Najmillwe, i think Paaskynen has made a very apt analogy between the Netherlands and Carthage. I would say the war of independence of the Dutch could be said to date from 1563 or 1564--at least the latter, when Egmont and Van Hoorn were exectued in Brussels, and William the Silent headed out for Germany. The confiscation of William's estates, and his raising of an army in Germany would constitute the beginning of that war, i would think, so at the latest, 1566. The Union of Utrecht in 1579 certainly stands as the date for the creation of the United Provinces.
Carthage was a commercial empire, and not a territorial imperialism. Carthage relied upon control of shipping and the profit from trade to purchase her security--Rome levied troops from among the Italo-Tuscan and Greek populations of Italy, and when she needed a Navy, it was commanded by fiat. Obviously, history does not repeat itself, but Holland was obliged to purchase her military security as well. The "Sea Beggars" fought the Spaniard well at Leyden, but they also defeated the Spaniard at sea, harried Spanish trade, and built a trade empire such as the world had never before seen, and would have made the Carthaginians envious. Just as more than a century of warfare eventually exhausted Carthage, so the eighty and more years fighting spain, and the more than forty years of fighting France eventually bankrupted the Dutch. In the case of Carthage, they had no real allies, and the defiance of the Romans by Syracuse and Corinth did Carthage no service--their efforts were neither contributory nor coordinated. In the case of Holland, the close "friendship" of England eventually meant that English bayonets helped to keep the French wolf at bay, but Holland surrendered the most part of her carrying trade and much of her overseas empire to the English in the ruinous Anglo-Dutch naval wars before William III became King of England as well as Stadtholder in Holland.
I'll repeat what i said earlier, Paaskynen's analogy is a good one, and shows perception and judgment.
Your sound knowledge of history never ceses to amaze me, Setanta. Thanks for your explanation of the facts, I agree it's a sound one. Numerous correct analogies can be and are drawn here.
Yet, the Dutch never had the capabilities or the armies, hired guns or not, to take the war to the enemy. Obviously enough, carthage did. I honiestly believe that, had the dutch faced the Romans during our 80 year war, we would hvae been easily subjugated. We were nowhere near as powerful as Carthage was on the military front.
Then again, Carthage was always on the lookout to increase its sphere of influence. Once Sicily fell to Rome in the first punic war, Carthage tried to gain a firmer foothold in spain, coincidentally creating a battlehardened army consisting of veteran soldiers, the army which Hannibal would use against Rome.
Carthage was a FAR more poweful player at the outset of its conflict with Rome then the Netherlands could EVER aspire to be. It took Rome two costly wars to finally claim supremacy on the Mediterranean sea, and one more to finally get rid of Carthage forever.
Further on, as costly as the 80 year war was, it did by no means deplete our reserves, as you put it.
The ruination of our 'trade empire' set in with the Navigation Act the English composed in 1651, in which they proclaimed that only ships from the producing country, or ships from England itself, were allowed to bring goods into england. This was directly aimed against the Netherlands, a little country which couldn't produce much itself, and therefor made their money by shipping the goods made by and ment for other countries.
The Anglo-Dutch naval wars that followed cost us New York, and were for the rest mostly indecisive. The sun king was more obviously a menace, since he was closeby and clearly eager to lay his hands on what could in that time be considered to be the gold mine of europe, the province Holland and for a lesser part the province of Zeeland. Since keeping France at bay was also in the interest of England, they helped us out several times.
By this time however, England had once again a firm grip on its interior politics, Cromwell was gone. The Spanish were no longer a major power, and trade with the former spanish colonies could now be conducted by other countries. This was the period in which England quickly became the greatest trading empire in Europe, since they managed to take over most, if not all, of the profitable Atlantic triangle traderoutes. I daresay that we did not so much loose our power, as that England managed to outdistance us economically.
Carthage was broken by military means, the Netherlands by economic competition. There's a difference. The start of the Dutch 'trade empire' was also different from that of Carthage, since we kind of lucked into this position by good entrepeneuring, and the fact that the other major powers in europe at that time had their own internal politic problems(England had Cromwell, and France had their religious wars in the last part of the sixteenth century). Spain of course, was involved in a protracted war against the Netherlands, and their internal crusades against the moriscos weaekened their economic viability significantly.
analogies can be drawn, but substantial differences can also be pointed out.
