"The Dutch Army and the Military Revolutions, 1588-1688" Topic

link

Contents
1 Introduction. The Notion of a Military Revolution in the Early Modern Era

2 The organisation and remuneration of the Dutch army (1588-1648)

3 The Dutch army and the revolution infantry tactics (1592-1618)

4 Field operations (1590-1648)

5 The Dutch offensive and the Spanish counter-offensive (1590-1609)

6 The Republic escalates her war effort (1640-1634)

7 Warfare hits a strategic ceiling (1635-1648)

8 The Dutch army under Johan de Witt and William III (1648-1688)

9 The conduct of war (1650-1688)

10 War on two fronts against England and Münster: the Dutch army falls short (1650-1667)

11 The dawn of large-scale land-based warfare: the War of Devolution and the 'Guerre de Hollande' (1667-1674)

12 War in the Spanish Netherlands: the Republic is still ill-equipped for the new, large-scale manner of warfare (1674-1678

Certainly sounds like a quite intersting work though I am a bit apprehensive about claims such as

Under the leadership of Maurits of Nassau and his cousin Willem Lodewijk a tactical revolution was achieved that had a profound impact on battle.

All to often previous attempts to "prove" that a particular commander or army had a "revolutionary" impact on warfare have involvded either poor research about the other contemporary armies or blatant cherry-picking of the sources to prove a particular theory.

Given that the Dutch fought only a single major battle with their new tacts and that most armies who copied the Dutch such as Swedes, Danes and Protestant Germans were defeated time and again by "non-revolutionary" forces. Not to mention what the revolutionary difference is between a Dutch battalion fightign 10 ranks deep and a Spanish or German battalion fighting 12 ranks deep…

But it will certainly be interesting reading to find out.

I would be very interested in your thoughts. Olaf Van Nimwegen appears to have good credentials. I will look forward to your review!

Of course it is entirely possible that the publisher that put a bit of spin on the authors conclusions to improve sales.

The interesting question is if the author has been able to breach the language barrier and take full advantage of the "Spanish" sources. Because a proper comparison of the new Dutch tactics and their impact requires a full scale study of Spanish military thought at the time and how it changed afterwards. There is a rich body of military literature written by officers in Spanish service that so far is sadly underused. Nor have authors taken full advantage of the treasure chest which is the military papers of Johann von Nassau-Siegen despite Hahlweg publishing them 37 years ago.

What is needed is a sort of a joint research project involving Dutch, Swedish, Spanish and German/Austrian researchers. Only then can the archives & libraries be properly accessed and the language barrier breached. I suspect that the result of such a project would be profound if not stunning.

Either way I expect to learn a lot from this book, at the very least it should give good information about the Dutch, drawn from Dutch sources rather second hand descriptions by English writers. Not to mention that the book covers a lot more than the revolution/evolution of infantry tactics in the late 16th Century. I think it will be a great if expensive read.

As I have read the book (actually several times), and as I had published the news on the translation of the book on my blog a week ago, I can assure you this is a great book.

The book is written by someone who has written on military matters before, got a PhD in it, and who has used sources from all of Europe, including the Spanish Netherlands. Don't expect an Osprey with fancy plates, but an in depth study on politics, strategy, tactics, weapons and logistics.

It focusses on the Low Countries, so info on Peninsular Spain is a bit scarce. French, Dutch German and English sopurces are quoted in their period and native language.

rampjaar.blogspot.com

Tnak you for that preview, I do however note that you do not mention Spanish sources among those you list as quoted, of course a number of spanish military works were translated into German, French and even a few ones into English. They key issue is not the version used by the author but rather that the sources are used at all.

Simply put, if an author has not read sources such as Basta, Melzo, Brancaccio, de Valdes, Londono, Mendoza, Eguiluz and Isaba, either directly or used secondary sources based on said writers how can he give an accurate description of Spanish tactics?

I think either you are questioning the credentials of van Nimwegen or you might expect too much of the book, which maily focusses on the 'military revolution debate' and the Low Countries.

Anyway, my suggestion is, just buy the book. By dutch standards it's cheap.

