Netherlands, the
Country in western Europe on the North Sea, bounded east by Germany
and south by Belgium.
Government
The Netherlands is a hereditary monarchy. Its 1983 constitution, based
on that of 1814, provides for a two-chamber legislature called
the States-General, consisting of a First Chamber of 75 and a
Second Chamber of 150. Members of the First Chamber are indirectly
elected by representatives of 12 provincial councils for a six-year
term, half retiring every three years. Members of the Second Chamber
are elected by universal adult suffrage, through a system of proportional
representation, also for a four-year term. Legislation is introduced
and bills amended in the Second Chamber, while the First has the
right to approve or reject.
The monarch appoints a prime minister as head of government,
and the prime minister chooses the cabinet. Cabinet members are
not permitted to be members of the legislature, but they may attend
its meetings and take part in debates, and they are collectively
responsible to it. There is also a council of state, the government's
oldest advisory body, whose members are intended to represent
a broad cross section of the country's life, and include former
politicians, scholars, judges, and business people, all appointed
for life. The sovereign is its formal president but appoints a
vice president to chair it.
Although not a federal state, the Netherlands gives considerable
autonomy to its 11 provinces, each of which has an appointed governor
and an elected council.
History
The inhabitants of the Netherlands are descendants of a Germanic people
called by the Romans the Batavi, who lived on an island between
the two branches of the River Rhine, and the Frisians who dwelt
further north. The land south of the Rhine, occupied by Celtic
peoples, was brought under Roman rule by Julius Caesar as governor
of Gaul in 51 BC.
The Middle Ages
Roman rule lasted until the 4th century AD, when the Franks overran
the south. The Frankish kings subdued the Frisians and Saxons
north of the Rhine in the 7th- 8th centuries and imposed Christianity
on them. Charlemagne's dominion in the late 8th century extended
to the Netherlands, and he built a palace at Nijmegen on the River
Waal.
After the empire of Charlemagne broke up, and with the establishment
of feudalism, the country was divided into small sovereignties.
In 922 Dirk became count of Holland, and the other Netherland
provinces (such as Namur, Hainaut, Limburg, and Zutphen) were
divided between various barons and counts, autocratic rulers who
owed allegiance to the dukes or earls of Lorraine, Brabant, and
Flanders. Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Overijssel, Groningen, Drenthe,
and Friesland, which were afterwards to form the United Provinces
of the Netherlands, were chiefly under the rule of the counts
of Holland and the Bishop of Utrecht, who in turn owed nominal
allegiance to the German or Holy Roman Empire.
Between the 11th and 15th centuries, the cities of the Netherlands
- notably Bruges, Ghent, and Antwerp - became important as commercial
centres, usually ruled by small groups of merchants. Through the
15th century all of the Low Countries (the modern-day Netherlands,
Belgium, and Luxembourg, then collectively known as the Netherlands)
were brought under the rule of the dukes of Burgundy, by purchase,
inheritance, and conquest.
Habsburg rule
In 1477 Mary - following the death in battle of her father Charles
the Bold, Duke of Burgundy - married Maximilian, the archduke
of Austria, who later became Holy Roman emperor as Maximilian
I. Through this, the Low Countries came into the possession of
the Habsburgs. The Low Countries were passed on by Mary of Burgundy
to her son, Philip, who married the daughter of Ferdinand and
Isabella of Spain. Dying before his father, in 1506 Philip left
the Low Countries to his son, Charles, who became king of Spain
in 1516 and Holy Roman emperor in 1519 as Charles V. The Low Countries
thus became the Spanish Netherlands.
The Dutch Revolt
The struggle for freedom and for civic and religious independence came
to a head in the reign of Philip II of Spain in the middle of
the 16th century. The revolt was partly due to religious reasons:
some of the people of the Low Countries were Protestant or Calvinist,
and objected to the ardently Catholic policies of Philip II, including
the imposition of the Inquisition. More important, there was also
strong objections to the increasing centralization of government,
the economic demands of the Spanish crown, and the maintenance
of a standing army.
After an outbreak of image-breaking in churches by Dutch Calvinists
in 1567, Philip dispatched a Spanish army under the Duke of Alba
to restore order. Alba's brutally repressive actions sparked off
a revolt. In 1573 William the Silent, prince of Orange - who was
Philip's lieutenant in Holland, Zeeland, and Utrecht - became
leader of the revolt against Spanish rule. William, although ambivalent
towards religious disputes, came to rely upon the Dutch Calvinists
for his chief support. William was one of the earliest champions
of the principle of toleration, but the revolt against Spain became
identified, especially by foreigners, with the cause of Protestantism,
and William was regarded as a Protestant hero. The foundation
of an independent Dutch state owes more to him than to any other
individual.
