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The introductory paragraphs of the article leave off facts regarding the Netherlands major involvement in the enslavement and murder of many Africans, and Pacific Islanders. (These facts should be at the beginning, I would add them but I'm blocked when I attempt to edit wikipedia article racism). Further, the mention of the Dutch East India Company doesn't even mention that the company traded in slaves, but also other stolen resources from Africa, and Pacific and Caribbean, etc. Nederlandse Westindische Compagnie or WIC (the Dutch East Indian Company) transported up to 600,000 black slaves to Suriname, the Dutch Antilles and Aruba. "Between 1612 and 1872, the Dutch operated from some 10 fortresses along the Gold Coast (now Ghana), from which slaves were shipped across the Atlantic. The trade declined between 1780 and 1815. The Dutch part in the Atlantic slave trade is estimated at 5-7 percent, or some 550,000-600,000 Africans."
The Netherlands was one of the last countries to abolish slavery in 1863."
knap werk! -
Mathijs
Dank je. -
Andre Engels
Yes, very impressive! --
LMS
You should work for the CIA. :-D (The entire history they collected was about 5 lines long) --KQ
I have amended the Belgian revolution a bit. You made it sound like the Flemings were forced into independence and though pro-French elements were responsible for igniting the revolt, the core sentiments among both Flemings and Walloons were more as I described IMHO. -- [[User:Scipius]
---
I added a little known fact about WWI and the German Army taking a short cut over a small bit of Lands of the Netherlands, maybe someone can add to this. --
Golf
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I always learned in school that there was no actual relation between the old Frisians (in Roman times), and the later ones? The new frisians took up the name of the region. (the remark about "still do")
I think this section is not exactly accurate.
The history of this small country starts with its first inhabitants, hunters that lived during the last ice age thousands of years ago. Notable remains of that period include the monumental Hunebeds in the province Drenthe.
It makes it seem as if the hunebeds were put up by hunters during the last ice age, 8,000 BCE or so. According to a random google they were built between 3400 and 3200 BCE. That's quite a huge distance in time. According to the same source the people who put up these monuments were early farmers. It's like confusing ancient egypt with the reign of Charlemaine.. Martijn faassen 23:12, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I'd like to put this article on the main page, but the introduction could use some beefing up. Also, someone else noted that the painting (the Nightwatch) seems a bit arbitrary, and that a better painting (perhaps a painting of a historical event described in the article) would be better. →Raul654 00:56, Jan 29, 2005 (UTC)
Although this article is pretty good, and may have been good enough to be featured on Wikipedia in the past, I don't think it's living up to Wikipedia's current standards for featured articles. I mean, I have just added quite a considerable amount of additions and corrections, and I still feel like there's lots missing/wrong. For instance: the introduction is really odd, there is nothing about peoples coming in before the Romans (Batafs, Westgoths, the like), the Holy Roman Empire bit is rather short considering the timespan (+- 500-1500!) and important developments, there is next to nothing on the Eighty Years' War (yes, I know there's an article but there should be something in the main article as well), nothing about cultural life in the Golden Age (science, arts), oh and that part should probably be sectioned (subdivided, but not divided!) in Eighty Years' War and Golden Age. There is very little contemporary history and most of it is about institutions and the like (where are 'depillarization', 60's-70's cultural changes, immigration?), the balance is odd at times (quite a lot about Indonesia compared to the rest), the language is rather poor sometimes and I agree with some comments that have been made about the images - there should probably be a different painting at the top (not sure what, though), and I feel there should be an image of William of Orange (Greatest Dutchman, after all ;) ). Don't worry, there's a lot that I like about the article (otherwise I wouldn't work on it), and hey, if we all work together we can give this article the smothering love that it needs :D.
