Algerian and a Frenchman, but sadly it is in French. If you understand French I can lead you to it...
And in Belgium and Europe it seems to be actual, as we had yesterday a lot of trouble overhere to maintain the government about our Prime Minister subscription to the UN resolution at Marrakech
Said it yesterday to MM:
Meles meles,
thank you very much for the additional information about the weeverfish.Excuses for the delay, the whole evening the turmoil in our national government with a stalemate between the Flemish Nationalist coalition partner and the rest of the government over the UN migration pact. I think Thursday a pro Marrakech resolution in the parliament with an alternative majority of more than two thirds with the opposition voting with that rest of the government. Some two minutes ago press conference of our Prime Minister, changing the government with the Flemish nationalists out of the government, de facto the Flemisn nationalists no part of the government anymore. And taht is no good news for the coming elections, with a Flemish regional government perhaps dominated with the far right Flemish nationalists and the less hardline Flemish Nationalists now out of the national government. If this soft line nationalists join with the hardline of the Vlaams Belang in the Flemish regional parliament...back to the Thirties with the VNV? And Steve Bannon was here today with Marine Le Pen...
https://www.politico.eu/article/steve-bannon-in-brussels-un-migration-pact-already-dead/
https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2018/12/03/vlaams-belang-strikt-steve-bannon-en-marine-le-pen-voor-spoedmee/
I look further now to the latest news just started.
And yes, as said a Liberal/Christian-Democrat minority government hopefully till the elections of May

Kind regards from Paul.

Following on Paul's thread on the Dutch 'new model army'; this is my take on the formation of the Parliamentarian New Model Army.


In the wake of the failure to win at Newbury, [2nd battle October 1644 when the Royalists were outnumbered by 2 to 1] the recriminations flew around Parliament, Cromwell and Waller blamed Manchester and Manchester blamed Cromwell.  Suddenly, however, Cromwell changed tack and in a powerful speech to the House of Commons declared that it was pointless going back over what went wrong at Newbury, what was need was to ensure that it did not go wrong again.  Arising out of this the Committee of the two Kingdoms proposed two new policies.  The first was known as the ‘Self Denying Ordinance’ under which all MPs and Lords would be excluded from any army commands.  This would have a dramatic effect on the Parliamentarian armies as Manchester, Essex and Lord Fairfax were all Lords and Waller was an MP.  However, Cromwell would also have to resign his command as he was an MP.

The second policy was to combine the armies of Essex, Waller and Manchester into one new army, an army that would fight wherever it was ordered to fight, an army that would not constantly have soldiers demanding to return home.  Not all the Parliamentarian forces would be combined in this ‘New Model Army’.  The forces of the Northern Association (formally commanded by the Fairfaxs), those based around Gloucester, commanded by the governor Massey, and some local forces in the Midlands would remain separate. 

Fortunately there remained one commander who was not covered by the Self-Denying Ordinance, that was Sir Tom Fairfax and he was named as the commander.  There was also an obvious choice for the major general of foot, Skippon who had ably filled that position in Essex’s army.  There was an equally obvious choice for the position of lieutenant-general of horse, but Cromwell was an MP.  Another possible choice would have been Balfour, but he was a Scot and Parliament was not about to give that command to anyone who was not English.  The post was left open.

The strength of the New Model Army was fixed at eleven regiments of horse, each 600 strong, one regiment of dragoons 1,000 strong and twelve regiments of foot each 1,200 strong giving a total strength of 22,000.  There was no problem in filling the ranks of the eleven regiments of horse or one regiment of dragoons.  The situation was, however, totally different when it came to the foot.  In June Essex, Waller and Manchester’s infantry would have been more than sufficient to provide 14,400 men but by the end of 1644 the numbers had shrunk dramatically.  Waller’s army had always been a somewhat heterogeneous force, it had mutinied after the defeat at Croperdy Bridge, and now only 600 foot were left.  The Lostwithiel campaign had led to the loss, one way or another, of most of Essex’s experienced troops that could have provided the veteran core of the New Model Army infantry.  The largest contingent of foot then came from the Eastern Association, but even then the three armies cold only provide around 7,000 foot between them.  The rest had to be made up by impressments from London, the south-east and East Anglia, but even then the army took the field 4,000 under strength.  An infantryman was only paid 8d a day (3p), the same as a labourer, whereas a cavalryman was paid 2s (10p) a day.  Although he had to look after his horse out of that 2s a day he could still expect to live at a greater level of comfort than a foot soldier.

