SEA POWER IN THE NORTH: HOLLAND'S STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE
The first sea-farers in the storm-swept waters of the north, at
least in historic times, were the Teutonic tribes along the North
Sea and the Baltic. On land the Teutons held the Rhine and the
Danube against the legions of Rome, spread later southward and
westward, and founded modern European states out of the wreckage
of the Roman Empire. On the sea, Angles, Saxons, and Jutes in the
5th century began plundering the coasts of what is now England,
and, after driving the Celts into mountain fastnesses, established
themselves in permanent control.
_The Vikings_
These Teutonic voyagers were followed toward the close of the 8th
century by their Scandinavian kindred to the northward, the
Vikings--superb fighting men and daring sea-rovers who harried
the coasts of western Europe for the next 200 years. There were no
navies to stop them. "These sea dragons," exclaimed Charlemagne,
"will tear my kingdom asunder!" In England no king before Alfred
had a navy; and Alfred was compelled to organize a strong sea force
to bring the invaders to terms.
Elsewhere the Vikings met little opposition. Wherever they found
lands that attracted them, they conquered and settled dawn. Thus
Normandy came into being. They swept up the rivers, burning and
looting where they pleased, from the Elbe to the Rhone. They carried
their raids as far south as Sicily and the Mediterranean coast of
Africa, and as far north and west as Iceland, Greenland, and the
American continent. In the east, by establishing a Viking colony
at Nishni Novgorod, they laid the foundations of the Russian empire,
and their leader, Rus, gave it his name. Following river courses,
others penetrated inland as far as Constantinople, where, being
bought off by the emperor, they took service as imperial guards.
Their extraordinary voyages were made in boats that resemble so
closely Greek and Roman models--even Phnician, for that matter--as
to suggest that the Vikings learned their ship-building from
Mediterranean traders who forced their way into the Baltic in very
early times. For example, the Viking method of making a rib in
three parts is identical with the method of the Greeks and Romans.
The chief points of difference are that Viking ships were sharp
at both ends--like a canoe, were round-bottomed instead of flat,
and had one steering oar instead of two. The typical Viking ship
was only about 75 feet in length; but a royal vessel--the _Dragon_
of the chief--sometimes attained a length of 300 feet, with sixty
pairs of oars.
If the Vikings had had national organization under one head, they
might well have laid the rest of Europe under tribute. In the 11th
century, Cnut, a descendant of the Vikings, ruled in person over
England, Denmark, and Norway. But their ocean folk-wanderings seem
to have ended as suddenly as they began, and the effects were social
rather than political. Where they settled, they brought a strain
of the hardiest racial stock in Europe to blend with that of the
conquered peoples.
_The Hanseatic League_
During the Middle Ages, peaceful trading gradually gained the upper
hand over piracy and conquest. From the Italian cities the wares
of the south and the Orient came over the passes of the Alps and
down the German rivers, where trading cities grew up to act as
carriers of merchandise and civilization among the nations of the
north. The merchant guilds of these cities, banded together in
the Hanseatic League, for at least three centuries dominated the
northern seas.
Perhaps the most extensive commercial combination ever formed for
the control of sea trade, the Hanseatic League began with a treaty
between Lübeck and Hamburg in 1174, and at the height of its power
in the 14th and 15th centuries it included from 60 to 80 cities,
of which Lübeck, Cologne, Brunswick, and Danzig were among the
chief. The league cleared northern waters of pirates, and used
embargo and naval power to subdue rivals and promote trade. It
established factories or trading stations from Nishni Novgorod to
Bergen, London, and Bruges. From Russia it took cargoes of fats,
tallows, wax, and wares brought into Russian markets from the east;
from Scandinavia, iron and copper; from England, hides and wool; from
Germany, fish, grain, beer, and manufactured goods of all kinds.
The British pound sterling (Österling) and pound avoirdupois, in
fact the whole British system of weights and coinage, are legacies
from the German merchants who once had their headquarters in the
Steelyard, London.
