Global Crisis

by Parker, Geoffrey

  From the first Philip IV's negotiators assured the Dutch that their master was now ready to concede full sovereignty to the Republic. They also slyly leaked a French proposal to marry the young Louis XIV to a Spanish princess, with the Netherlands as her dowry. This duplicity, as well as the spectre of the French just across the border, accelerated Dutch willingness to talk. Philip was by then prepared ‘to give in on every point that might lead to the conclusion of a settlement’ – indeed, according to an unsympathetic observer, he was so desperate for peace that ‘if necessary he would crucify Christ again in order to achieve it’.67 Spain therefore proposed a new truce, to last 12 or 20 years; the Dutch countered with a list of 71 conditions, almost all of which Philip IV accepted. The States of Holland therefore recommended that the States-General upgrade the talks from a truce to a full peace. Again, Zealand dissented and again it was overruled: in November 1646, by six votes to one, the Dutch agreed to work for peace, and two months later the two parties signed a provisional agreement that ended both the fighting and the economic sanctions.

  Almost immediately, a run of bad harvests in the Republic drove up food prices and created popular pressure for the tax reductions that only peace could bring. At the same time, the ceasefire on both land and sea caused a surge in Dutch trade and this too fuelled pressure within the Republic for a permanent settlement that would perpetuate such prosperity. Naturally the French tried desperately to derail the peace initiative, creating (in the phrase of a dispirited Spanish diplomat) ‘an artificial labyrinth, constructed in such a way that those who allow themselves to be led into it can never find the exit’.68 Ironically for a cardinal of the Catholic Church, Mazarin concentrated his efforts on wooing the Dutch Calvinist clergy, some 1,200 in number, almost all of them implacably opposed to a peace with Spain. The death of Frederick Henry in March 1647 provided a new ally because his son and successor as Stadholder, William II, also strongly opposed the peace; nevertheless, the States-General approved the final agreement and, after another round of fruitless bargaining to secure Zealand's consent, in May 1648 at Münster the delegates of Spain and of six Dutch provinces solemnly swore to uphold a permanent peace. The longest revolt in European history was over.

  Supporters of the settlement predicted glittering prosperity, universal harmony and even a new Golden Age as soon as the war ended; some improvements duly occurred – freight and insurance rates declined even further; trade with Spain, Spanish Italy and Spanish America soared – but the benefits accrued mostly to the merchants of Holland. The rest of the Republic's citizens may have been – and certainly felt – worse off in 1648–50 than before. To begin with, they suffered the same appalling weather as other parts of the world: in some areas it rained every day between April and November 1648, so that the hay and grain rotted in the fields – a local bard wrote a poem entitled ‘The rainy weather of the year 1648’ – and then came six months of frost and snow during which the canals froze over, stopping all barge traffic. Many complained of ‘the winter that lasted six months’. The summer of 1649 was also unusually wet, and the summer of 1650 unusually cold. Between 1648 and 1651, grain prices in the Republic stood at their highest level for a century.69

  Paradoxically, peace with Spain intensified the impact of poor harvests in frontier regions. As soon as the fighting ceased, the central government reduced the garrisons in the fortified towns in the east and south, and since the Dutch state normally paid its troops in full and on time, the dramatic reduction in military consumers put many local suppliers (especially tailors, saddle-makers, boot-makers and innkeepers) out of business.70 Zealand also suffered because the province had invested heavily in creating a colony in northwest Brazil, and its leaders acquiesced to peace with Spain only in return for promises of aid from their neighbours against the Brazilian settlers still loyal to Portugal. An expeditionary force duly set out, but the Portuguese settlers routed it (see chapter 15 below).