Sir Tom Fairfax was to select his own officers and they were men chosen based on their ability not on their social status.  The House of Lords tried to remove two colonels and forty captains from Fairfax’s original list, but Fairfax got his way.  The largest contingent of regimental commanders came from the Eastern Association, 11 out of 24, and these men tended to belong to the Independent religious faction.  They favoured a congregational form of church governance rather than either the Episcopalian form supported by the King or the Presbyterian model that the Scots wanted to apply to all of Britain.  They also tended to be more religiously tolerant and politically more radical than was the norm.  Eventually the leaven of this Independent outlook was to spread through the New Model Army to great political effect.  What the senior officers were not, to any great extent, was of ‘low birth’.  Only seven were not ‘gentlemen’ by birth and nine, including Fairfax himself, were from noble families.  Large scale promotion from the ranks lay in the future.

Following on Paul's thread on the Dutch 'new model army'; this is my take on the formation of the Parliamentarian New Model Army.


In the wake of the failure to win at Newbury, [2nd battle October 1644 when the Royalists were outnumbered by 2 to 1] the recriminations flew around Parliament, Cromwell and Waller blamed Manchester and Manchester blamed Cromwell.  Suddenly, however, Cromwell changed tack and in a powerful speech to the House of Commons declared that it was pointless going back over what went wrong at Newbury, what was need was to ensure that it did not go wrong again.  Arising out of this the Committee of the two Kingdoms proposed two new policies.  The first was known as the ‘Self Denying Ordinance’ under which all MPs and Lords would be excluded from any army commands.  This would have a dramatic effect on the Parliamentarian armies as Manchester, Essex and Lord Fairfax were all Lords and Waller was an MP.  However, Cromwell would also have to resign his command as he was an MP.

The second policy was to combine the armies of Essex, Waller and Manchester into one new army, an army that would fight wherever it was ordered to fight, an army that would not constantly have soldiers demanding to return home.  Not all the Parliamentarian forces would be combined in this ‘New Model Army’.  The forces of the Northern Association (formally commanded by the Fairfaxs), those based around Gloucester, commanded by the governor Massey, and some local forces in the Midlands would remain separate. 

Fortunately there remained one commander who was not covered by the Self-Denying Ordinance, that was Sir Tom Fairfax and he was named as the commander.  There was also an obvious choice for the major general of foot, Skippon who had ably filled that position in Essex’s army.  There was an equally obvious choice for the position of lieutenant-general of horse, but Cromwell was an MP.  Another possible choice would have been Balfour, but he was a Scot and Parliament was not about to give that command to anyone who was not English.  The post was left open.

The strength of the New Model Army was fixed at eleven regiments of horse, each 600 strong, one regiment of dragoons 1,000 strong and twelve regiments of foot each 1,200 strong giving a total strength of 22,000.  There was no problem in filling the ranks of the eleven regiments of horse or one regiment of dragoons.  The situation was, however, totally different when it came to the foot.  In June Essex, Waller and Manchester’s infantry would have been more than sufficient to provide 14,400 men but by the end of 1644 the numbers had shrunk dramatically.  Waller’s army had always been a somewhat heterogeneous force, it had mutinied after the defeat at Croperdy Bridge, and now only 600 foot were left.  The Lostwithiel campaign had led to the loss, one way or another, of most of Essex’s experienced troops that could have provided the veteran core of the New Model Army infantry.  The largest contingent of foot then came from the Eastern Association, but even then the three armies cold only provide around 7,000 foot between them.  The rest had to be made up by impressments from London, the south-east and East Anglia, but even then the army took the field 4,000 under strength.  An infantryman was only paid 8d a day (3p), the same as a labourer, whereas a cavalryman was paid 2s (10p) a day.  Although he had to look after his horse out of that 2s a day he could still expect to live at a greater level of comfort than a foot soldier.

Sir Tom Fairfax was to select his own officers and they were men chosen based on their ability not on their social status.  The House of Lords tried to remove two colonels and forty captains from Fairfax’s original list, but Fairfax got his way.  The largest contingent of regimental commanders came from the Eastern Association, 11 out of 24, and these men tended to belong to the Independent religious faction.  They favoured a congregational form of church governance rather than either the Episcopalian form supported by the King or the Presbyterian model that the Scots wanted to apply to all of Britain.  They also tended to be more religiously tolerant and politically more radical than was the norm.  Eventually the leaven of this Independent outlook was to spread through the New Model Army to great political effect.  What the senior officers were not, to any great extent, was of ‘low birth’.  Only seven were not ‘gentlemen’ by birth and nine, including Fairfax himself, were from noble families.  Large scale promotion from the ranks lay in the future.