In the early 15th century the league attempted to shut Dutch ships
from the Baltic trade by restricting their cargoes to wares produced
in their own country, and by coercing Denmark into granting the
league special privileges on the route through the Sound. This
policy, culminating in the destruction of the Dutch grain fleet
in 1437, led to a naval struggle which extended over four years
and ended in a truce by which the Dutch secured the freedom of the
Baltic. It was a typical naval war for sea control and commercial
advantage, in which the Dutch as a rule seem to have got the better,
and in which the legend first made its appearance of a Dutch admiral
sweeping the seas with a broom nailed to his mast.
From this time the power of the Hansa declined. This was partly
because the free cities came more and more under the rule of German
princes with no interest in, or knowledge of, commerce; partly
because of rivalry arising from the union of the Scandinavian states
(1397) and the growth of England, France, and the Low Countries
to national strength and commercial independence; and partly also
because of the decline of German fisheries when the herring suddenly
shifted from the Baltic to the North Sea. Underlying these varied
causes, however, and significant of the far-reaching effect of
changing trade-routes upon the progress and prosperity of nations,
was the fact that, when the Mediterranean trade route was closed
by the Turks, and also the route through Russia by Ivan III, the
German cities were side-tracked. Antwerp and Amsterdam were not
only more centrally located for the distribution of trade, but
also much nearer for Atlantic traffic--an advantage which Germany
has ever since keenly envied.
Long before the rise of the Low Countries as a maritime power,
Ghent and Bruges had enjoyed an early preëminence owing to their
development of cloth manufacture, and the latter city as a terminus
for the galleys of Venice and Genoa. After the silting up of the
port of Bruges (1432), Antwerp grew in importance, and in the 16th
century became the chief market and money center of Europe. Its
inhabitants numbered about 100,000, with a floating population
of upwards of 50,000 more. It contained the counting-houses of
the great bankers of Europe--the Fuggers of Germany, the Pazzi
of Florence, the Dorias of Genoa. Five thousand merchants were
registered on the Bourse, as many as 500 ships often left the city
in a single day, and two or three thousand more might be seen anchored
in the Scheldt or lying along the quays.[1] Amsterdam by 1560 was
second to Antwerp with a population of 40,000, and forged ahead
after the sack of Antwerp by Spanish soldiers in 1576 and the Dutch
blockade of the Scheldt during the struggle with Spain.
[Footnote 1: Blok, HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF THE NETHERLANDS, Part
II, Ch. XII.]
This early prosperity of the Netherland cities may be attributed
less to aggressive maritime activity than to their flourishing
industries, their natural advantages as trading centers at the
mouths of the Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse, and the privileges of
self-government enjoyed by the middle classes under the House of
Burgundy and even under Charles the Fifth. Charles taxed them
heavily--his revenues from the Low Countries in reality far exceeded
the treasure he drew from America; but he was a Fleming born, spoke
their language, and accorded them a large measure of political and
religious freedom. The grievances which after his death led to
the Dutch War of Independence, are almost personified in the son
who succeeded him in 1555--Philip II, a Spaniard born and bred,
who spoke no Flemish and left Brussels for the last time in 1573,
dour, treacherous, distrustful, fanatical in religion; a tragic
character, who, no doubt with great injustice to the Spanish, has
somehow come to represent the character of Spain in his time.
_The Dutch Struggle for Freedom_
The causes of the long war in the Netherlands, which began in 1566
and ended with their independence 43 years later, is best explained
in terms of general principles rather than specific grievances.
"A conflict in which the principle of Catholicism with unlimited
royal autocracy as Spain recognized it, was opposed to toleration
in the realm of religion, with a national government according to
ancient principles and based on ancient privileges,"--so the Dutch
historian Blok sums up the issues at stake. The Prince of Orange,
just before he was cut down by an assassin, asserted in his famous
_Defense_ three fundamental principles: freedom to worship God;
withdrawal of foreigners; and restoration of the charters, privileges,
and liberties of the land. The Dutch fought for political, religious,
and also for economic independence. England gave aid, not so much
for religious motives as because she saw that her political safety
and commercial prosperity hinged on the weakening of Spain.
