Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Abbreviations
- List of Contributors
- John B. Hattendorf – A Transatlantic Tribute
- Introduction
- 1 Spanish Noblemen as Galley Captains: A Problematical Social History
- 2 Strategy Seen from the Quarterdeck in the Eighteenth-Century French Navy
- 3 Danish and Swedish Flag Disputes with the British in the Channel
- 4 Reconsidering the Guerre de Course under Louis XIV: Naval Policy and Strategic Downsizing in an Era of Fiscal Overextension
- 5 British Naval Administration and the Lower Deck Manpower Problem in the Eighteenth Century
- 6 British Naval Administration and the Quarterdeck Manpower Problem in the Eighteenth Century
- 7 The Raison d’Être and the Actual Employment of the Dutch Navy in Early Modern Times
- 8 British Defensive Strategy at Sea in the War against Napoleon
- 9 The Offensive Strategy of the Spanish Navy, 1763–1808
- 10 The Influence of Sea Power upon Three Great Global Wars, 1793–1815, 1914–1918, 1939–1945: A Comparative Analysis
- 11 The Evolution of a Warship Type: The Role and Function of the Battlecruiser in Admiralty Plans on the Eve of the First World War
- 12 The Royal Navy and Grand Strategy, 1937–1941
- 13 The Atlantic in the Strategic Perspective of Hitler and his Admirals, 1939–1944
- 14 The Capital Ship, the Royal Navy and British Strategy from the Second World War to the 1950s
- 15 ‘No Scope for Arms Control’: Strategy, Geography and Naval Limitations in the Indian Ocean in the 1970s
- 16 Sir Julian Corbett, Naval History and the Development of Sea Power Theory
- 17 The Influence of Identity on Sea Power
- 18 Professor Spenser Wilkinson, Admiral William Sims and the Teaching of Strategy and Sea Power at the University of Oxford and the United States Naval War College, 1909–1927
- 19 Naval Intellectualism and the Imperial Japanese Navy
- 20 History and Navies: Defining a Dialogue
- 21 Teaching Navies Their History
- Afterword
- A Bibliography of Books, Articles and Reviews Authored, Co-authored, Edited or Co-edited by John B. Hattendorf, 1960–2015
- Index
- Tabula Gratulatoria
7 - The Raison d’Être and the Actual Employment of the Dutch Navy in Early Modern Times
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2016
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Abbreviations
- List of Contributors
- John B. Hattendorf – A Transatlantic Tribute
- Introduction
- 1 Spanish Noblemen as Galley Captains: A Problematical Social History
- 2 Strategy Seen from the Quarterdeck in the Eighteenth-Century French Navy
- 3 Danish and Swedish Flag Disputes with the British in the Channel
- 4 Reconsidering the Guerre de Course under Louis XIV: Naval Policy and Strategic Downsizing in an Era of Fiscal Overextension
- 5 British Naval Administration and the Lower Deck Manpower Problem in the Eighteenth Century
- 6 British Naval Administration and the Quarterdeck Manpower Problem in the Eighteenth Century
- 7 The Raison d’Être and the Actual Employment of the Dutch Navy in Early Modern Times
- 8 British Defensive Strategy at Sea in the War against Napoleon
- 9 The Offensive Strategy of the Spanish Navy, 1763–1808
- 10 The Influence of Sea Power upon Three Great Global Wars, 1793–1815, 1914–1918, 1939–1945: A Comparative Analysis
- 11 The Evolution of a Warship Type: The Role and Function of the Battlecruiser in Admiralty Plans on the Eve of the First World War
- 12 The Royal Navy and Grand Strategy, 1937–1941
- 13 The Atlantic in the Strategic Perspective of Hitler and his Admirals, 1939–1944
- 14 The Capital Ship, the Royal Navy and British Strategy from the Second World War to the 1950s
- 15 ‘No Scope for Arms Control’: Strategy, Geography and Naval Limitations in the Indian Ocean in the 1970s
- 16 Sir Julian Corbett, Naval History and the Development of Sea Power Theory
- 17 The Influence of Identity on Sea Power
- 18 Professor Spenser Wilkinson, Admiral William Sims and the Teaching of Strategy and Sea Power at the University of Oxford and the United States Naval War College, 1909–1927
- 19 Naval Intellectualism and the Imperial Japanese Navy
- 20 History and Navies: Defining a Dialogue
- 21 Teaching Navies Their History
- Afterword
- A Bibliography of Books, Articles and Reviews Authored, Co-authored, Edited or Co-edited by John B. Hattendorf, 1960–2015
- Index
- Tabula Gratulatoria
Summary
Formulating the raison d’être for the Dutch Navy in early modern times is not difficult. The Low Countries and later the Dutch Republic bordered the North Sea, and on the inland side the Zuyder Zee. Salt water offered possibilities for invasion or raids from overseas. The Dutch themselves used the sea for merchant shipping and fisheries. They were eager to open the whole world for their economic activities. Naval forces were the foremost safeguard against invasion. Protection of commercial shipping and fisheries required convoys. Overseas expansion required offensive sea power.
The Sixteenth Century
The Habsburg rulers of the Netherlands, Charles V and Philip II, started the organisation of regular naval forces. The city of Veere in Zeeland became the centre of all their naval activities. At some periods there were even some permanent warships. Differences of interests between the provinces hampered the introduction of fixed convoys on shipping routes to western and southern Europe and also for the fisheries, but some occasional state protection could nevertheless be provided. The incursions of the Protestant rebels called ‘Sea Beggars’ from 1566 to 1572 proved the vulnerability of the coastal areas along the North Sea and Zuyder Zee. Hereafter, nobody in the rebellious North and in the loyal South had to be convinced that a navy was an absolute necessity.
In the North it was impossible to establish one centralised naval organisation. Provincial and local interests, the accidents of war and simple power politics created five different admiralties, located in the three maritime provinces of Zeeland, Holland and Friesland, and specifically in the cities of Middelburg, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Hoorn or Enkhuizen, and Dokkum, later Harlingen. The newly born Republic badly needed naval forces in a war that would last for eighty years until 1648. Spain and the Southern Netherlands, and in particular the Dunkirk privateers, represented a constant threat, not only by numerous raids and invasions, but also by their efficient attacks on herring and other fishing boats, and of course on all kinds of merchantmen. The enemy endangered the Dutch economy, which was growing very fast in particular from the 1590s. The Dutch entered into the Mediterranean trades and crossed the equator.
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- Strategy and the SeaEssays in Honour of John B. Hattendorf, pp. 76 - 87Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2016