@ Rampjaar,

I read your short review of the book and to my surprise a second hand copy in Dutch can be bought for 20 euros. That is cheap.

Good blog.
Cheers,
Robert
18thcenturysojourn.blogspot.com

Thanks Robert. Unfortunatly the book in dutch is sold out, so you are very lucky to find a copy at all, and if so..it's second hand. (My new one was about 60 euro's IIRC). And the one I pointed to was in dutch..

Well Rampjaar I've learned the hard way to put blind thrust in "credentials" regardless of how impressive they are. For example the famous Delbrück is reveal as a liar when you check at least one of his footnotes. I've also seen how authors with impressive credentials make simple but serious errors because they rely too much on secondary sources when they write about things outside the main focus of their study.

I'll judge van Nimwegen's work on it's own merits rather than his credentials. As I've written earlier I expect to learn a lot from this work but I do feel some concern given the way the book is described.

In order to prove that Dutch infantry tactics were "revolutionary" as seems to be claimed you have to make a comparison which other comtemporary infantry tactics i.e those used by the Spanish. This in turn turn requires the use of Spanish primary sources, either in orignal language or in translations.

How can such a comparison be fully valid and scientific if Spanish sources are not used?

At $145 USD it's a bit steep. Hey Daniel when you get your copy mind if I borrow it?

Well, the dutch version is still available for around 20/24 euro's. New!

Daniel, there is a reference to Spain, being the (unpublished) thesis of Dr Etienne Roos, of which an abridged and popular version has been published in 2007. But that's in Dutch as well, but has references to original Spanish sources.

@Oldenbarnbevelt: want a dutch copy for 40 euro's??

Goed genoeg hoor. Ik ben in de VS dus waar kan ik het kopen?

@Oldenbarnbevelt: want a dutch copy for 40 euro's??

Ik heb liever de 20 euro.

@Oldenbarnevelt:
boekwinkeltjes.nl
In de zoekbalk zoeken met 'Nimwegen deser Landen' . De rest wijst zich van zelf.

For our English readers: there's a great second hand on line bookshop called boekwinkeltjes.nl Contains also English, French and German books. The van Nimwegen book can be found there as well, just like uniform books by de Wilde. There's a search bar in the upper right corner.

Rampjaar,
Do you have the title of Dr. Roos thesis? I'm interested to in aquiring at least the popular version of it.

link

And for those interested in the works of Dr van Nimwegen, here's a article in english: link

Rampjaar, I'm also interested in the Dr.Roos thesis, but haven't been able to find it.

The thesis of Dr Etienne RooMs (sorry!) (full title is in van Nimwegen's book) is not commercially available, but has been reworked into a book called 'Lodewijk de XIV en de Lage Landen'. It's in dutch, and you can buy it at his publisher Davidsfonds in Leuven.

@ Daniel S
I understand your reluctance to put much faith in such claims like 'tactical revolution', but the way I understand it is that the Dutch way of organising their armies was almost unknown around that time. The professional national army, which trained together and was paid a regular wage had a big impact, allowing the (in manpower) small Dutch army to be more then the sum of its parts.
(of course all the above can be filed under: In my opinion ;) )

I know this is an old thread, but a review of the book [dutch edition] has been published in issue 3 of the current volume [XXXII] of the Pike & Shot Society's journal Arquebusier – it certainly sounds a good read

And society members get a 20% discount from the publishers

I read the book and took away the sense that the 'revolution' was more in the line of creating and maintaining affordable armies, so that the troops would not be tempted to pillage the locals.

Just purchased this book from Amazon, looking forward to dig into it :)

Daniel_S:

Can you recommend some books and/or websites about Spanish tactics in the time period? Any decent English-language introductions to the subject? I anticipate any detailed work will not be in English. I'm very interested in Spanish tactics of the time, and there seems to be frustratingly little.

Thanks in advance!

Well, it´s not only dedicated to the tactics, but there is a chapter which describes the spanish way of fighting.
Next July
link

I am looking forward to the Osprey book with much anticipation! (August release date in the United States). However, I would like to know what other more detailed sources are available -- even if not in English. While I don't speak Spanish, my reenactment group (circa 1600 Spanish) has a couple of Spanish speakers who would probably be interested.