By the capture of Brielle in 1572 Spain received its first serious
reverse. In 1579 the Union of Utrecht was formed, by which the
seven northern provinces banded together as the United Provinces
to resist Spain, and in 1581 they declared their freedom. However,
the south (now Belgium and Luxembourg) was reconquered by Spain.
After William's assassination by a Spanish agent in 1584 the
Dutch continued fighting, receiving military aid from England.
This in turn provoked the Spanish to send the Armada against England
(1588). William's sons, Maurice (1567-1625) and Frederick Henry
(1584-1647), took prominent parts in the war against Spain, both
succeeding in their turn to their father's offices. Maurice (Count
Maurice of Nassau), in a series of brilliant campaigns, drove
the Spanish from the northern Netherlands. The Dutch also won
many sea battles against the Spanish, and in 1609 Philip III of
Spain agreed to a twelve years' truce. The war, renewed in 1621
as part of the wider European conflict of the Thirty Years' War,
was continued until 1648, when, by the peace of Westphalia, Spain
recognized the independence of the United Provinces (also known
as the Dutch Republic).
Economic prosperity and trade rivalry
During the 1590s the Dutch economy thrived, as witnessed by the phenomenal
growth of Amsterdam. The bases of this prosperity were the Baltic
trade and the herring fishery. The foundation of the Dutch East
India Company in 1602 offered vast opportunities for increasing
the country's prosperity, and during the truce with Spain the
Dutch government consolidated its economic gains. In this strong
economic climate, science and the arts also flourished.
The Dutch then broke the Portuguese monopoly in the lucrative
spice trade with the East Indies (modern Indonesia), and took
over many of Portugal's possessions in the East Indies and Africa.
They also gained control of Brazil for a brief period (1630-45),
and established a permanent trading station on the Caribbean island
of Curaçao. Fortunes were made in the slave trade from Africa
to the Americas, and in the importation of raw materials from
the Americas.
By the middle of the 17th century, Dutch trading success prompted
England to pass a series of Navigation Acts. The Navigation Acts
of 1650-51 were targeted at protecting English trade at the expense
of the Dutch, and led to the first Anglo-Dutch War (1652-54).
Further Navigation Acts led to two more Anglo-Dutch Wars (1665-67
and 1672-74), mostly fought at sea. Notable among the Dutch were
Admirals van Tromp and de Ruyter, the latter of whom sailed up
the Medway and the Thames in 1667, destroying English ships. The
wars were militarily inconclusive, but they resulted in the exclusion
of the Dutch from North America and west Africa, and in Britain
taking over much of the overseas trade of the Netherlands.
Internal conflicts in the 17th century
Success against Spain was followed by a struggle for power within the
Dutch Republic, between the princes of the house of Orange-Nassau
and their rivals in the towns, a struggle in which Prince Maurice
triumphed. Following the peace of Westphalia (1648) a struggle
followed between the Orangist or popular party, which favoured
centralization under the Prince of Orange as chief magistrate
(or stadholder), and the republican, oligarchical or states' rights
party, headed by Johann de Witt, grand pensionary (chief legal
and executive officer) of Holland.
The premature death of the stadholder William II of Orange,
who died before the birth of his son, William III of Orange, allowed
the republican party to seize control in 1650. De Witt became
virtual prime minister,and soon found himself embroiled in the
Anglo-Dutch Wars.
The political struggle between the republican faction of de
Witt and that of the Prince of Orange ended with the murder of
de Witt (1672) and the triumph of William III of Orange, who recovered
the office of stadholder and secured British friendship by his
marriage with his cousin, the future Mary II of England. This
contributed to his subsequent elevation to the throne of England
as King William III, after William's invasion in 1688 from the
Dutch Republic.
Wars with Louis XIV
The expansionist ambitions of the French king, Louis XIV, led to a
series of wars with France. The attempt by Louis to annex the
Spanish Netherlands (modern Belgium and Luxembourg) in 1667 alarmed
England and the Dutch Republic, who formed an alliance with Sweden
to prevent Louis from carrying out his aim. Louis withdrew in
1668, but following the war of 1672-78 against the Dutch (the
Republic coming close to complete collapse in 1672 following a
French invasion), and the Peace of Nijmegen, Louis made great
gains in the north.
The Dutch, allied with William III of England, were again in
conflict with Louis in the War of the League of Augsburg (1688-97).
By the Treaty of Ryswick (1697) Louis gave up all conquests, with
few exceptions, gained since 1678. In the War of the Spanish Succession
(1701-14), the Dutch and British were once more allied against
France. By the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) the Dutch were allowed
to keep some of their barrier fortresses in the Spanish Netherlands,
which were transferred to Austria.
