Military history of the Netherlands

Dio Cassius describes this surprise tactic employed by Aulus Plautius against the "barbarians" — the British Celts — at the battle of the River Medway, 43: The Batavians also provided a contingent for the Emperor's Imperial Horse Guard.

(Braudel 1984, p. 215) Over the next decades the Dutch captured the major trading ports of the East Indies: Malacca in 1641; Achem (Aceh) in the native kingdom of Sumatra, 1667; Macassar, 1669; and Bantam itself, in 1682.

By concentrating on monopolies in the fine spices, Dutch policy encouraged monoculture: Amboyna for cloves, Timor for sandalwood, the Bandas for mace and nutmeg, Ceylon for cinnamon.

From these islands, governed by Sir John Grenville, and from other friendly ports, a section of the Royal Navy that had mutinied to Charles' side operated in a piratical way against shipping in the English channel.

In order to protect its position in North America and damage Dutch trade, in 1651 the Parliament of the Commonwealth of England passed the first of the Navigation Acts, which mandated that all goods from her American colonies must be carried by English ships.

When Charles X of Sweden had been unable to continue his hold on Poland — partly because the Dutch fleet relieved the besieged city of Danzig in 1656 — he turned his attention on Denmark, invading that country from what is now Germany.

After the English Restoration, Charles II tried to serve his dynastic interests by attempting to make Prince William III of Orange, his nephew, stadtholder of The Republic, using military pressure.

The war was fought to resist French expansionism along the Rhine, as well as, on the part of England, to safeguard the results of the Glorious Revolution from a possible French-backed restoration of James II.

The League of Augsburg was formed in 1686 between the Holy Roman Emperor, Leopold I, and various of the German princes (including the Palatinate, Bavaria, and Brandenburg) to resist French expansionism in Germany.

The Turkish recapture of Belgrade in October of the same year proved a boon to the French, preventing the Emperor from making peace with the Turks and sending his full forces west.

The French were also successful at sea, defeating the Anglo-Dutch fleet at Beachy Head, but failed to follow up on the victory by sending aid to the Jacobite forces in Ireland or pursuing control of the Channel.

During the following year, while James's cause was finally ruined in Ireland, the main French fleet was cruising in the Bay of Biscay, principally for the purpose of avoiding battle.

But as the French admiral Tourville had left Brest for the Straits of Gibraltar with a powerful force and had been joined by a squadron from Toulon, the whole convoy was scattered or taken by him, in the latter days of June, near Lagos Bay.

The Glorious Revolution of 1688 was the last successful invasion of England and ended the conflict by placing Prince William III of Orange on the English throne as co-ruler with his wife Mary.

Though this was in fact a military conflict between Great Britain and The Republic, William invading the British Isles with a Dutch fleet and army, in English histories it is never described as such because he had strong support in England and was partly serving the dynastic interests of his wife.

[10] The British considered this trade to include contraband military supplies and had attempted to stop it, at first diplomatically by appealing to previous treaty obligations, interpretation of whose terms the two nations disagreed on, and then by searching and seizing Dutch merchant ships.

The war sparked a new round of Dutch ship building (95 warships in the last quarter of the 18th century), but the British kept their absolute numerical superiority by doubling their fleet in the same time.

Appointed lieutenant governor of Java, Thomas Stamford Raffles (1781–1826) ended Dutch administrative methods, liberalized the system of land tenure, and extended trade.

At about 13:30, after receiving news of the Prussian advance to his right, Napoleon ordered Marshal Ney to send d'Erlon's infantry forward against the allied flank near La Haye Sainte.

After suffering an intense artillery bombardment and exchanging volleys with d'Erlon's leading elements for some nine minutes, van Bylandt's outnumbered soldiers were forced to retreat over the ridge and through the lines of General Thomas Picton's division.

The Prussians were already engaging the Imperial Army's right flank when La Haye Sainte fell to French combined arms (infantry, artillery and cavalry), because the defending King's German Legion had run out of ammunition in the early evening.

Wellington, judging that the retreat by the Imperial Guard had unnerved all the French soldiers who saw it, stood up in the stirrups of Copenhagen (his favourite horse), and waved his hat in the air, signalling a general advance.

The rebellion finally ended in 1830, after Prince Diponegoro was tricked into entering Dutch custody near Magelang, believing he was there for negotiations for a possible cease-fire, and exiled to Manado on the island of Sulawesi.

Around 1880 the Dutch strategy changed, and rather than continuing the war, they now concentrated on defending areas they already controlled, which were mostly limited to the capital city (modern Banda Aceh), and the harbour town of Ulee Lheue.

In Hurgronje's analysis of Acehnese society, he minimised the role of the Sultan and argued that attention should be paid to the hereditary chiefs, the Ulee Balang, who he felt could be trusted as local administrators.

[14][15] After the collapse of Japan at the end of World War II, Indonesian nationalists under Sukarno recognized the opportunity presenting itself and declared independence from Dutch colonial rule.