Resembling our American Revolution in the character of the struggle
as well as the issues at stake--though it was far more bloody and
desperate--the Dutch War of Independence was fought mainly within
the country itself, with the population divided, and the Spanish
depending on land forces to maintain their rule; but, as in the
American war, control of the sea was a vital factor. For munitions,
supplies, gold, for the transport of the troops themselves, Spain
had to depend primarily on the sea. It is true one could continue
on Spanish territory from Genoa, which was Spain's watergate into
Italy, across the Mont Cenis Pass, and through Savoy, Burgundy,
Lorraine, and Luxembourg to Brussels, and it was by this route that
Parma's splendid army of 10,000 "Blackbeards" came in 1577. But
this was an arduous three months' march for troops and still more
difficult for supplies. To cross France was as a rule impossible;
when Don Juan of Austria went to Flanders for the brief period of
leadership ended by his death of camp fever in 1578, he passed
through French territory disguised as a Moorish slave. By the sea
route, upon which Spain was after all largely dependent, and the
complete control of which would have made her task infinitely easier,
she was constantly exposed to Huguenot, Dutch, and English privateers.
These gentry cared little whether or not their country was actually
at war with Spain, but took their letters of marque, if they carried
them, from any prince or ruler who would serve their turn.
With this opportunity to strike at Spanish communications, it will
appear strange that the Dutch should not have immediately seized
their advantage and made it decisive. One curious difficulty lay
in the fact that throughout the war Dutch shipping actually carried
the bulk of Spanish trade and drew from it immense profits. Even
at the close of the century, while the war was still continuing,
nine-tenths of Spain's foreign trade and five-sixths of her home
trade was in foreign--and most of it in Dutch--hands. Hence any
form of sea warfare was sure to injure Dutch trade. The Revolution,
moreover, began slowly and feebly, with no well-thought-out plan of
campaign, and could not at once fit out fully organized forces to
cope with those of Spain. The Dutch early took to commerce warfare,
but it was at first semi-piratical, and involved the destruction
of ships of their own countrymen.
The Sea Beggars--_Zee Geuzen_ or _Gueux der Mer_--made their
appearance shortly after the outbreak of rebellion. "_Vyve les
geus par mer et par terre,_" wrote the patriot Count van Brederode
as early as 1566. The term "beggar" is said to have arisen from a
contemptuous remark by a Spanish courtier to Margaret of Parma, when
the Dutch nobles presented their grievances in Brussels. Willingly
accepting the name, the patriots applied it to their forces both
by land and by sea. Letters of marque were first issued by Louis
of Nassau, brother of William of Orange, and in 1569 there were
18 ships engaged, increased in the next year to 84. The bloody
and licentious De la Marek, who wore his hair and beard unshorn
till he had avenged the execution of his relative, Egmont, was
a typical leader of still more wild and reckless crews. It was
no uncommon practice to go over the rail of a merchant ship with
pike and ax and kill every Spaniard on board. In 1569 William of
Orange appointed the Seigneur de Lumbres as admiral of the beggar
fleet, and issued strict instructions to him to secure better order,
avoid attacks on vessels of friendly and neutral states, enforce
the articles of war, and carry a preacher on each ship. The booty
was to be divided one-third to the Prince for the maintenance of
the war, one-third to the captains to supply their vessels, and
one-third to the crews, one-tenth of this last share going to the
admiral in general command.