Thank you very much Tim for this message about the New Model Army.

I said to Dirk, as my partner stays in revalidation hospital after a new hip operation, I thought I would have more time for my own now. But as you, always busy and never enough time to do the things that I want.
For instance this evening the grandson defending his doctorat as bio ingeneer in cancer research and flying in from Stockholm where he started already his post doctorat at the Karolinska Institut. And now he is doctor and can go further with his studies.

When I have time I will try to comment your message, but want first to finish my reply to Dirk in the thread: Are we back to the Thirties...

Kind regards from your friend Paul.

I thought I would pick up on the theme of English intervention in the Netherlands during The Nine Years War, in particular the siege of Namur 2nd June to 22nd August 1695

‘He [William of Orange] is resolved to have the castle [of Namur] at any price and the enemies seem resolved to succour it at any price.’ Richard Hill, paymaster of the English army

There is something of World War One about the Nine Years War in that it was a war which was dominated by the defence.  However, in this case it was primarily due to the fortresses, although these could at times be linked together forming defensive lines involving entrenchments.  The problem was that both sides were equipped in an identical way and the strengths of the armies were also broadly comparable.  Most of the infantry were armed with flintlock muskets equipped with bayonets rather than matchlock muskets such that pikemen were no longer needed.  The cavalry were equipped with swords and pistols or carbines and would all have been considered as heavy cavalry.  The importance of artillery had greatly increased with it being divided between field and siege artillery.  The reason why the advantage now lay with the defence was that the medieval walled towns and cities and castles that were vulnerable had been replaced by star shaped fortifications that were specifically designed to withstand prolonged artillery bombardment.  The science of building such fortifications reached its height under the guidance of Sebastien Vauban, a French military engineer who was responsible for fortifying around 300 towns and cities on the borders of France.  He also set out the means by which such fortifications should be besieged such that, with other nations following his techniques, fortresses were classified as to how long they would take to be captured using Vauban’s methods.  Given the time that it would take to capture a fortress; before one army was able to take it, the opposing army would normally be able to march up and relieve it.  A besieging army would rarely have the relative strength both to carry out the siege and, at the same time, block the enemy army from relieving it.  As a result, and in the absence of a military genius on either side, one who would risk all on a decisive battle, just capturing one fortress in a year was considered a major achievement.

The war was fought in Spain, in Italy, in Germany and in what was then the Spanish Netherlands, now Belgium.  It was in the Spanish Netherlands that the English, Scottish and Dutch forces were deployed under the command of William of Orange.  It was also in the Spanish Netherlands that the most extensive modern fortresses existed with belts of them, not just in the Spanish Netherlands, but also in France to the south and the United Provinces (Netherlands) to the north.  In particular these fortresses controlled the waterways, of which there were several in the Spanish Netherlands, that were vital to armies for carrying supplies and heavy siege artillery.  The fortress of Namur, for example, controlled traffic on the Meuse and Sambre rivers.  Notwithstanding his victory on the Boyne and his long military experience, William was at best an average general and the recapture of Namur in 1695 was to prove his greatest martial achievement.

Tim,

thank you for this message. The whole evening busy with the two sieges of Namur 1692 and 1695...and a lot more related to it...
Tomorrow some conclusions...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Namur_(1692)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Namur_(1695)

And thanks to you I was pushed to learn a lot about a period of the Spanish Netherlands that was not very clear to me. When Spanish soldiers fought together with Dutch and English ones...and the Dutch constructed "Barrière" cities in the Spanish Nehterlands in defence to France...
Even a side manoeuvre by Louis XIV to help James II to deter William III from going further in the Netherlands and to take Namur...

Kind regards from Paul.