Junes 18:50, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Although I very much like your additions, Thames, because they are well-written and important, a problem is becoming apparent. Some sections have grown so much that the balance is completely gone. Of course, the Golden Age is very important in the history of the Netherlands, and that should merit a longer section, but now it's about 6 times longer than the Holy Roman Empire section. The 20th century is also very long in comparison to the rest. Of course, we could just expand the other sections greatly, but that would mean the article could no longer serve as an introductory text. So it's probably best to make some new articles or merge the information into other existing articles. There a two useful articles here: Dutch Golden Age and Eighty Years' War. The first is a thorough article on the cultural and social history of the Golden Age, but doesn't concern politics. The second is not so thorough, and needs improvement. I think some of mine and your additions could perfectly amend that article. Also, a third article would be very useful, something like History of the Dutch Golden Age, which focuses mainly on political events. However, that would be a lot of work and I'm not ready to write it now. But I'd like to hear your views on it before I merge the History and the Eighty Years' War. What I still miss by the way, and for which there would be plenty of room to expand on in the war article, is some of the more selfish reasons for the revolt: privileges that were taken away, more bureaucratic governing instead of by nobility. As for the 20th century, there's probably enough now to merit a seperate article, and I will as soon as I get to it. Junes 18:27, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
This is the first time I've posted a comment on Wikipedia, so forgive me if I'm doing it wrong in some way.
I enjoyed this history (and others here on similar topics). It would be great if it could explore in more depth the early origins of the Dutch as a people. Who are the Dutch exactly? Not in terms of legend or national identity (e.g. Batavians) but in purely historical terms. The current article deals with this but only for a few lines.
I think English-speakers who are interested in the history of this nation would like to know more about its early relationship between Anglo-Saxon lands. Apparently there were strong ties between SE England and the Frisians. The Dutch were christianised by Anglo-Saxons whose language was apparently intelligible. (Is that correct?) Why does England have so much written in Old English, but in Old Dutch there is virtually nothing?
The medieval Flemish and Dutch (many of them anyway) are presumably the inheritors of the Franks. Dutch essentially developed from Old Low Franconian. The Franks were centered in Flanders, but extended into the southern Netherlands. We read about the Frisians inhabiting the area north of the two rivers and having a large trading influence over the surrounding areas. In 900 most of the Netherlands is still Frisian, all the way down to the main rivers; by 1300 we're looking at a country that has become largely Frankish and is on the verge of world empire. By the time of the Golden Age we see a Holland that is made up of these magnificent prosperous cities - Amsterdam, Leiden, Rotterdam, Haarlem, etc. - but they obviously didn't just pop up out of nowhere.
So what happened between around 900 and 1300 to change the country from being primarily Frisian speaking to being primarily Frankish speaking? From terp-dwelling to Golden Age? From having no written records in Dutch to producing a Vermeer? Was it a slow migration north? Or did Franks create Frankish towns and cities that were surrounded by Frisians? Did the Frisians become culturally and linguistically "Frankicised" for social or economic reasons? Did Vikings or Charlemagne have anything to do with it? What was the dynamic here? Isn't this transition from Frisian to Frankish a really important part of Dutch history? If not, why not? I would love to read more about it. We read much about the Frankish conquest of France, but little about the expansion northwards.
I am also interested in other 5th to 13th century aspects. English sources have much to say about early medieval society in France, England and Germany, but so little about the Netherlands. - the transition from busy Roman outpost to sparsely populated Frisian empire - the Christianisation of the Netherlands and the role of Irish and Anglo-Saxon missionaries - the role played by the Dutch in the Crusades and the church - the history of the language itself
If this leads anywhere thanks! (Alex)
Thanks by the way Alex, for your copy-editing. There were quite a bit of errors in the article because it wasn't written by native speakers. I saw you changed some American spelling to British spelling. I think that's probably a good idea (the Wikipedia policy is to use consistent spelling, and to make the choice depending who is most likely to read it. Because of the proximity of the UK to the Netherlands, British spelling would be best.) Junes 22:28, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)
It would be nice to have a detailed section on the colonial history of the netherlands, how it came about, which countries etc.
I agree, this would also make the mentioning of decolonisation of Indonesia in the post WWII section less awkward.-- Arnoutf 23:43, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
It would also be fair to write something on slave's trade.