[Illustration: THE NETHERLANDS IN THE 16TH CENTURY]
The events of commerce warfare, though they often involve desperate
adventures and hard fighting, are not individually impressive, and
the effectiveness of this warfare is best measured by collective
results. On one occasion, when a fleet of transports fell into the
hands of patriot forces off Flushing in 1572, not only were 1000
troops taken, but also 500,000 crowns of gold and a rich cargo, the
proceeds of which, it is stated, were sufficient to carry on the whole
war for a period of two years. Again it was fear of pirates (Huguenot
in this case) that in December of 1568 drove a squadron of Spanish
transports into Plymouth, England, with 450,000 ducats ($960,000)
aboard for the pay of Spanish troops. Elizabeth seized the money
(on the ground that it was still the property of the Genoese bankers
who had lent it and that she might as well borrow it as Philip),
and minted it into English coin at a profit of £3000. But Alva at
Antwerp, with no money at all, was forced to the obnoxious "Hundreds"
tax--requiring a payment of one per cent on all possessions, five
per cent on all real estate transfers, and 10 per cent every time
a piece of merchandise was sold--a typical tax after the Spanish
recipe, which, though not finally enforced to its full extent, aroused
every Netherlander as a fatal blow at national prosperity. To return
to the general effect of commerce destruction, it is estimated
that Spain thus lost annually 3,000,000 ducats ($6,400,000), a sum
which of course meant vastly more then than now. When the Duke
of Alva retired from command in 1578, the pay of Spanish troops
was 6,500,000 ducats in arrears.
Among the exploits of organized naval forces, the earliest was the
capture of Brill, by which, according to Motley, "the foundations
of the Dutch republic were laid." Driven out of England by Elizabeth,
who upon the representations of the Spanish ambassador ordered her
subjects not to supply the Beggars with "meat, bread or beer,"
a fleet of 25 vessels and 300 or 400 men left Dover towards the
end of March, 1572, with the project of seizing a base on their
own coast. On the afternoon of April 1, they appeared off the town
of Brill, located on an island at the mouth of the Meuse. The
magistrates and most of the inhabitants fled; and the Beggars battered
down the gates, occupied the town, and put to death 13 monks and
priests. When Spanish forces attempted to recapture the city, the
defenders opened sluice gates to cut off the northern approach,
and at the same time set fire to the boats which had carried the
Spanish to the island. The Spanish, terrorized by both fire and
water, waded through mud and slime to the northern shore. During
the same week Flushing was taken, and before the end of June the
Dutch were masters of nearly the entire Zealand coast.
In the north the Spanish at first found an able naval leader in
Admiral Bossu, himself a Hollander, who for a time kept the coast
clear of Beggars. In October, 1573, however, 30 of his ships were
beaten in the Zuyder Zee by 25 under Dirkzoon, who captured five
of the Spanish vessels and scattered the rest with the exception
of the flagship. The latter, a 32-gun ship terrifyingly named the
_Inquisition_ and much stronger than any of the others on either
side, held out from three o'clock in the afternoon until the next
morning. Three patriot vessels closed in on her, attacking with
the vicious weapons of the period--pitch, boiling oil, and molten
lead. By morning the four combatants had drifted ashore in a tangled
mass. When Bossu at last surrendered, 300 men, out of 382 in his
ship's complement, were dead or disabled.
Though not yet able to stand up against Spanish infantry, the Dutch
in naval battles were usually successful. In the Scheldt, January
29, 1574, 75 Spanish vessels were attacked by 64 Dutch under Admiral
Boisot. After a single broadside, the two fleets grappled, and in
a two-hour fight at close quarters eight of the Spanish ships were
captured, seven destroyed, and 1200 Spaniards killed. The Spanish
commander, Julian Romero, escaped through a port-hole, is said to
have remarked afterwards, "I told you I was a land fighter and no
sailor; give me a hundred fleets and I would fare no better."
In September following, Admiral Boisot brought some of his victorious
ships and sailors to the relief of Leyden, whose inhabitants and
garrison had been reduced by siege to the very last extremities.
The campaign that followed was typical of this amphibious war.
