Dutch States Army

The Dutch States Army was the army of the Dutch Republic. It was usually called this, because it was formally the army of the States-General of the Netherlands, the sovereign power of that federal republic. This army was brought to such a size and state of readiness that it was able to hold its own against the armies of the major European powers of the extended 17th century, Habsburg Spain and the France of Louis XIV, despite the fact that these powers possessed far larger military resources than the Republic. It played a major role in the Eighty Years' War and in the wars of the Grand Alliance with France after 1672.

Precursors

Despite the fact that the standard work by Ten Raa and De Bas about the States Army in its title proudly proclaims that the foundation of the army was laid in the first year of the Dutch war of independence, 1568, modern historians put the start date later, between 1576 and 1588, though there is no definite agreement on an exact date. However, the army did not spring wholly formed from the brow of Mars; there were predecessors. The roots of the army are to be found in the armies raised by the rulers of the Habsburg Netherlands, Philip and his father, Charles V in their wars with France before 1559. These were mercenary armies recruited on the "market" of "Landsknechte" and followed the organisation and military customs of that type of mercenary.
William the Silent, prince of Orange, who would become the leader of the Dutch Revolt, had received his military education in the service of Charles V and he followed the Habsburg example when he himself organised his invasion of the Netherlands in 1568. His experiences with the German mercenaries he raised were not encouraging: they had a predilection for mutiny before a battle and his invasion was easily defeated by the better-trained and disciplined forces of the duke of Alba. After his short excursion to France, to fight on the Huguenot side in 1569–1571, he apparently came away with a favorable impression of French military organisation and tactics, which prompted him to implement a number of reforms when he started raising mercenary troops on behalf of the rebellious States of Holland after 1572. These reforms included taking away the right of self-government of the mercenary bands and their corporate form of military justice; these organisational aspects were henceforth modeled on the French example. Orange also shrank the size of the companies to about 150 men, and introduced the French model of commissioned and non-commissioned officers to replace the Landsknecht organisation. He finally changed the proportion of firearms to polearms decidedly in favor of the former in the newly raised companies.
Except for the preponderance of firearms, these reforms remained in place throughout the history of the mercenary troops, first of the States of Holland, and later of the States-General. In the interim between 1576 and 1588, however, the preponderance of the forces fighting for the States-General, either in its own pay, or in the pay of foreign allies, like the duke of Anjou and the Earl of Leicester, did not follow this organisational model These forces can, however, not be seen as predecessors of the States Army. That army only took shape after the Union of Utrecht was formed in 1579 and the influence of the States of Brabant and the States of Flanders in the States-General was eliminated due to the territorial gains of the duke of Parma who conquered their territories. The core of that new army were the troops raised by Holland on the model introduced after 1572.

Financing

Raising funds

Although the financing of a military force is usually seen as "derivative", in the case of the States Army it played an important formative role, and also influenced the peculiarities of the organisation. Though 16th-century armies were usually preponderantly mercenary, there often were elements of feudal levies and of volunteers. These were lacking in the States Army. Apparently it never occurred to the authorities in the Republic to organize a volunteer or conscript army; mercenaries were the only feasible option. This had already been the case under the Habsburg rulers, when the States of the several provinces were asked to pay for the raising of the Habsburg armies, and played a role in their financial administration, like mustering. The authorities of the rebel provinces continued where they had left off in this respect. They were, however, content to limit their role to financial administration and the raising of the necessary money via the financing of a fiscal-military state. The latter already formed a considerable burden on the public finances of the provinces in the time of Charles V, and contributed to the formation of early-modern institutions for the management of the public debt, in which the Dutch had a pioneering role.
These financial institutions helped the Dutch Republic to "punch above its weight" in military matters. Without the international "open market" for professional soldiers, the Republic, with its population of about 1.5 million in the 17th century, would simply have lacked the manpower base to compete with countries like Spain and France.

Strength

By the end of 1579, the belligerents were at a stalemate, as neither Parma nor Orange had sufficient troops and materiel to field an army capable of conducting a major offensive. Having withdrawn his Spanish and Italian troops as required by the Union of Arras, Parma had replaced his foreign personnel with German or 'native' soldiers for a total of 93 infantry companies, 57 of which were necessary for garrisoning strategic points. The remaining 36 companies were available for attack. The combined forces of the rebel States-General were twice as large on paper, with Orange's war budget of December 1579 listing 96 defensive companies on garrison duty plus 101 companies available for field action. But in practice he could field far fewer, as the provinces were customarily hesitant to agree to deploy their troops beyond their own borders. In part, this was because irregular payment for out-of-province soldiers was a known systemic problem, which could cause mutiny when unpaid soldiers could not feed themselves and resorted to force against civilians, desertion, or defection to the enemy. Examples include 'trouble' caused by Edward Norreys's four English companies stationed in the frontier city of Tournai, because the States of Flanders had failed to pay their wages, and the key border outpost of Bouchain fell to Parma's troops in September 1580 in part because the Union of Utrecht had 'too much to do' within its own borders to send any money.
The States Army was backed in defense by the Schutterij citizen militia who also acted a semi-trained reserve from which additional recruits could be drawn. In 1629 the republic had 50,000 militia mobilized to back its 70,000 regular soldiers.
The following table gives the strengths of the Dutch States Army, the Army of Flanders and the French army at pivotal years in their respective conflicts.