The situation in Ireland had tied up William in 1690 and even in 1691 there were sufficient of William’s army fighting in Ireland for the French to be able to capture the fortress of Mons.  In 1692, the threat of a French invasion of England distracted William who was outmanoeuvred and the French were able to capture Namur.  In 1693 William was again outmanoeuvred and a battle was fought at Landen after which, although the losses were even, William was forced to withdraw allowing the French to besiege and capture Charleroi.   It was now that economics took a hand as, following poor harvests from 1689 to 1692, the harvest in France and Northern Italy totally failed.  This left Louis XIV short of funds and, as a result, French armies had to stay largely on the defensive in 1694.  This allowed William to capture the small fortress of Huy, his first success on the Continent during this war. 
France was by now looking at the possibility of negotiating a peace with the alliance ranged against her, or failing that with one of the allies – but still on France’s terms.  However, at the start of the 1695 campaigning season William felt that more was to be gained from war than from peace.  There was though discontent in England at the cost of the war and at how little had been achieved.  In order to keep the English parliament voting for the necessary funds to maintain the war, William had been forced to concede power to it in the way that Charles I had refused to do.  William did not though have a problem over this as his priority was to defeat Louis XIV or at least keep French power in check.  William had no children who would inherit the English throne; on his death it would go to his sister-in-law Anne, to whom he was not close, and after her to the Hanoverians. 
Some historians refer to the role of the British army in this war but that is incorrect, for England and Scotland may have had the same king but they had separate parliaments, armies and navies (although the Scottish navy was tiny).  By 1695 the establishment strength set for the three kingdoms was 83,143 men (larger than the current British army) of which 62,716 were either English, Scottish, Welsh or Irish with the remainder being either Dutch, Danes or Hanoverian.  In addition the English parliament assisted the Dutch with the cost of paying for troops from various German states.  Not all of these soldiers were available for service Flanders but by 1695 the soldiers there had increased from 11,000 in 1691 to well over 40,000 in 1695.  However, the main part of William’s army was still provided by the Dutch whose army, despite a much smaller population than the British Isles, had an establishment strength in 1695 (including foreign troops) of 100,976.

Tim, I am not forgotten your message overhere. Just now again involved on the language forum.
I have a lot to comment or add to your interesting article, as about William. Already as stadholder from the Dutch Republic used to interference of the Staten-Generaal? Even the Dutch Republic a time without stadholder...and yes his mean goal: isolating France.
Then about the balance of power of the British on the continent, turning coats in the alliances if necessary...See you later...
Kind regards, Paul.

Tim, sparked by your numbers of the Dutch contingent in the Alliance troops I did some research and came on this very interesting American study, the student was seemingly three years at Leiden and made trips to London.
It gives the details you mentioned and even gives answers about the struggle of William III and the parliament. Seemingly for the British (from 1607 on?) he was still a Dutch foreigner. And also about the Spanish "Army of Flanders", which was still there from the early times of the Dutch Revolt and was still paid from Spain via the Brussels resources. I wasn't as said aware of that till I did research for your messages and here it is confirmed in detail.
Still reading the thesis...
https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=osu1061304400&disposition=inline
Forging a coalition army: William III, the grand Alliance, and the confederate army in the Spainsh Netherlands; 1688-1692.

Kind regards, Paul.

Tim, still reading the thesis, but already some new insights about William III from the study, as from the take of Jonathan Israel on it...

Kind regards, Paul.

Hi Paul

thanks for your various responses, I was though a little puzzled by your reference to 1607, which was before William III was born.  If it should have been 1707, the date of the Act of Union between England and Scotland, then he was already dead.

Continuing with the campaign of 1695

With the French in no financial condition to undertake an offensive in 1695; the two strategies were that the allies were attempting to make sufficient advances to force the French to make more concessions concerning the peace, while the French hoped to wear down the allies.  The French therefore set about digging miles defensive lines of trenches while the allies manoeuvred with the objective of recapturing Namur.  The most detailed staff work went into arrangements to allow for a successful siege with supplies built up and siege artillery embarked onto barges.  Plans were drawn up and materials gathered for constructing three pontoon bridges, two over the Meuse and one over the Sambre with suitable billets arranged for the engineers such that they were close at hand.  Hospitals were established Huy, Liege, Vise and Maastricht and ambulances prepared to transport the sick and wounded. 