Boisot's force, with those already an the scene, numbered about
2500, equipped with some 200 shallow-draft boats and row-barges
mounting an average of ten guns each. Among them was the curious
_Ark of Delft_, with shot-proof bulwarks and paddle-wheels turned
by a crank. As a result of ruthless flooding of the country, ten
of the fifteen miles between Leyden and the outer dyke were easily
passed; but five miles from the city ran the Landscheidung or inner
dyke, which was above water, and beyond this an intricate system
of canals and flooded polders, with forts and villages held by a
Spanish force four times as strong. The most savage fighting on
decks, dykes, and bridges marked every step forward; the Dutch in
their native element attacking with cutlass, boathook and harpoon,
while the superior military discipline of the Spanish could not
come in play. But at least 20 inches of water were necessary to
float the Dutch vessels, and it was not until October 3 that a
spring tide and a heavy northwest gale made it possible to reach the
city walls. In storm and darkness, terrified by the rising waters,
the Spanish fled. The relief of the city marked a turning-point in
the history of the revolt.
During the six terrible years of Alva's rule in the Netherlands
(1567-1573) the Dutch sea forces contributed heavily toward the
maintenance of the war, assured control of the Holland and Zealand
coasts, and more than once, as at Brill and Leyden, proved the
salvation of the patriot cause. Holland and Zealand, the storm-centers
of rebellion, were not again so devastated, though the war dragged
on for many years, maintained by the indomitable spirit of William
of Orange until his assassination in 1584, and afterward by the
military skill of Maurice of Nassau and the aid of foreign powers.
The seven provinces north of the Scheldt, separating from the Catholic
states of the south, prospered in trade and industry as they shook
themselves free from the stifling rule of Spain. By a twelve-year
truce, finally ratified in 1609, they became "free states over
which Spain makes no pretensions," though their independence was
not fully recognized until the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The
war, while it ruined Antwerp, increased the prosperity of Holland
and Zealand, which for at least twenty years before the truce were
busily extending their trade to every part of the world.
_Growth of Dutch Commerce_
The story of this expansion of commerce is a striking record. The
grain and timber of the Baltic, the wines of France and Spain,
the salt of the Cape Verde Islands, the costly wares of the east,
came to the ports of the Meuse and Zuyder Zee. In 1590 the first
Dutch traders entered the Mediterranean, securing, eight years
later, the permission of the Sultan to engage in Constantinople
trade. In 1594 their ships reached the Gold Coast, and a year later
four vessels visited Madagascar, Goa, Java, and the Moluccas or
Spice Islands. A rich Zealand merchant had a factory at Archangel
and a regular trade into the White Sea. Seeking a reward of 25,000
florins offered by the States for the discovery of a northeast
passage, Jacob van Heimskirck sailed into the Arctic and wintered
in Nova Zembla; Henry Hudson, in quest of a route northwestward,
explored the river and the bay that bear his name and died in the
Polar Seas.
Statistics, while not very trustworthy and not enlightening unless
compared with those for other nations, may give some idea of the
preponderance of Dutch shipping. At the time of the truce she is
said to have had 16,300 ships, about 10,000 of which were small
vessels in the coasting trade. Of the larger, 3000 were in the
Baltic trade, 2000 in the Spanish, 600 sailed to Italy, and the
remainder to the Mediterranean, South America, the Far East, and
Archangel. The significance of these figures may be made clearer by
citing Colbert's estimate that at a later period (1664) there were
20,000 ships in general European carrying trade, 16,000 of which
were Dutch. Throughout the 17th century Dutch commerce continued to
prosper, and did not reach its zenith until early in the century
following.
In the closing years of the 16th century several private companies
were founded in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Zealand to engage in eastern
trade. These were combined in 1602 into the United East Indies
Company, which sent large fleets to the Orient each year, easily
ousted the Portuguese from their bases on the coast and islands,
and soon established almost a monopoly, leaving to England only a
small share of trade with Persia and northwest India. The relative
resources invested by English and Dutch in Eastern ventures is
suggested by the fact that the British East Indies Company founded in
1600 had a capital of £80,000, while the Dutch Company had £316,000.
By 1620 the shares of the Dutch company had increased to three
times their original value, and they paid average dividends of 18
per cent for the next 200 years.