The Netherlands, only very recently freed from German occupation itself, initially lacked the means to respond, allowing Republican forces to establish de facto control over parts of the huge archipelago, particularly in Java and Sumatra.

A few months before the second Dutch offensive, communist elements within the independence movement had staged a failed coup, known as Madiun Affair, with the goal of seizing control of the republican forces.

Eventually, the UN peacekeepers had so little fuel that they were forced to start patrolling the enclave on foot; Dutchbat soldiers who went out of the area on leave were not allowed to return and their number dropped from 600 to 400 men.

The Royal Netherlands Army Commando Captain Marco Kroon was the first individual recipient of the Military William Order (the highest Dutch award for valour under fire, comparable to the Victoria Cross and the Medal of Honor) since 1955 for actions in Uruzgan, Afghanistan.

Map of modern coastline of the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark, showing the Germanic peoples that lived there c. 150 AD.
Funerary stela of one of Nero 's Corporis Custodes (imperial bodyguard). The bodyguard, Indus, was of the Batavian tribe.
The Conspiracy of Claudius Civilis depicts a scene from Histories where Gaius Julius Civilis persuades Celtic chiefs to join the Batavi revolt .
The Spanish Empire in 1580, with the Spanish Netherlands in light green. The northern half of the Spanish Netherlands, the United Provinces , achieved de facto independence from Spain in 1581, during the Eighty Years' War .
Depiction of the Battle of Heiligerlee , 1568. The battle was the first victory for the Dutch rebels in the Eighty Years' War.
The relief of Leiden shortly after the city was besieged by Spanish forces , 1574. The siege ended when the geuzen opened the dikes surrounding the city causing the Spanish troops to flee.
The Battle of the Downs in 1639, was a decisive naval victory for the Dutch and marked a significant moment in the shifting balance of naval power in Europe.
The Dutch East India Company attack three Portuguese Galleons in the Bay of Goa. The Dutch engaged in an armed conflict with the Portuguese in order to expand its trading empire.
The Dutch surrender of Fort Zeelandia in Formosa shortly following a Ming loyalist siege , 1662. The Dutch fought intermittent battles with the Ming in the 17th century over trade.
Maarten Tromp was the supreme commander and Lieutenant-Admiral of the Dutch Navy during the First Anglo-Dutch War .
The Battle of Dungeness was a decisive Dutch victory during the First Anglo-Dutch War, that saw the Dutch gain temporary control of the English Channel .
The Battle of Scheveningen in 1653 was the final battle of the First Anglo-Dutch War.
The Dutch intervened in the Second Northern War and lifted the Swedish siege of Copenhagen during the Battle of the Sound , 1658.
The Raid on the Medway in 1667 was a successful Dutch attack on English ship of the lines . The raid led to the end to the Second Anglo-Dutch War , on favourable terms for the Dutch.
Dutch forces storming Coevorden during the Franco-Dutch War , 1672.
The Dutch Navy defeated the combined English and French fleets during the Battle of Texel , 1673.
The Holy Roman Empire in 1688, prior to the start of the Nine Years' War . The Dutch Republic joined a European coalition, the Grand Alliance , in an effort to halt Louis XIV of France 's expansionist policies.
A French invasion of England was prevented in 1692, when a combined Dutch and English fleet Battles of Barfleur and La Hogue defeated the French fleet intended to cover the transportation of the invasion force.
The Battle of the Dogger Bank , a naval engagement during the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War . Oil painting by Thomas Luny .
The Battle of Camperdown saw the capture of 11 ships of the Batavian Navy by the Royal Navy .
A panorama of the Waterloo battlefield in 2012.
Map of the battle. French units are in blue, Anglo-Dutch units in red, Prussian in black.
During the Battle of Waterloo , Dutch forces fell under the command of British Field Marshal, Arthur Wellesley .
The Arrest of Pangeran Diponegoro by Raden Saleh . Prince Diponegoro led a Javanese revolt against the Dutch colonial authorities during the Java War .
The Prince of Orange leading the Dutch army in an engagement during the Belgian Revolution.
The death of General Johan Harmen Rudolf Köhler during the First Aceh Expedition , a punitive expedition against the Aceh Sultanate , 1873.
Photograph of the captured Fort Kuto Reh on 14 June 1904.
Rotterdam 's city centre following the Rotterdam blitz . The aerial bombardment killed nearly 900 people and made 85,000 others homeless.
The Royal Netherlands Navy acquired the aircraft carrier HNLMS Karel Doorman in 1948. Its acquisition was a part of a larger military build-up by NATO forces.
HNLMS Evertsen at Yokosuka , Japan , after joining the United Nations Blockading and Escort Force for the Korean War , in 1951.
A Dutch military column during the first Dutch military offensive of the Indonesian National Revolution .
Indonesian Vice-president Mohammad Hatta and Dutch Queen Juliana at the signing ceremony recognizing Indonesian independence.
The Dutch contingent of the UNPROFOR , Dutchbat , found itself mired in controversy during the Srebrenica massacre , with their failure to prevent the town's capture, and the subsequent massacre.
A Dutch patrol in Afghanistan during 2008