Eighty Years' War

Eighty Years' War
Dutch Revolt
Part of the European wars of religion and the Thirty Years' War (1621–1648)

The Battle of Gibraltar, 1607.
Datec.1566/8 – 30 January 1648[note 8]
Location
European theater (c. 1566/8):
Result

Peace of Münster

Belligerents



European allies:
Kingdom of England Kingdom of England
(1585–1604, 1625–1630)
Kingdom of FranceKingdom of France Kingdom of France
(1589–1598, from 1635)

Portugal Kingdom of Portugal
(from 1641)[note 5]



Native overseas allies
(from the 1600s)

Spain Spanish Empire



European ally:
Portugal Portuguese Empire
(c.1580–1640)[note 6]

European co-belligerent:
Habsburg monarchy Holy Roman Empire
(1629, 1632, 1635)[note 7]



Native overseas allies
(from the 1600s)
Commanders and leaders
Casualties and losses
c. 100,000 Dutch killed[17] (1568–1609)
30,000 dead in the siege of Ostend[18]
2,029 Dutch ships sunk or captured (1627–35)[19]
27,000 Spaniards dead[20] (1582–1600)[a]
40,000 dead in the siege of Ostend[20]
100 warships and 20,000 sailors (1638–40)[21]

The Eighty Years' War[22] or Dutch Revolt (Dutch: Nederlandse Opstand) (c. 1566/1568–1648)[note 9] was an armed conflict in the Habsburg Netherlands[note 10] between disparate groups of rebels and the Spanish government. The causes of the war included the Reformation, centralisation, excessive taxation, and the rights and privileges of the Dutch nobility and cities.

After the initial stages, Philip II of Spain, the sovereign of the Netherlands, deployed his armies and regained control over most of the rebel-held territories. However, widespread mutinies in the Spanish army caused a general uprising. Under the leadership of the exiled William the Silent, the Catholic and Protestant-dominated provinces sought to establish religious peace while jointly opposing the king's regime with the Pacification of Ghent, but the general rebellion failed to sustain itself.

Despite Governor of Spanish Netherlands and General for Spain, the Duke of Parma's steady military and diplomatic successes, the Union of Utrecht continued their resistance, proclaiming their independence through the 1581 Act of Abjuration, and establishing the Calvinist-dominated Dutch Republic in 1588. In the Ten Years thereafter, the Republic (whose heartland was no longer threatened) made conquests in the north and east and received diplomatic recognition from France and England in 1596. The Dutch colonial empire emerged, which began with Dutch attacks on Portugal's overseas territories.

Facing a stalemate, the two sides agreed to a Twelve Years' Truce in 1609; when it expired in 1621, fighting resumed as part of the broader Thirty Years' War. An end was reached in 1648 with the Peace of Münster (a treaty part of the Peace of Westphalia), when Spain retained the Southern Netherlands and recognised the Dutch Republic as an independent country.

  1. ^ a b van der Lem 1995, p. Chapter IV.
  2. ^ Marek y Villarino de Brugge 2020b, v. II pp. 95-124.
  3. ^ van der Lem 1995, p. Chapter V.
  4. ^ Groenveld 2009, p. 16–17.
  5. ^ Groenveld 2009, p. 10–11.
  6. ^ Groenveld 2009, p. 18–19.
  7. ^ Groenveld 2009, p. 21.
  8. ^ Gallegos Vázquez, Federico (2014). "La dimensión internacional de la guerra de los Países Bajos". Guerra, derecho y política: Aproximaciones a una interacción inevitable (in Spanish). España: 45–64. ISBN 978-84-617-1675-3.
  9. ^ "Francisco de Alençon". Diccionario Biográfico Español (in Spanish). Real Academia de la Historia. Retrieved 10 October 2023.
  10. ^ Fernández Duro, Cesáreo (1900). Armada española desde la unión de los reinos de Castilla y Aragón (in Spanish). Vol. IV. Madrid, España: Instituto de Historia y Cultura Naval. p. 269.
  11. ^ a b Aleixandre Tena, Francisca (1967). "La revolución portuguesa de 1640". Saitabi: Revista de la Facultat de Geografia i Història (in Spanish) (17). Valencia, España: 95–96. ISSN 0210-9980.
  12. ^ Anderson, James Maxwell (2000). The History of Portugal. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 105. ISBN 0-313-31106-4.
  13. ^ van Nimwegen, Olaf (2010). The Dutch Army and the Military Revolutions, 1588-1688. Woodbridge, UK: The Boydell Press. pp. 217–234, 247–248. ISBN 978-1-84383-575-2.
  14. ^ Groenveld 2009, p. 146.
  15. ^ a b H. Micheal Tarver, Emily Slape (2016). The Spanish Empire: A Historical Encyclopedia [2 volumes]: A Historical Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. p. 71.
  16. ^ Martínez Shaw, Carlos (1999). "El imperio colonial español y la República Holandesa tras la Paz de Münster". Pedralbes: Revista d'historia moderna (in Spanish) (19). Barcelona, España: 117–120. ISSN 0211-9587.
  17. ^ Clodfelter, M. Warfare and Armed Conflicts: A Statistical Encyclopedia of Casualty and Other Figures, 1492–2015 (4th ed.). p. 17.
  18. ^ Fissel p 188
  19. ^ Wilson 2009, p. 1309.
  20. ^ a b c Wilson 2009, p. 316.
  21. ^ Wilson 2009, p. 1440.
  22. ^ (Dutch: Tachtigjarige Oorlog; Spanish: Guerra de los Ochenta Años or Guerra de Flandes, literally "War of Flanders")


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