A Brill Calendar: March 17

Musings on the Dutch Character

Few myths are so entrenched in the Dutch collective conscience as the fable that the breed living in the European delta is law-abiding, god-fearing and peace-loving.

One reward of some historical awareness is a refutation of ‘auto-idolatry’...

During its climb to the status of a capitalist power on global scale, the Republic acted like a robber baron; not as a shepherd of a diligent flock. The United East-India Company (VOC) went to bloody extremes. While ruthless men like Jan Pieterszoon Coen generated a modest part of national income and revenue for a few shareholders, the VOC also annihilated civilizations in the tropics. Trade and transport of native Africans across the Atlantic by the West-Indian Company WIC, as gruesome as it was lucrative, was founded on biblical considerations. In prospering Dutch cities the majority of the populace lived existences described best by the time-honoured formula: ‘nasty, brutish and short’.

As for proclamations of noble pacifism, it should be remembered that the Republic was second to none as a warmonger during the 17th century, specializing in martial arts. A soldier and engineer like Menno van Coehoorn (Lettinga State, Britsum, Friesland, 1641 – The Hague, March 17 1704) was a Europe-wide recognized master of siege-warfare; and earlier Louis de Geer (1587 – 1652) had built a trans-national mercantile and financial empire specializing in providing the whole range of military equipment to anybody willing to pay a price contributing to De Geer’s profits. And the central figure to fight in Europe the military aggression of the French Sun King, Louis XIV, was a Hollander, ‘Stadholder’ (military leader) of the Republic and King of England, William III, van Coehoorn’s Supreme Commander.

In nursing a ‘Dutch Identity’ – a fashionable pass-time in The Netherlands early in the 21st century – it is seldom considered that Clio, Muse of History, is a fickle Mistress.