In this Dutch conquest of eastern trade, like that of the Portuguese
a century earlier, we have an illustration of what has since been a
guiding principle in the history of sea power--a national policy of
commercial expansion sturdily backed by foreign policy and whenever
necessary by naval force. The element of national policy is evident
in the fact that Holland--and England until the accession of James I
in 1603--preferred war rather than acceptance of Spanish pretensions
to exclusive rights in the southern seas. The Dutch, like the
Portuguese, saw clearly the need of political control. They made
strongholds of their trading bases, and gave their companies power
to oust competitors by force. As a concession to Spanish pride,
the commerce clause in the Truce of 1609 was made intentionally
unintelligible--but the Dutch interpreted it to suit themselves.
As for the element of force, every squadron that sailed to the
east was a semi-military expedition. The Dutch seaman was sailor,
fighter, and trader combined. The merchant was truly, in the phrase
of the age, a "merchant adventurer," lucky indeed and enriched
if, after facing the perils of navigation in strange waters, the
possible hostility of native rulers, and the still greater danger
from European rivals, half his ships returned. The last statement
is no hyperbole; of 9 ships sent to the East from Amsterdam in
1598, four came back, and just half of the 22 sent out from the
entire Netherlands.
From time to time, either to maintain the blockade of the Scheldt
and assist in operations on the Flanders coast, or to protect their
trade and strike a direct blow at Spain, the Dutch fitted out purely
naval expeditions. One of the most effective, from the standpoint
of actual fighting, was that led by van Heimskirck, already famous
for Arctic exploration and exploits in the Far East. In 1607 he
took 21 converted merchantmen and 4 transports to the Spanish coast
to protect Dutch vessels from the east and the Mediterranean.
Encountering off Gibraltar an enemy force of 11 large galleons
and as many galleys under Alvarez d'Avila, a veteran of Lepanto,
he destroyed half the Spanish force and drove the rest into port,
killing about 2000 Spanish and coming out of the fight with the
loss of only 100 men. Heimskirck concentrated upon the galleons
and came to close action after the fashion which seems to have
been characteristic of the Dutch in naval engagements throughout
the war. "Hold your fire till you hear the crash," he cried, as
he drove his prow into the enemy flagship; and the battle was won
after a struggle yard-arm to yard-arm. Bath admirals were killed.
Portugal, broken by the Spanish yoke, could offer little resistance
in the Far East. In 1606 a Dutch fleet of 12 ships under Matelieff
de Jonge laid siege to Malacca, and gave up the attempt only after
destroying 10 galleons sent to relieve the town. Matelieff then
sailed to the neighboring islands, and established the authority
of the company at Bantam, Amboyna, Ternate, and other centers of
trade.
Other fleets earlier and later promoted the interests of the company
by the same means. English traders, with scanty government encouragement
from the Stuart kings, were not as yet dangerous rivals. A conflict
occurred with them in 1611 off Surat; and at Amboyna in 1623 the
Dutch seized the English Company's men, tortured ten of them, and
broke up the English base. For more than a century Holland remained
supreme in the east; she has retained her colonial empire down to
the 20th century; and she did not surrender her commercial primacy
until exhausted by the combined attacks of England and France.
Less successful than England in the development of colonies, she
has stood out as the greatest of trading nations.
REFERENCES
_The Vikings_
THE VIKING AGE, H. F. Du Chaillu, 1889.
_The Hansa_
THE HANSA TOWNS, H. Zimmerman, 1889.
HISTORY OF COMMERCE, Clive Day, 1913 (bibliography).
CIVILIZATION DURING THE MIDDLE AGES, George Burton Adams, 1918.
CAMBRIDGE MODERN HISTORY, Vols. I and II.
_Dutch Sea Power_
MOTLEY'S RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC (still the best source in English
for political and naval history of the period).
HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF THE NETHERLANDS, P. J. Blok, trans. Ruth
Putnam, 1898-1912.
HISTORY OF COMMERCE IN EUROPE, W. H. Gibbins, 1917.
THE SEA BEGGARS, Dingman Versteg, 1901.
SOME EXPLOITS OF THE OLD DUTCH NAVY, Lieut. H. H. Frost, U. S.
Naval Institute Proceedings, January, 1919.