Here you have some sources.
What kind of information, do you need? Individual drilling, tactics, "escuadronear"?
Maybe I could answer some doubts.

Primary sources:
Pierre de Bourdeille, Gentilezas y bravuconadas de los españoles, (reissue from Mosand, Madrid, 1996).
The following books are reissue from Ministerio de Defensa, Madrid
Marcos de Isaba, Cuerpo enfermo de la milicia española, 1594.
Sancho de Londoño, Discurso sobre la forma de reducir la disciplina militar a mejor y mas antiguo estado, 1598.
Bernardino de Escalante, Diálogos del arte militar, 1583.
Martín de Eguiluz, Milicia, Discurso y Regla militar.
Diego de Salazar, Tratado de Re Militari, 1590.

Modern sources:
Rene Quatrefages, los Tercios, (Madrid, ediciones Ejército, 1983)
Inspección de Infantería, La infantería en torno al siglo del oro, (Madrid, ediciones Ejército, 1993).
Julio Albi de la Cuesta, de Pavia a Rocroi: los Tercios de Infantería española en los siglos XVI y XVII, (Madrid, Balkan, 1999).
Enrique Martínez Ruiz, Los soldados del Rey, (Actas, Madrid, 2008)
Pierre Picouet, les Tercios Espagnols 1600-1660, (LRT, Auzielle, 2010) In french.

Internet:
militar.org.ua/foro
link
link (spanish, french and english language).
tercios.org
ejercitodeflandes.blogspot.com

Thank you very much. If there is any information on individual drilling and tactics that would be very interesting as well.

For individual drill, we use De Gheyn's Exercise of Armes, with the commands translated into Spanish. Some of the translations were provided by a manuscript written in the 1980s and circulated to some reenactors in the area at the time. We are not sure where they got the translations (i.e. we think they just translated period English commands), and we had to add some of our own to fill in the blanks.

As for tactics -- it would be nice to know if there were formations smaller than the tercio. How might an isolated company draw up for battle for example?

link
I've seen this website, and most (if not all) of my information about tercios in the time period comes from it! I think it's a good, and accessible, introduction.

Thanks again for your help.

First at all, I beg your pardon with my english.

The way of fight in the Tercio was to send in front of the pike block, several "mangas" (sleeves)(arquebusiers, muskeeters), to "punish" with their fire to the enemy blocks.
To give some protection against the enemy cavalry, could be added some pikes, o more probably, halberdiers.
That "task group", would fight very similar to the Tercio. If the cavalry enemy attacked them, the halberdiers protected to the shooters, who retreated to the rear.
If the enemy was too powerful for them, they retreated to the "security" of the Tercio.

The fire of this mangas was made, in a "wheel mode" (so, it´s an spanish invention, althought most of the historicians says that is from Maurice of Nassau).

I wish could be helpful!

Thanks Idiaquez, it is useful.

Hi Idaiquez,

One more quick clarification, as it's not really the point of this thread:

That "task group", would fight very similar to the Tercio. If the cavalry enemy attacked them, the halberdiers protected to the shooters, who retreated to the rear.
If the enemy was too powerful for them, they retreated to the "security" of the Tercio.

What kind of formation would the task force form? A micro tercio? (pike/halberdiers formed in the center with arquebusiers to either side?) Would the arquebusiers fall back behind the pike/halberdiers, or perhaps even inside their formation? Do we even know for certain?

I have been reading the Eguiluz book, ( Milicia, discvrso, y regla militar, del capitan Martin de Egvilvz. It´s in google book in old spanish language, I´m afraid… link
I nave not seen any picture about the sleeves ( mangas ) , but with the reading I understood ( IMHO ) that the shooters fall back behind the halberdiers.
But I think that the flexibility of the Tercios were so big that the position would depend of the combat situation, and the soldier´s experience, of course…
I´m sorry but I can´t give a clearer answer.

Thanks. My feeling is that small unit tactics were not well documented during this period for any of the nationalities. I've forwarded the link to a fellow reenactor who has translated old spanish documents before.