In June the allied army converged on Namur but the French commander Marshall Boufflers had rushed reinforcements, including himself, to strengthen the defences of the city, arriving on 20th June – just before the allied army.  By 28th June the allies had completed the investment of Namur as well as positioned a covering army to prevent the over French commander, Marshall Villeroi from interfering.  In fact Villeroi was not overly concerned as he knew that the city was well garrisoned with 12,000 infantry plus 4,000 dragoons, engineers and miners.  There were 120 cannons and mortars with 500,000 lbs of gunpowder, 80,000 grenades, 10,000 spare muskets plus supplies enough to last six months.  Additionally he was not expecting the fortress to fall even though the French had themselves captured it in 1692.  This was because the defences had been greatly strengthened by Vauban since then and Villeroi considered that the tying down of so many allied troops, either besieging the city or covering the siege, would allow him to make significant gains elsewhere.

Villeroi therefore decided to attack the only allied army in Flanders that was not involved in either the siege or covering it.  This was 37,000 strong and commanded by General Vaudemont, who had been born in Brussels.  Villeroi undertook a night march starting at 10pm on 2nd July hoping to take the allied army by surprise, but Vaudemont had been warned by spies and had strongly entrenched his position.  However, Villeroi had overwhelming numbers and on 4th July Vaudemont began a phased withdrawal ending with cavalry dismounting and manning the trenches.  Vaudemont could still have been in trouble is either Villeroi had mounted a vigorous attack on Vaudemont’s or position or carried out a resolute pursuit, however he did neither and the allied army escaped.  

While Villeroi was failing to defeat Vaudemont, William was pressing ahead with the siege of Namur.  On 1st July the siege train of 120 cannon and 80 mortars arrived and a sally by 1,200 French on 2nd July was beaten off.  By 8th July the allied trenches had advanced sufficiently close to the redoubts on the Heights of Bouge for an assault to be ordered for 6pm.  This was undertaken by twenty-two battalions, a battalion could vary in strength between 400 and 800 men.  There were to be two attacks that were spearheaded by the 1st and 2nd battalions of the 1st Foot Guards (now the Grenadier Guards) and the 1st battalions of the Coldstream and Scots Guards and a battalion of the Dutch Blue Guards.  Each attack was supported by 120 grenadiers, 120 soldiers carrying fascines and 100 pioneers to help level ditches and palisades.  The attacks were successful in capturing the heights with a loss of around 2,000 men on both sides.  William could replace those losses, Boufflers could not.

The allied army was now close enough to set about breaching the ramparts and eleven artillery batteries were set up and began bombarding the bastions by the St Nicholas gate.  On 17th July the ramparts were deemed to have been sufficiently damaged for an assault to be mounted.  This was carried out by Major-General Ramsey with eight battalions and was successful.  The batteries were then moved forward and by 23rd July sufficient breaches were made such that on 24th July the city surrendered with Boufflers and his remaining 8,000 men retiring into the citadel.  

regards

Tim

Tim,

" I was though a little puzzled by your reference to 1607, which was before William III was born.  If it should have been 1707, the date of the Act of Union between England and Scotland, then he was already dead."
Of course I could have knew it, with a click of the mouse, but it was only to highlight that in the time of the BBC, I had always to be aware, when I said something about English ones, if they were still English or already British . Could it have been Vizzer, who said English you have to say because only from the Act of Union
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acts_of_Union_1707
But we still say mostly on the continent: Engelsen, Engländer, des Anglais, for the whole. Poor Scots, Welshmen...But we say also for the Dutch: (H)ollanders, des (H)ollandais as a part pro toto . I am nearly sure that the Germans also say: Holländer (with a "h"  )

But back to our thread...Tim thanks again for the new episode about a time in our countries that I am not that familiar with. More with the Dutch revolt time and before and later from the Austrian Netherlands on, while that was more the future Belgium...
Still reading the American mentioned thesis and there contrary to the more nuanced or even negative picture of Wout Troost that I first read in Dutch, but lately there is an English translation, the American author is rather positive towards William III. And the work of Wout Troost is not mentioned in his bibliography either. Is the William III of Troost more recent perhaps? Have to check.
https://www.amazon.com/William-III-Stadholder-King-Political-Biography/dp/0754650715
And I have only read in depth the first part until the Glorious Revolution and there his role is mentioned as proponent of course of the Oranje party against the Staatse party of the Regents and his role in the brothers De Witt murders, Republic against a would be Monarchy. and perhaps Troost was the first to break with the many times biased Dutch historians, ilving in the nowadays Dutch Kingdom. Yes unbiased history writing is difficult...
But the American study, unknow to me, put an emphasis on William III supported by the Staten Generaal (perhaps after the bad experience of the "rampenjaar") even before the invasion of England supplying the money for the invasion as they now were put awake about  the dangerous Louis XIV...

