page_title: Eighty Years' War
section_title: The Dutch Republic resurges (1588–1609)
hierarchical_section_title: Eighty Years' War / First forty years (1566–1609) / The Dutch Republic resurges (1588–1609)
caption_attribution_description: Cavalry engagement from the struggle of the Dutch against Spain
context_page_description: The Eighty Years' War or Dutch War of Independence was a revolt of the Seventeen Provinces of what are today the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg against Philip II of Spain, the sovereign of the Habsburg Netherlands. After the initial stages, Philip II deployed his armies and regained control over most of the rebelling provinces. Under the leadership of the exiled William the Silent, the northern provinces continued their resistance. They eventually were able to oust the Habsburg armies, and in 1581 they established the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands. The war continued in other areas, although the heartland of the republic was no longer threatened. This included the origins of the Dutch colonial empire, which began with Dutch attacks on Portugal's overseas territories, which at the time was conceived as carrying overseas the war with Spain due to Portugal's being in a dynastic union with Spain.
  The Dutch Republic was recognized by Spain and the major European powers in 1609 at the start of the Twelve Years' Truce. Hostilities broke out again around 1619, as part of the broader Thirty Years' War.
context_section_description: The new republic strongly increased its trade and wealth from 1585 onwards, with Amsterdam replacing Antwerp as the main port of north-west Europe.
  When Adolf of Nieuwenaar died in a gunpowder explosion in October 1589, Oldenbarnevelt engineered Maurice to be appointed stadtholder of Utrecht, Gelderland, and Overijssel. Oldenbarnevelt managed to wrest power away from the Council of State, with its English members. Instead, military decisions were more and more made by the States-General with its preponderant influence of the Hollandic delegation.
  Henry IV of France's succession to the French throne in 1589 occasioned a new civil war in France, in which Philip soon intervened on the Catholic side, offering the Dutch a respite from Parma's relentless pressure. Under the two stadtholders, Maurice and William Louis, the Dutch army was in a short time thoroughly reformed from an ill-disciplined, ill-paid rabble of mercenary companies from all over Protestant Europe, to a well-disciplined, well-paid professional army, with many soldiers, skilled in the use of modern fire-arms, like arquebuses, and soon the more modern muskets. The use of these fire-arms required tactical innovations like the counter-march of files of musketeers to enable rapid volley fire by ranks; such complicated manoevres had to be instilled by constant drilling. These reforms were later emulated by other European armies in the 17th century.
  They also developed a new approach to siege warfare, assembling an impressive train of siege artillery, taking the offensive in 1591. Already in 1590 Breda was recaptured with a ruse. But the next year Maurice used his much enlarged army with newly developed transportation methods using rivercraft, to sweep the IJssel-river valley, capturing Zutphen and Deventer; then invade the Ommelanden in Groningen, capturing all Spanish forts; and ending the campaign with the conquest of Hulst in Flanders and Nijmegen in Gelderland. In one fell swoop this transformed the eastern part of the Netherlands, which had hitherto been in Parma's hands. The next year Maurice joined his cousin William Louis in taking Steenwijk and the formidable fortress of Coevorden. Drenthe was now brought under control of the States-General.
  In June 1593 Geertruidenberg would be captured and in 1594 Groningen. The province of Groningen, City and Ommelanden, was now admitted to the Union of Utrecht, as the seventh voting province.  Drenthe was made a separate province with its own States and stadtholder (again William Louis), though Holland blocked its getting a vote in the States-General.
  The fall of Groningen also changed the balance of forces in the German county of East Friesland, where the Lutheran Count of East Frisia, Edzard II, was opposed by the Calvinist forces in Emden. The States-General now laid a garrison in Emden, forcing the Count to recognise them diplomatically in the Treaty of Delfzijl of 1595. This also gave the Republic a strategic interest in the Ems River valley, which was reinforced during the stadtholders' large offensive of 1597. Maurice first seized the fortress of Rheinberg, a strategic Rhine crossing, and subsequently Groenlo, Oldenzaal, and Enschede, before capturing the county of Lingen.
  The end of Spanish-French hostilities after the Peace of Vervins of May 1598 would free the Army of Flanders again for operations in the Netherlands. Soon after, Philip died and bequeathed the Netherlands to his daughter Isabella and her husband Archduke Albert, who would henceforth reign as co-sovereigns. This sovereignty was largely nominal as the Army of Flanders was to remain in the Netherlands, largely paid for by the new king of Spain, Philip III. Ceding the Netherlands offered a prospect of peace, as both the Archdukes, and the chief minister of the new king, the duke of Lerma were less inflexible toward the Republic than Philip II had been. Secret negotiations proved abortive because Spain insisted on two points that were nonnegotiable to the Dutch: recognition of the sovereignty of the Archdukes (though they were ready to accept Maur
caption: Cavalry engagement from the struggle of the Dutch against Spain c. 1605
exif: {}