History of the Netherlands

This article covers the history of the Netherlands for the last 2000 years.

Conversion to Christianity

Historical records date back to about 57 BC, when Roman armies under general Julius Caesar invaded and occupied the southern portion of the Low Countries. The northern frontier of the Roman Empire ran along the Rhine river through the Netherlands. The Romans established a number of fortifications along this frontier which became centers of trade. Germanic tribes living north of the frontier, such as the Frisians, were still heavily influenced by Roman culture through trade contacts. As the Roman Empire disintegrated, Roman armies withdrew from the Netherlands by about AD 406.

The Low Countries were inhabited by numerous Germanic tribes who had an agricultural society. By the third century, these tribes organized into larger federations and three main groups emerged: the Franks in the South, the Saxons in the East, and the Frisians in the North and West. Little is known of the pre-Christian pagan beliefs of the Germanic tribes, though it seems that Wodan and Donar were worshiped by the Germanic tribes in the Low Countries. The southern parts of the country were already nominally Christianized when the Roman Empire converted to Christianity. The Frankish king Clovis I (ca. AD 466 - 511) converted to Christianity in the early fifth century, according to legend in the heat of battle. By AD 700, most of the Low Countries below the Rhine had been converted. The conversion of the Frisians by Irish and Anglo-Saxon missionaries took place in the early eighth century by the monks Willibrord and Boniface. That Christianity did not immediately take hold is shown by the fact that Boniface was murdered in Friesland in AD 754 by pagan Frisians.

19th Century

After Napoleon's final defeat at Waterloo in 1815, his enemies, gathered at the Congress of Vienna where they validated secret wartime treaties. They created the Kingdom of the Netherlands as a buffer against France, by uniting all the lowlands under William (1772-1843), who took the title of William I (1815-1840). In the Netherlands (population 2 million), Protestants controlled the government, to the annoyance of Dutch Catholics and 3.5 million Belgians, who were also Catholic. The first 15 years showed progress and prosperity. as a industrial development increased dramatically in the south, where the Industrial Revolution allowed entrepreneurs and labor to combine in a new textile industry, powered by local coal mines. The was little industry in the northern provinces, but most overseas colonies were restored, and highly profitable trade resumed after a 25 year hiatus.

King William I was the key figure in the transition of the Netherlands to a modern state. An enlightened despot, he had no difficulty in accepting the social transformations of the previous 25 years, including equality of all before the law. He was an active promoter of economic modernization. His position as monarch was ambivalent, however; his sovereignty remained real, but his authority was shared with a legislature elected by the wealthy citizens under a constitution granted by the king. Government was in the hands of ministries of state. The old provinces were reestablished in name only. The government was now fundamentally unitary, and all authority flowed from the center. Economic liberalism combined with moderate monarchical authoritarianism to accelerate the adaptation of the Netherlands to the new conditions of the 19th century. The country prospered until a crisis arose in relations with the southern provinces.

In the Catholic south (Belgium), William's policies were unpopular. The French-speaking Walloons strenuously rejected his attempt to make Dutch the universal language of government. Flemings in the south spoke a Dutch dialect (Flemish) and welcomed the encouragement of Dutch with a revival of literature and popular culture. Other Flemings, notably the educated bourgeoisie, preferred to speak French. Although Catholics possessed legal equality, after centuries as the state church in the south, they resented their subordination to a government that was fundamentally Protestant in spirit and membership. Few Catholics held high office in state or army. Political liberals in the south complained as well about the king's authoritarian methods. All southerners complained of underrepresentation in the national legislature. Although the south was industrializing and was more prosperous than the north the accumulated grievances allowed the multiple opposition forces to coalesce. The outbreak of revolution in France in 1830 was a signal for action, at first on behalf of autonomy for Belgium, as the southern provinces were now called, and later on behalf of total independence. William dithered and his half-hearted efforts by William to reconquer Belgium were thwarted both by the efforts of the Belgians themselves and by the diplomatic opposition of the great powers.

At the the London Conference of 1830–31 the chief powers of Europe ordered (in November, 1830) an armistice between the Dutch and the Belgians. The first draft for a treaty of separation of Belgium and the Netherlands was rejected by the Belgians. A second draft (June, 1831) was rejected by William I, who resumed hostilities. Franco-British intervention forced William to withdraw Dutch forces from Belgium late in 1831, and in 1833 an armistice of indefinite duration was concluded. Belgium was effectively independent but William’s attempts to recover Luxembourg and Limburg led to renewed tension. The London Conference of 1838–39 prepared the final Dutch-Belgian separation treaty of 1839 and divided Luxembourg and Limburg between the Dutch and Belgian crowns. The Kingdom of the Netherlands thereafter was made up of only the 11 northern provinces.

In 1840 William I abdicated in favor of his son, William II, who attempted to carry on the policies of his father in the face of a powerful liberal movement. Sentiment in favor of revising the constitution increased, and, in 1848, while Europe was in turmoil, revision was undertaken by the liberal historian-statesman J. R. Thorbecke. The new liberal constitution, which put the government under the control of the states general, was accepted by the legislature in 1848. William III, who became king in 1849, reluctantly chose Thorbecke to head the new government, which introduced several liberal measures, notably the extension of suffrage. However, Thorbecke's government soon fell, when Protestants rioted against the Vatican's reestablishment of the Catholic episcopate, in abeyance since the 16th century. A conservative government was formed, but it did not undo the liberal measures, and the Catholics were finally given equality after two centuries of subordination.

Dutch domestic history from the middle of the 19th century until the First World War was fundamentally one of the extension of liberal reforms in government, encouragement to the reorganization of the Dutch economy upon a modern basis, and the rise of trade unionism and socialism as movements of the working class independent of traditional liberalism.

Religion was a contentious issue with repeated struggles over the relations of church and state in the field of education. At mid-century, most Dutch belonged either to the Dutch Reformed church (around 55% ) or the Roman Catholic church (35 to 40%), together with smaller Protestant and Jewish groups. A large and powerful sector of nominal Protestants were in fact secular liberals seeking to minimize religious influence. In reaction a novel alliance developed with Catholics and Protestants joining against secular liberals. The Catholics, who had been loosely allied with the liberals in earlier decades, turned against them on the issue of state support, which the liberals insisted should be granted only to public schools, and joined with Protestant political parties in demanding equal state support to schools maintained by religious groups.

The late 19th century saw a great cultural revival, especially in the 1880s and 1890s, typified by the painting of Vincent van Gogh. Literature, music, architecture, and science, all flourished, as represented by Johannes Diderik van der Waals (1837-1923), a working class boy who taught himself physics and won the Nobel Prize for his discoveries on thermodynamics.

Dutch Empire

Control over the Netherlands East Indies, restored from British to Dutch rule by the Treaty of Vienna in 1815, was strengthened. The colonies sent substantial profits to the Dutch economy and revenues to the Dutch government. However, criticism of exploitative methods of the Dutch East India Company brought a shift in the economic system from forced payments in crops to traditional taxation, and it took the Dutch 35 years to subdue the Achin (Atjeh) rebels in Sumatra.