  This major setback led Zealand to view with favour proposals to renew the war on Spain made by three other influential protagonists: France, the House of Orange, and the Calvinist clergy. Desperate for a second front that would divert the Spanish Army of Flanders, Mazarin tried to persuade William II (Stadholder of five of the provinces after Frederick Henry's death in 1647) and his cousin William Frederick (Stadholder of the other two provinces) to engineer a rupture. Since the Stadholders’ authority arose in large part from their command over the troops of the Republic, the reduction in army size (from 60,000 in 1643 to 35,000 in 1648 and to 29,000 in 1650) drastically diminished their power. Demands by the States of Holland for yet more military economies angered William. The States also angered the Calvinist clergy, the third group opposed to the peace, because they refused to pass laws that promoted Protestantism and restricted Catholic worship in the lands newly acquired from Spain. To gain support for his own agenda, like his uncle Maurice a generation before, William II posed as a champion of Calvinism.

  The year 1650 saw another torrent of polemical Dutch pamphlets, many of them written by Calvinist pastors who blamed the peace for all subsequent misfortunes. ‘War caused all industry and trade to grow and prosper; peace makes them wither and decline,’ one asserted. Moreover, ‘War became a bond of union and unity; peace brings quarrels and disunity.’ Ever since the fighting stopped, the anonymous author continued relentlessly, the price of food had risen to unprecedented heights. ‘Do we not see those towns that prospered most during the war decline during the peace – their industry lost, their merchants diminished, many of their houses up for sale?’ He also claimed (as did some clerics in their sermons) that even the weather revealed God's disapproval of peace with Spain: had it not rained almost incessantly ever since?71 Such crude propaganda found its mark: in March 1650 the Spanish ambassador in The Hague warned his government that ‘the common people certainly do not like the peace, blaming it for all the shortages they suffer, especially that of grain, without remembering the sterility of past years’.72

  The ambassador was unaware that William II had already decided to exploit the general discontent to his own advantage. In October 1649 he confided to his cousin William Frederick that, unless the States of Holland ceased to insist on further reductions in the armed forces, he intended to eliminate its leaders, above all the magistrates of Amsterdam. He sponsored pamphlets that criticized their policies: the lack of help for Brazil, the refusal to ban Catholic priests in the new conquests, and the failure to provide cheap bread. Unbowed, in May 1650 the States of Holland ordered several more units on their payroll to disband; the next day, the prince instructed the units’ commanders to disregard these orders and complained to the States-General – where Holland had but one vote among seven – about the province's usurpation of his power. As in 1618, the States-General authorized the prince to visit each town in Holland and remove every magistrate who had opposed him. Amsterdam offered to negotiate an agreement over troop reductions, but when the prince refused, it composed a statement that reminded everyone that the Stadholder was the servant of the state and not its master. William, it argued, must accept Holland's order for troop reductions so that everyone could ‘enjoy the fruits of the present peace, which the further retention of an unnecessary and unregulated militia would make impossible’.73

  Outraged by such defiance, on 30 July 1650 the prince arrested and imprisoned his leading critics in the States of Holland, believing that his cousin William Frederick and 12,000 soldiers had just forced their way into Amsterdam – but contingency had disrupted his plan. The previous night, a large part of the troops destined for the operation lost their way in a thunderstorm and arrived at the rendezvous thoroughly soaked. While they dried out, a postal courier bound for Amsterdam rode by and (since the troops had no orders to detain passers-by) managed to warn the city. Thanks to this extraordinary chance, by the time William Frederick and his men finally arrived, the magistrates had armed the citizens, closed all the gates and flooded the moat around the city.

  W
hen William of Orange heard the news he retired to his room, stamped his feet and threw his hat on the floor; but after his tantrum subsided, he decided to see whether a personal appearance might intimidate Amsterdam. He joined his troops outside the walls, and after a few days the city meekly agreed to surrender its outspoken magistrates and acknowledged the Stadholder's sole right to issue orders to the army, to determine troop levels, and to decide foreign policy. William, with his domestic base secure, now issued an ultimatum to Philip IV: unless Spain immediately opened peace talks with France, the Dutch Republic would attack.

