Dutch States Army

The Dutch States Army (Dutch: Staatse leger) 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 (opposite the Spanish Army of Flanders) and in the wars of the Grand Alliance with France after 1672.

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 (the year in which the States-General joined the Dutch Revolt against Philip II of Spain, and started raising its own troops) and 1588 (the year in which the northern Netherlands became a republic after the departure of the Earl of Leicester), 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 (he raised his own landsknecht regiment in 1552) 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 (though they are often ascribed to Orange's son Maurice of Nassau). 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.

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 (the civic militia or Schutterij was not part of the 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 (see the financial history of the Dutch Republic). 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 (10 million inhabitants at the time) and France (20 million).

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' (Low Countries) soldiers for a total of 93 infantry companies, 57 of which were necessary for garrisoning strategic points. The remaining 36 companies (c. 5,400–7,200 men) 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.