Dutch decline
The wars with France had exhausted the Netherlands, and the Treaty
of Utrecht in 1713 marked the end of the Netherlands' greatness
as a world power. The Dutch had begun to lose their Baltic trade
to Britain and France, and, although the East Indies trade continued
to prosper, the hugely profitable Atlantic trade was now also
dominated by the French and British, the great commercial and
colonial rivals of the 18th century. At home, the population was
declining, and, in addition, the dykes that kept the sea from
flooding large areas of the Netherlands were suffering from erosion.
A huge expenditure was required to repair them, after they gave
way in 1731, causing widespread flood damage.
William III's death, without an heir, inaugurated a second period
without a stadholder. Eventually, the princes of Orange reasserted
their authority, using a French invasion scare in 1747 during
the War of the Austrian Succession to make their position hereditary.
Some reforms were attempted in the 1780s, but the ` Patriot´ movement
which urged radical reform was brought to a halt by an invasion
of troops of the king of Prussia (brother-in-law of William V
of Orange) in 1787.
The Revolutionary and Napoleonic period
Many Dutch, anxious for constitutional reform, welcomed the arrival
of French Revolutionary forces in 1794-95. The United Provinces
collapsed and were replaced by a French-sponsored ` sister republic´,
the Batavian Republic. Louis Bonaparte was made king of Holland
in 1806, but abdicated when the country was attached to the French
Empire (1810 -13).
The Orange family had taken refuge in England when the French
invaded the Netherlands, but on the fall of Napoleon they returned.
By the Congress of Vienna the northern and southern provinces
were formed into the kingdom of the Netherlands under King William
I (son of Prince William V of Orange).
The 19th and early 20th centuries
In 1830 the southern provinces seceded and Belgium was formed into
a separate kingdom. In 1840 William I abdicated in favour of his
son William II (ruled 1840-49), who in 1848 granted a new and
more liberal constitution to the people. During the reign of William
III (1849- 90) the question of Luxembourg was settled: since 1815
the king of the Netherlands had also been grand duke of Luxembourg,
but in 1867 the grand duchy was established as an independent
state.
From the middle of the 19th century religious issues dominated
Dutch domestic politics for many years, and several of the modern
Dutch political parties have their basis in historical religious
divisions. A beginning was made in the field of social legislation,
which was considerably expanded in the 20th century. In 1890 Queen
Wilhelmina, then still a child, came to the throne. The Palace
of Peace, to which many nations contributed, was opened in The
Hague in 1913, as the premises of the Permanent Court of Arbitration
(now the UN International Court of Justice). From 1815 to 1939
the Netherlands played little part in European history, and maintained
a policy of strict neutrality.
From the mid-19th century onwards there was great industrial
and agricultural expansion in the Netherlands. The coalfields
of south Limburg, which owed their later development to the fact
that during World War I the supply of German coal became restricted,
were exploited with considerable success; while the great scheme
for the reclamation of the Zuider Zee (in order to add a new province
to the country) was launched in 1923.
During World War I the Netherlands remained neutral, and on
his abdication in November 1918, Kaiser William II of Germany
went into exile there. After World War I, universal suffrage and
proportional representation were introduced. At the same time
the principle of equal public spending on secular and denominational
schools was incorporated into the constitution.
Occupation during World War II
The Germans invaded the Netherlands on 10 May 1940. On 11 May a German
armoured column entered Brabant and fighting took place in The
Hague. Queen Wilhelmina left on a British destroyer for England,
and was followed by the Dutch cabinet. The Germans destroyed the
centre of Rotterdam in an air bombardment in order to force the
Dutch to surrender; within four hours 25,000 buildings were destroyed.
The Dutch had little choice but to surrender.
Hitler appointed Arthur Seyss- Inquart, an Austrian Nazi, as
commissioner for the occupied Netherlands. The country was soon
crushed under the financial burdens imposed by the Germans and
the standard of living rapidly declined. Produce was removed to
Germany, and Dutch industry was geared to German war needs. Seyss-Inquart
attempted to impose Nazi `Nordic culture´ on Dutch institutions.
The fact that the Dutch proved to be immune to this cultural infiltration
was partly due to the churches, which developed into strongholds
of patriotism. There was active resistance too, and many Dutch
people were executed for their activities against the Germans;
others fled to Britain to continue the struggle from there.
The Allied liberation of the Netherlands
In 1944 the Anglo-American chiefs of staff decided to use the newly
constituted British and American Airborne Divisions to assist
in seizing the Rhine crossings at Nijmegen and Arnhem, after the
rapid advance by the land armies following the Normandy landings
in June. The first landings of airborne troops were made on 17
September and reinforcements followed on successive days. There
was heavy fighting in the area between Nijmegen and Arnhem during
the ensuing days, and the position of the First Airborne Division
became so precarious that on 25 September orders were given for
the withdrawal of all forces across the Lower Rhine (see Arnhem,
Battle of).
After this the Allies turned their attention to opening up Antwerp.
