Royal Netherlands Army
The Royal Netherlands Army is the land branch of the Netherlands Armed Forces. Though the Royal Netherlands Army was raised on 9 January 1814, its origins date back to 1572, when the Dutch States Army was raised, making the Dutch standing army one of the oldest in the world. It fought in the Napoleonic Wars, World War II, the Indonesian War of Independence and the Korean War, as well as served with NATO on the Cold War frontiers in West Germany from the 1950s to the 1990s.
Since 1990, the army has been sent into the Iraq War and into the War in Afghanistan, as well as deployed in several United Nations' peacekeeping missions.
The tasks of the Royal Netherlands Army are laid out in the Constitution of the Netherlands: defend the territory of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and all of its allies, protect and advance the international legal order and to support the government in law enforcement, disaster relief and humanitarian aid, both nationally and internationally. The supreme authority over the Armed Forces of the Netherlands is exercised by the government ; there is thus no constitutional supreme commander. However, army personnel do swear allegiance to the Dutch monarch.
Dutch army doctrine strongly emphasises international co-operation. The Netherlands are a founding member of, and strong contributor to NATO, while closely co-operating with fellow member states during European Union–led missions as well. Moreover, the successful Dutch-German military co-operation is seen as a harbinger of European defence integration, facing fewer linguistic and cultural issues than the comparable Franco-German Brigade. The Netherlands cooperates with Germany in the Competence Centre Surface Based Air and Missile Defence at Ramstein Air Base. In 2014, the 11 Airmobile Brigade was integrated into the Rapid Forces Division; in 2016, the Dutch-German 414 Tank Battalion was integrated into the 43rd Mechanised Brigade, which was in turn integrated into the 1st Panzer Division. In 2023, the final brigade of the Royal Netherlands Army, the 13th Light Brigade, was integrated into the 10th Panzer Division of the German Bundeswehr.
Additionally, the German Air Defence Missile Group 61 was integrated into the Dutch Joint Ground-based Air Defence Command in 2018.
History
Origins
The Royal Netherlands Army was raised on 9 January 1814, but its origins date back to the founding of the Dutch States Army in 1572: the creation of one of the first modern standing armies. Under the command of famous commanders such as Maurice of Orange and William Louis of Nassau-Dillenburg, the army developed widely.The Dutch States Army of the Dutch Republic saw action in the Eighty Years' War, the Dano-Swedish War, the Franco-Dutch War, the Nine Years' War, the War of Spanish Succession, the War of Austrian Succession, as well as the French Revolutionary Wars.
French period (1795–1814)
With the French conquest of the Netherlands, the Staatse Leger was replaced by the army of the Batavian Republic in 1795, which in turn was replaced by the army of the Kingdom of Holland in 1806. This army fought beside the French, to repel the Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland in 1799 and to wage several campaigns in Germany, Austria, and Spain between 1800 and 1810; particularly notable were the engagements of the Horse Artillery at the Battle of Friedland in 1807, the capture of the city of Stralsund in 1807 and 1809, and the participation of the Dutch brigade in the Peninsular War between 1808 and 1810. The independent army was disbanded in 1810, when Napoleon decided to integrate the Netherlands into France : Dutch military units became part of the Grande Armée. Dutch military elements participated in the disastrous French invasion of Russia in 1812, and the actions of the Pontonniers company under Captain Benthien at the Berezina River are especially noteworthy. New research points out that, contrary to long-held belief, around half of the Dutch contingent of the Grande Armée survived the Russian Campaign.File:Quatre Bras - Jan Willem Pieneman.jpg|thumb|left|The Prince of Orange at Quatre Bras by Jan Willem Pieneman, 1818. The future William II at the Battle of Quatre Bras.
Kingdom of the Netherlands (1814–1914)
In 1814, a year after the return of William I of the Netherlands to Scheveningen and the Orangist uprising against Napoleonic rule, an independent Dutch army was reformed by the new Kingdom of the United Netherlands. Several militias of the Dutch States Army were integrated into this newly formed Netherlands Mobile Army, and it became an integral part of the allied army during the Hundred Days campaign that culminated in the Battle of Waterloo. Units such as Baron Chassé's were essential to securing victory for the allied army. The army was involved in various conflicts since 1814, including the Waterloo campaign and different colonial wars.During the Belgian Revolution, from 1830 to 1832, the army was deployed to restore order in the southern provinces. After initial Dutch military success and widespread Belgian defeat during battles of the Ten Days' Campaign, the Belgian rebels appealed to France for military support. The severely outnumbered Dutch troops were forced to retreat when the French agreed to send reinforcements.