Kind regards, Paul.

Tim, now read the American thesis, but only the points of interest for our discussion.
Kind regards, Paul.

Tim, some thoughts about the American thesis that I just read.

While it is mainly about the organisation of one of the first coalition armies under the leadership of William III, mostly Dutch troops in the beginning and Spanish troops, mostly with soldiers from the Southern Netherlands in Spanish pay from Brussels, later troops from England and here I speak only about the theatre of the Low Countries and there were three theatres of war, the others in Germany and Italy, there were in the thesis more general observations. And there I have some questions.
As I understand it well, it was not only the Stadholder, William of Orange, who wanted a change in England, but also the Staten Generaal, who feared that they couldn't win against Louis XIV and needed the help of the English, both with their soldiers and their economy. Hence the support with money and soldiers by the Staten Generaal for William. That would say without their support, no Glorious Revolution and perhaps quite another England? And William III brought with him the Amsterdam methods in the money commerce and the stock exchange. London becoming great with the Dutch methods? And thanks to William III England becoming a world power above the Spanish declining world power and for the future becoming "the" worldpower in comparison with France, which was finally concluded with the victory on Napoleon?

Hence England has a lot to thank to William III and his persistent war against France? The Netherlands less in my opinion, while they became the second rang in the Anglo-Dutch combination? The decline beginning from 1688 on? But had the Dutch Republic another choice but to seek for the English if they didn't want to be absorbed by the French?

Kind regards, Paul.

Hi Paul

this is what I had written under a different heading concerning William's overthrow of James II.

James II was to greatly increase the size of the royal army and also moved to officer it, as much as possible, with Roman Catholics.  This creation of the largest standing army since the time of Cromwell caused great concerns as did his moves to try and turn the country back to the Catholic fold.  In 1688 the birth of a Catholic heir to James II rather than his two protestant daughters, Mary and Anne, prompted a group of peers to correspond with the Dutch Stadholder, William of Orange, to invade England and overthrow James.  William had a claim on the English and Scottish thrones both through his mother who was a sister of Charles II and through his wife Mary who was James II’s eldest daughter.  For William, in his bitter conflict with Louis XIV of France, to gain control of England, Scotland and Ireland would dramatically shift the balance in what became to be known as ‘The Nine Years War’ against France.  However, to invade England would leave the Netherlands vulnerable to a French invasion.  It was now that Louis XIV made the worst mistake of his reign, a mistake that was to change world history, as he deployed his army on invasion of German territories across the Rhine.  This allowed William with his army of Dutch, English, Scots plus German, Swiss and Swedish mercenaries (including some Laplanders) and even 200 black troops, originally from Dutch plantations in the Americas; free to invade England.  He followed Monmouth’s pattern by landing in the South-West of England.  The greatly increased royal army was actually larger than William’s but James II lost his nerve and fled causing his army to rapidly disintegrate.  The abysmal record of the Stuart monarchy in England had continued.'

And 

'When Louis XIV made the monumental error of allowing William to invade England, he probably assumed that William and his army would get tied down in a civil war.  However, the ‘Glorious Revolution’ was largely bloodless in England, but that was not to be the case in either Scotland or Ireland.  The loss of power in Scotland gave the Presbyterians a chance to regain the sort of power that they had had in the 1640s and William, without an occupying army in Edinburgh as he had in London, had to agree to the Kirk’s demands in order to be recognised as king there too.  A further challenge to William’s power, however, came from the Highlands.  James Graham, Viscount Dundee, raised a Jacobite army amongst the clans and easily defeated a Lowland Scots army at Killiekrankie on 27th July 1689.  However, Dundee was killed in the battle and his successor lacked his military skills.  On 21st August the Highlanders were beaten off when they tried to capture Dunkeld which had been fortified by Lowland troops.  After that defeat most of the clansmen dispersed and the revolt was supressed.
The situation in Ireland though was far more serious.  Being largely Catholic, the country not surprisingly embraced Catholic King James over Protestant King Billy.  Having seen England changed from a potential friend under James II to an implacable foe under William III and Mary II, Louis XIV was desperate to reverse that situation, if possible, or at least to ties down William in the British Isles rather than seeing him intervening on the Continent.  With this in mind, Louis forced James, who by now had decided that enjoying life on a French chateaux was probably better than trying to regain his crown, to sail to Ireland; later he was to be backed by Louis with 7,000 French and French paid for troops.'