  Once again, contingency disrupted his plan. The victorious prince took to his bed, stricken by smallpox, and on 6 November 1650 he died of it. Since he lacked an acknowledged heir, his new-found powers – and his threat of a new war with Spain – died with him. The States of Holland immediately freed their imprisoned colleagues and invited representatives from all the provinces to join them in a special session of the States-General, armed with full authority to fill the unprecedented constitutional vacuum.

  Even before the ‘Great Assembly’ met in January 1651, the States of Holland took several revolutionary steps. Above all, they resolved not to appoint a Stadholder for the province and instead made clear that all troops within the province took their orders from them. In the absence of a Stadholder, the States also permitted the patrician elite of each town to choose their own magistrates and name their representatives to the States. The ‘Great Assembly’ both confirmed these initiatives and introduced some more. It appointed a Holland nobleman ‘Field Marshal’ of the Republic's army, and reduced the autonomy of the military: henceforth courts martial would try only military offences (such as desertion and disobedience), leaving soldiers accused of all other crimes to be tried by civil courts. In religious affairs, the States granted freedom of worship to Catholics and Jews; and, although they agreed to tolerate non-Calvinist churches only where they already existed, this effectively guaranteed toleration for all who desired it. Finally, the assembly's sensible decision to ignore pleas to prosecute those who had promoted William II's agenda restored the domestic harmony imperilled by the controversies of the previous four years.

  This constitutional revolution received widespread praise – the philosopher Baruch Spinoza termed it ‘the System of True Liberty’ – and it brought unprecedented prosperity to most parts of the Republic for a generation. Nevertheless, it suffered from two linked weaknesses: the very prosperity of the Dutch provoked envy and attacks by its neighbours; and, without a Stadholder to coordinate military and naval operations, the Republic had difficulty in winning its wars. Thus when Britain attacked in 1652, the Dutch navy lost almost every battle; while the following year, although Dutch success in closing off both the Baltic and the Mediterranean to English shipping led to peace in 1654, that same year, the last Dutch outposts in Brazil surrendered to Portugal. The Republic did rather better when Britain attacked again in 1664, but the spectacular raid that destroyed or captured several English warships at anchor in the River Medway scarcely compensated for the loss of New Netherland, the last Dutch outpost in North America. Then, in 1672, Britain attacked a third time, this time in alliance with France.

  Dutch forces crumbled before the invasion of Louis XIV at the head of 130,000 troops and one month later, the States-General reversed its position on civil-military relations and reluctantly appointed William III, posthumous son of the late prince of Orange and now aged 22, commander of its army and navy. It was almost too late: having captured every Dutch town in his path with scarcely a struggle, in June 1672 Louis entered Utrecht in triumph. As urban riots rocked Holland, the remaining delegates in the States-General voted to surrender on ignominious terms. Luckily for them, Louis rejected their offer and demanded more, allowing Prince William to restore order, and to focus the energy of everyone on resisting the French – but his efforts might have failed without a sudden change in the weather. Extreme drought in the spring of 1672 had facilitated the French invasion by reducing the level of the Rhine and other rivers so that the French cavalry could wade across and create a bridgehead, allowing the king's engineers to build bridges for the infantry. The drought also prevented the Dutch from using their ultimate defensive strategy: opening the dikes to create a water barrier between Holland and the French. Until mid-July, the water rose painfully slowly. Then torrential rain fell, rendering all routes into Holland impassable, and at the end of the month Louis left Utrecht and returned home. Under the firm hand of William III, Dutch naval and military organization steadily improved until first England (1674) and then France (1678) made peace.74

  Louis XIV did not accept failure gracefully, especially since the peace of 1678 included important economic concessions that favoured Dutch merchants trading with France. In the course of 1687, Louis rescinded almost all these concessions, drastically increasing tariffs on some Dutch imports and totally banning others; and, since France was the largest market for many Dutch goods, the effects on the Republic were both immediate and serious. In summer 1688 the French ambassador in The Hague warned his master that ‘the trade of Holland is reduced by more than a quarter, and the population is severely affected and extremely angry with France’. Moreover, he added, many of the Republic's leaders favoured a reciprocal ban on French imports, even if this brought with it the risk of war.75 Prince William and his advisers began to discuss what to do in the worst-case scenario: a repeat of the joint attack by France and Britain in 1672; but developments in each neighbouring state brought salvation.