World wars (1914–1945)
The Netherlands continued the policy of neutrality during World War I. This stance arose partly from a strict policy of neutrality in international affairs that started in 1830 with the secession of Belgium. Dutch neutrality was not guaranteed by the major powers in Europe however, nor was it a part of the Dutch constitution. The country's neutrality was based on the belief that its strategic position between the German Empire, German-occupied Belgium, and the British guaranteed its safety. The Dutch military strategy was aimed exclusively at defence and rested to a large extent on the Dutch Water Line, a defensive ring of rivers and lowland surrounding the core Dutch region of Holland, that could be inundated.At the beginning of the Second World War, the I Corps was the force strategic reserve and was located in the Vesting Holland, around The Hague, Leiden, Haarlem and in the Westland. The German invasion posed a complete surprise for the army command and shocked the Dutch population. While the Royal Netherlands Army initially managed to slow down the German advance and fought back in intense battles, such as the Battle for The Hague, the Battle of Rotterdam and the Battle of the Afsluitdijk, the devastating German bombing of Rotterdam and the threat of bombing the city of Utrecht forced the Dutch supreme command to capitulate.
The Royal Netherlands army was disbanded during the German occupation, however army personnel continued the battle against the German occupiers during the war. Army resistance began to rise again with the formation of the Princess Irene Brigade and No. 2 Troop as part of the Free Dutch Forces in exile, and with army personnel active in the Dutch resistance. In the East, the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army was defeated by the Japanese in 1942; few elements managed to escape. Today's army grew out of the wartime force, starting with the liberation of parts of the Netherlands in 1944; the Dutch had plans to contribute a 200,000 strong army to the defeat of Germany and Japan.
File:Drie_Nederlandse_militairen_tijdens_een_actie._De_brenschutter_richt_zijn_wapen_,_Bestanddeelnr_5561.jpg|thumb|Soldiers of the 15th Infantry Regiment advancing on East-Java in 1948, the Bren-gunner adjusts his sights.
Decolonisation and Cold War (1945–1991)
Dutch East Indies
Between 1945 and 1949, the Royal Netherlands Army, which originally used mainly war volunteers but later was heavily dependent on conscripts, was deployed to the Dutch East Indies during the Indonesian War of Independence. To restore Dutch authority in the Dutch East Indies, the expeditionary land force First Division "7 December" was established in 1946. Approximately 25,000 volunteers and 95,000 conscripts were deployed to the East during the conflict, 4,751 servicemen were killed.Cold War
During the Korean War, 4,748 members of the army, the Royal Netherlands Navy and the Netherlands Marine Corps formed the Nederlands Detachement Verenigde Naties and were dispatched to East Asia to fight against the troops of the People's Republic of China and North Korea. 122 soldiers were killed in action, 3 soldiers went missing in action.File:Mechanisatie infanterie-523766.ogv|thumb|State Secretary of Defense Calmeyer, opens the new armored infantry education center in Veldhoven in 1963, after which light tanks of the type AMX-13 and AMX-VCI tracked vehicles move by in a procession.
The I Corps stood watch alongside its NATO allies in Germany during the Cold War. The corps consisted of three divisions during the 1980s, the 1st, 4th, and 5th divisions. It was part of the NATO Northern Army Group. The corps' war assignment, as formulated by Commander, Northern Army Group, would be to:
- Assume responsibility for its corps sector and relieve 1st German Corps forces as soon as possible.
- Fight the covering force battle in accordance with COMNORTHAG's concept of operations.
- In the main defensive battle: hold and destroy the forces of the enemy's leading armies conventionally as far east as possible, maintaining cohesion with 1 Corps; in the event of a major penetration affecting 1 Corps sector, be prepared to hold the area between the roads A7 and B3 and to conduct a counterattack according to COMNORTHAG's concept of operations.
- Maintain cohesion with LANDJUT and secure NORTHAG's left flank in the Forward Combat Zone.
At the height of the Cold War the Dutch army had almost 1,000 tanks in service.
File:Leopard 2 tank in Dutch service.jpg|thumb|left|Dutch Leopard 2 main battle tank on the beach of Scheveningen, 2008.