And on William's positive effect on England and negative on the Netherlands

'England already had in place the fleet and the expansionist outlook, with the possession of colonies and trading posts in North and Central America, the Caribbean and India, plus the control of various oceanic islands; for a successful oceanic empire.  What it still needed was a financial system that would allow it to sustain the wars that would inevitably arise out of the need to expand and maintain that empire.  In 1694 the Bank of England was founded, after the manner of the bank of Amsterdam, and was granted a royal charter by William III.  It organised the raising of money for the English government to pay for the building up of the Royal Navy and other military activities, and took on the management of the national debt.  The effects of the huge amount spent on the navy and the war were to transform the economy as industries such as shipbuilding and ironworks and agriculture expanded to supply and feed the navy and army.  Traders also began to transfer their activities from Amsterdam and the Netherlands in general, always at risk from invasion, to London, which seemed and was far securer.'

regards

Tim

Tim, I just came in from a family visit...

Thank you very much for your detailed reply. It brought me new insigths and as soon as I have time I will reply about these new insights.
And I wanted these evening to start two new threads: One on the Arts: Is the musical the latest combination of the art of music? and one for you and nordmann: Was existentialism a fad? (they translate my Dutch "modeverschijnsel" (fashion phenomenon) in my dictionary with the word "fad", that I never heard before?

Kind regards from Paul.

Hi Paul

'one for you and nordmann: Was existentialism a fad?'

I think you may have to rely on Nordmann on that one.  I did a bit of Christian existentialism getting on for 40 years ago and nothing since.

regards

Tim

Continuing with the campaign
Villeroi, after his failure to defeat Vaudemont, next moved against the small fortress of Dixmuyde, which lay in between Dunkirk and Ghent.  This was garrisoned by eight battalions (four English, two Dutch and two Danish) plus the Queen’s Regiment of Dragoons, all under the command of Major-General Johan Ellenburg.  He had been born in Hesse in Germany but had joined the Danish army and had commanded a Danish brigade in Ireland and in Flanders.  The siege commenced on 8th July and Ellenburg was expected to be able to hold out for a considerable period, but he surrendered on 18th July.  Major Robert Duncanson who had taken part in the Glencoe massacre and was the commander of Lord Lorne’s Regiment, a Scottish regiment serving in the English army, refused to sign the instrument of surrender.  Major Thomas Brereton of the Queen’s Dragoons not only refused to sign but demanded to be allowed to cut their way out.  This was refused and all nine regiments were marched into captivity.  From there the French next moved against Deynze which was little more than a fortified town held by two battalions under the command of Brigadier O’Farrell.  His position was untenable and he surrendered without a shot being fired, William had lost 7,000 men in a short space of time and he was not best pleased.  When the troops were later released, all the commanding officers who had signed the surrender were cashiered while Ellenburg was tried and executed, being beheaded.  It was deemed that Ellenburg should have made a more resolute resistance and O’Farrell should have immediately retired to somewhere more secure.  The shortage of experienced allied officers was such, however, that later the cashiered officers were to be given new commands.

Villeroi was now in a position to make substantial territorial gains in Western Flanders that could have more than compensated for the loss of Namur.  The trouble was though that he knew that Louis XIV was determined to retain the city and, having failed to budge William so far, Villeroi instead moved against Brussels.  This was not, however, an attempt to capture the city but a terror raid designed to force William to break off the siege and come to the cities rescue.  From the 3rd to the 5th August the French bombarded Brussels destroying more than 2,000 houses, 17 churches, several palaces, the city hall and a monastery.  Villeroi then withdrew and, with William refusing to respond, finally decided that he would have to try and break the siege the citadel.

Tim

Tim, I am not forgotten you. I wanted to answer on this new reply and on several others that you posted recently. It is just that I spent my evening with some fat ladies on this board...at least describing them...

Kind regards from Paul.

Thanks Paul

to finish off the campaign

Although the citadel could be bombarded from all three sides, due to its position on a rocky outcrop between the Meuse and Sambre, it could only be assaulted from one side and so Boufflers was able to concentrate his remaining men accordingly.  William, however, was also able to concentrate his forces realising a lot of troops following the fall of the city to strengthen the covering army.  As Villeroi moved to Nivelle, 25 miles west of Namur, William combined his covering army with that of Vaudemont leaving the elector of Bavaria to conduct the siege.  William occupied a strong position at Mazy, 10 miles west of Namur, which he fortified.  Villeroi tried to manoeuvre past the allied army but was blocked, he was unpleasantly surprised at the size of the allied force.  Reports received by the French suggested that the allies had suffered much heavier casualties besieging Namur than in fact had been the case.  