  In 1685 the Elector Palatine, grandson of Frederick, died without male heirs, but recognized his closest male relative as his successor. This did not satisfy Louis XIV, who claimed a share of the Palatinate on behalf of his brother, married to the late Elector's sister, and in September 1688 French forces crossed the Rhine to enforce his demands, capturing or devastating the whole Palatinate. Although the invasion was thus a tactical triumph, it proved a strategic disaster, because it not only turned virtually all German rulers into France's enemies but also distracted Louis from noting the invitation sent by some of James II's English subjects to William, begging him to invade before the end of the year. Louis warned the Dutch leaders that should they attack His Britannic Majesty, France would immediately attack them, but the invasion of Germany meant that he lacked the resources to make good his threat. Instead, William III managed to assemble a fleet of almost 500 vessels and an army of over 40,000 troops for the invasion – and still leave enough ships and soldiers behind to defend the Republic. They had gained control of all England by Christmas, and, although Louis declared war, the new ruler of Great Britain and the Dutch Republic forged alliances with Spain, the Holy Roman Emperor and other German rulers explicitly to deprive France of all its gains since the Peace of the Pyrenees. Although the Republic remained at war with France for most of the next 25 years, it survived as an independent state for over a century.

  The ‘Swiss Revolution’

  The Dutch Republic was not the only state that prospered during – and partly because of – the Thirty Years War: another beneficiary was the Swiss confederation. In 1648, although the Peace of Westphalia stopped short of granting the 13 Swiss cantons (and some associated territories) sovereign status, it recognized their ‘exemption’ from the laws and institutions of the Holy Roman Empire – in effect making them independent. This did not, however, make them unified: each canton maintained a unique relationship with the others. The million or so inhabitants of the confederation spoke four different languages (German, French, Italian and Romansch, with many dialects of each) and professed different creeds (some were Catholics; most belonged to one of the Protestant creeds; a few had lords of one faith and subjects of another). Political and economic divisions also existed. On the one hand, in most cantons a single town dominated the countryside, controlling production and collecting taxes for its own benefit. On the other, despite the harsh environment (70 per cent of Switzerland is mountain), the economic boom and milder cl
imate of the sixteenth century encouraged both the cultivation of new lands and specialization in the production of hardy cash crops such as hemp and flax for export.

  When the hero of Hans von Grimmelshausen's novel Simplicissimus managed to escape the Thirty Years War and cross into Switzerland, he described a country that

  Seemed so strange to me in comparison with other German lands that I might have been in Brazil or China. I saw the people there buying and selling in peace; the stables full of cattle; the farmhouses full of chicken, geese and ducks; the roads safe for travellers; the inns full of people making merry. There was absolutely no fear of the enemy, no worries about being plundered, and no dread of losing goods, and life or limb … So I considered this country to be an earthly paradise.76

  Grimmelshausen exaggerated. Climatic deterioration raised food prices in many Swiss cantons to their highest level for two centuries in 1636–41; and between 1642 and 1650, agricultural prices fell on average to at least half their former value. But as long as the Thirty Years War lasted, men who could no longer make a living from farming found highly paid employment as mercenaries abroad, and the wages and booty which they acquired boosted the Swiss home economy.77 The war in Germany affected Switzerland in two other ways. First, it benefited several towns because it caused a massive influx of refugees who brought with them both wealth and economic skills: by 1638, the 7,500 refugees in the city of Basel almost outnumbered the native residents. Second, in 1633 and again in 1638 German armies violated Swiss neutrality, leading several cities to embark on an expensive defence programme, building or improving their fortifications and increasing the number of their defenders.