By 30 September 1944 the whole of South Beveland had been cleared
by British and Canadian forces. By 9 November the stiff resistance
had ceased and some 10,000 troops had been captured. Resistance
in north Holland collapsed in the first week of April 1945 and
the sea was reached on 15 April. By 21 April the whole area, apart
from a small tip in the northeast, was cleared as far as Harderwijk
and the eastern shore of the IJsselmeer. To the west the IJssel
River line was stubbornly defended at Deventer and Zutphen, but
the former town fell on 10 April. In the southern part, the Canadian
First Corps attacked from Nijmegen, and Arnhem was taken on 15
April. The Germans now withdrew into ` Fortress Holland´ behind
the Grebbe and New Water lines, protected by floods, beyond which
no further Allied advance was made in this sector. The complete
liberation of the country soon followed on the final collapse
of all German resistance in Europe, though during the last weeks
of the German occupation the Dutch suffered heavily from shortages
of food and other commodities.
Postwar reconstruction
The enormous task of reconstruction was begun immediately after liberation.
Further Dutch industrial expansion was greatly aided by the discovery
of large quantities of gas under the North Sea off the Dutch coast.
Side by side with material reconstruction the postwar governments
pursued a full programme of social improvements. Those who had
collaborated with the Germans were put on trial. In December 1945
the leader of the Dutch Nazis, Anton Mussert, was sentenced to
death by a special court at The Hague. In April 1949 minor frontier
modifications in the Netherlands' favour were made on the Dutch-German
frontier.
Queens Wilhelmina, Juliana, and Beatrix
On the national celebrations in honour of the fiftieth year of her
reign and of her sixty-eighth birthday, Queen Wilhelmina on 10
August 1948 resumed for a period of one week the royal authority
that she had relinquished the previous May in favour of her daughter,
Princess Juliana, who had since then acted as Princess Regent.
On 4 September Queen Wilhelmina formally signed an Act of Abdication.
Queen Juliana, the fifth monarch of the Netherlands and of the
royal house of Orange-Nassau, was formally inaugurated on 6 September
in the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam. Queen Wilhelmina after abdication
took the title of princess of the Netherlands, living in retirement
until her death in 1962.
Controversy arose in 1964 when Juliana's second daughter, Irene
(1939- ), became a Roman Catholic and married the Carlist claimant
to the Spanish throne. She later renounced her succession right
to the Dutch throne. In 1965 controversy revived when the heir
to the throne, Beatrix, became engaged to a West German diplomat.
Many former resistance fighters strongly protested; but the Dutch
parliament eventually approved the proposed marriage, which took
place in 1966. Following the birth of three sons to Beatrix, the
first male heirs to the House of Orange for a hundred years, the
marriage won popular favour, and Beatrix became queen in 1980
on her mother's abdication.
Decolonization
The dominant issue in Dutch politics in the immediate postwar years
was that of the Dutch East Indies, which had been occupied by
the Japanese during World War II and was demanding independence
as Indonesia. After several years of abortive negotiation and
intermittent fighting, the independence of Indonesia was finally
established in 1949. The fighting stopped, and the transfer of
sovereignty to the new state was approved by the Dutch and Indonesian
parliaments. The question of Netherlands New Guinea remained unsettled,
however, until 1963, when it was ceded to Indonesia.
Among the Netherlands' other colonies, Suriname became independent
in 1975, while the Netherlands Antilles have full internal autonomy.
The Netherlands absorbed large numbers of people from its former
colonies.
Regional cooperation and prosperity
Dutch neutrality ended in 1940, and from 1945 the Netherlands became
fully committed to the Western alliance. It became a member of
the Western European Union, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization,
the Benelux customs union, the European Coal and Steel Community,
the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom), and the European
Economic Community.
The Netherlands prospered economically in the postwar years.
Its currency, the guilder, became one of the most buoyant in the
economy of Western Europe. The development, outside Rotterdam,
of the Europoort, one of the greatest oil-refining centres in
the world, contributed greatly to this prosperity. This concentration
upon oil made the Europoort especially vulnerable in the aftermath
of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. The support of the Dutch government
for Israel aroused considerable hostility from the Arabs and the
trade in oil to the Netherlands was temporarily boycotted by Arab
countries. The Dutch government introduced a variety of emergency
measures to conserve energy, which were later adopted elsewhere.
Politics and government
Politically, the development of the Netherlands has been calm. All
governments since 1945 have been coalitions, with the parties
differing mainly over economic policies. In the 1970s the political
balance shifted towards the left.
In the September 1989 elections, fought largely on environmental
issues, Ruud Lubbers's Christian Democrats won the most parliamentary
seats. Lubbers formed a coalition government with the Labour Party
(PvdA). Both parties lost support in the May 1994 elections and
eventually the PvdA leader, Wim Kok, formed a three- party coalition
with the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy and the Democrats
66, both centrist in orientation.
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