While William was blocking Villeroi’s advance, the elector of Bavaria was pressing the siege of the citadel with the trenches being advanced by around 200 yards every night.  By the 8th August the citadel was being so heavily bombarded that the garrison were finding it difficult to find cover.  Numbers were so diminished that Boufflers could no longer afford to launch sallies especially as such sallies afforded opportunities for his remaining troops to desert.  The bombardment of the citadel led to breaches beginning to open up and destroyed buildings such as the meat store such that the garrison was reduced to eating horsemeat.  The only hope of salvation for the citadel was if Villeroi had marched to try and storm one of the allied held fortresses that were by now held by only skeleton garrisons, but it did not occur him to do so.

Having contained the threat from Villeroi, William moved back to the city and on 20th August ordered a general assault to be carried out by 20,000 men.  The allied trenches were so crammed that not all the battalions could fit in and some had to form up behind.  The attack was carried out by English, Scots, Irish, Dutch, Bavarians, Brandenburgers, Hanoverians, and Hessians.  The assault commanded by Lord Cutts, who was noted for his extreme bravery, was made up of the inexperienced Courthope’s, Buchan’s, Hamilton and Mackay’s regiments aided by grenadiers and the more experienced Royal Irish regiment.  Cutt’s men had to advance more than half a mile over open ground to reach the breach, lost cohesion and then found their way blocked by an undamaged retrenchment behind the breach.  Cutts was wounded in the head and the mainly raw troops broke.  However, after having his wound dressed and with his head covered in bandages, he led the Royal Irish plus two other battalions in a second assault, but this too failed with his command losing in all 1,349 casualties.  The Bavarians, Brandenburgers and Dutch, however, all managed to secure positions within the citadel and on 22nd August Bouffler asked for terms with the 5,000 remaining soldiers marching out on 26th August.

The fall of Namur effectively marked the end of the campaigning for that year and illustrated how difficult it was for either side to make significant gains.  It was the greatest success of William of Orange’s military career, but if he had been opposed by a better general than Villeroi then he never would have succeeded.  Eleven years later Villeroi was to face the duke of Marlborough, the greatest general that England ever produced, and to suffer a defeat in battle that would lead to the fall of a whole series of fortresses; a battle that was to be the last one fought by an English army.
Allied hopes for further successes in 1696 were to be dashed by a financial crisis in England leaving William unable to pay his army and the defection of the duchy of Savoy from the allied course.  In 1697, with all sides exhausted, a peace treaty was signed at Rijswijk, a palace of William of Orange situated near The Hague.  The peace could be considered overall a modest success for the alliance that had managed to keep French expansion in check.  What was clear to all the participants though was that the last thing that Europe needed was another war.  However, a combination of the dispute over the succession to the Spanish throne and a series of diplomatic errors by Louis XIV was to bring about such a war five years later.

Tim, thank you very much for the second part and for your own comments as about the what if a better general than Villeroy...
One learns here everyday something about his history: The Southern Netherlands, the later Belgium.
And it is not a "roman national" (as the French say) of Belgium but "honest" history writing.
https://www.lhistoire.fr/bas-le-roman-national
L’expression « roman national », popularisée par Pierre Nora, est passée dans le langage courant : elle désigne le récit patriotique, centralisateur, édifié par les historiens du XIXe siècle tout à la louange de la construction de la nation. Le récit national met en avant la grandeur du pays, ses hauts faits et édulcore souvent les pages plus délicates. Il naturalise le « patriotisme », ...
The expression "roman national" popularized by Pierre Nora, is passed in the normal speaking: it shows the patriotic centralizing story, built by the historians of the 19th century, all in praise of the construction of the nation. The "roman national" places the greatness of the country, the highlights on the forefront, but many times gloss over the most delicate pages of their history. It naturalizes the "patriotism...

Tim, it is only "my" translation and as I have now competition from an MM or an Abelard ...

Kind regards from Paul.

In that context "roman" means novel or story, hence the reference to glossing over "the most delicate pages of their history".