Year	States Army	Army of Flanders	French Army
1588	20,500	63,455	50,000
1607	62,000	49,765	10,000
1621	55,000	62,600
1635	70,000	63,258	200,000
1648	60,000	65,458
1650	30,000
1667	53,000		134,000
1672	90,000		280,000
1680	40,000		165,000
1689	102,000		420,000
1700	45,000		140,000
1701	74,000
1712	119,000		380,000
1727	50,000
1736	40,000
1741	65,000
1744	80,000
1745	96,000
1748	127,000
1753	38,000
1792	44,000
1793	60,000

Reforms after 1588

Mercenary armies leveled the playing field. But they were expensive to maintain. For instance, the cost of fielding the States Army before 1609 was about 600,000 guilders annually. In the period between 1621 and 1629 the cost rose to between 800,000 and 1 million guilders annually. After 1629 the cost rose again to between 1.5 and 2 million guilders annually, with a peak of 3 million in 1632. These costs contributed to the heavy burden the Dutch tax payer had to bear: Holland alone contributed 9.3 million guilders in 1630; 11 million in 1634; 12.3 million in 1635; and in 1640 10.2 million to the war budget. These sums exceeded the ordinary revenues of the province. The difference had to be borrowed from investors. In 1634 the Southern Quarter of the province alone already owed 44.4 million guilders. Still, the Republic, and especially the province of Holland, generated so many savings that needed profitable investment opportunities, that the Dutch capital market had little trouble in generating the necessary public loans. The credit of the States was excellent, because the system of public finance, with its revenue streams dedicated to the service of the public debt attracted the confidence of investors.. This system of mobilization of financial resources made the Republic one of the first fiscal-military states.
After 1588 the financing of the war expenditures of the Republic was put on a new organizational footing. In the Union-of-Utrecht treaty defense of the Union was indicated as one of the main functions of the federal republic. Though every participating province retained certain prerogatives, in practice they agreed to pool their resources and pay a fixed quota of the cost of the army establishment. This establishment was enumerated in the so-called Staat van Oorlog that "repartitioned" the cost of regiments and companies to the several provinces. This statement was drawn up periodically by the Council of State, an advisory organ of the States-General that was charged with a number of military-administrative functions. It is often mistaken for the annual "war budget" of the Republic, but this function was actually performed by the "General Petition," also drawn up by the Council of State on the basis of the Staat van Oorlog, and presented to the States of the individual provinces after being approved by the States-General. The provinces ideally remitted their contributions to the paymasters of the army, but in practice especially the inland provinces were tardy in this respect, which often forced Holland to advance even these payments.
Though the allocation of a regiment to a certain province did not imply that that unit was a private army of that province, there were often close ties between such a unit and the paying province, especially as far as the appointment of commissioned officers was concerned. Though such appointments were usually made by the captain-general of the army, the States of the provinces usually presented him with a list of three nominees to choose from. In other respects there often were tensions between the provinces and the central army command over the "repartitioned" units.
The provinces were keen to ensure that their money was well spent. From Habsburg times they therefore had claimed a role in combating the fraud that was endemic in the mercenary-army system. Every province therefore had the right to muster the troops that it paid for.
Another consequence of the desire to ensure that money was well-spent in military matters was the institution of field deputies. These functionaries were delegated by the States of the provinces to be near the High Command during campaigns, where they were empowered to make urgent political decisions on behalf of the States-General. Unfortunately, these deputies often interfered with operational decisions and were generally considered more of a hindrance than a boon by the top commanders. The Duke of Marlborough was especially caustic about them, when he commanded the States Army during the War of Spanish Succession, but a deputy like Sicco van Goslinga sometimes rendered useful services during that campaign.
Though in principle all troops were allocated to a particular province, in later years the States-General was sometimes forced to raise troops that individual provinces refused to pay for. These "unrepartitioned" troops had to be paid for from the limited revenues of the States-General itself, mostly the taxes it raised in the Generality Lands. As these troops became a severe burden to the "Generality," they were generally the first to be let go at the periodic army reductions, and generally not well cared for.