The following may seem like a trite remark, but this is about a deep-rooted misconception and even an insult. The article says "The Netherlands is now a modern, industrialised nation". Sounds fine, but it suggests there are non-modern countries. Can anyone think of a nation that is not now a modern nation? And would they then dare tell this to an inhabitant of that country in their face? If a nation exists now, it's by definition a modern nation, right? Or does it really mean western and are non-western countries, ehm ... backward or something? Sorry for being so dutch :) DirkvdM July 3, 2005 08:03 (UTC)
Dirk's comments show a lack of exposure to travel off the beaten track. There are many nations, particularly in Africa and the Pacific, which it would be difficult to classify as "modern". Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, etc. No slight intended, they just don't have modernised economies and depend on foreign aid to survive. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.68.69.137 ( talk) 11:32, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
Hello, how could I copy the schematic about the history of the Low Countries, I´m translating this article into the Spanish Wikipedia. Thanks. Delp. Sorry, i cant sign because im not registered here.
I put this in here and corresponing material in the Armada article as it is very easy for nations to ignore other people's contribution to and experience of history (even to fall into the trap of believing their own nation's propaganda). My aim is to draw attention to the wider pattern which clearly exists, though my knowledge is too narrow, for the reason given, for me to be competent to achieve this fully. Maybe there is an article already covering the broader view at this period. If so, I have missed it. ( RJP 13:16, 30 October 2005 (UTC))
During the period of rule of Spain in the Netherlands, was the Spanish language known by Dutch citizens? If no, why not? The Spanish could have exerted a much greater influence on the Netherlands if their subjects knew Spanish. Stallions2010 23:05, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Can anyone point me to John Lothrop Motley's source material regarding the death sentence for the whole of The Netherlands? The passage from his work 'The Rise of the Dutch Republic' regarding a decree by the Holy Office of the Inquisition is often quoted but I have also read that this document (if it existed) was a forgery. Reading Motley's history, one can clearly feel the admiration of the author for William of Orange as well as his loathing for the Duke of Alva ( both understandable ) but it has been suggested that Motley ( 1814-1877 ) may have painted a more extreme picture of Spanish infamy at this time than was in fact the case. -- User:Tamurello 10:50, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
I have to concur with Tamurello. I have tried to find documentation to verify this claim, which I have heard in several places, and been unable to do so. I have also looked into Motley a bit, and he is widely regarded as being heavily influenced by his own Whig view of history and his anti-Catholic stance in 'Dutch Republic' (e.g., his references to the pope as the "Roman tyrant"). He is not regarded as reliable by historians. Cf. Robert Wheaton, "Motley and the Dutch Historians," New England Quarterly 35 (2007), 318-336, who states that "special pleading, outrageous bias, and an uncritical use of sources are all apparent to the casual reader". I have deleted the sentence from Motley for now, until someone can provide some objective corroboration. - Alan
66.31.47.139 15:53, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
Shouldnt there be a navigational template? most other history pages have a template listing all the different history period article. – Tutmøsis (Talk) 20:01, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
So there's not a single mention of floods in the history of the Netherlands? -- euyyn 00:52, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
I’ve added a few lines on how Dutch wealth during the so called “golden period” came partly from their extensive slaving. For references and for those interested in the appalling human cost of the Dutch wealth, se the following links:
-- Stor stark7 Talk 15:57, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
I am wondering if reparations were ever offered for the Netherland's involvement in slave trade. - aba lead a at yahoo dot com (one-word ID)
I included that the jews who lived in the Netherlands were the main driving force behind bringing the slave trade to the netherlands and were also its main practioners. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.160.141.90 ( talk) 17:58, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
I edited the line on Arthur Seyss-Inquart in the secion on WW2 and moved it another part of the article. The semi-colon in the original implies that he was a Dutch collaborator instead of an Austrian National Socialist, imposed by the Nazi regime as Reich Commissioner of the Netherlands. By moving the line, the link to the excellent Wikipedia entry on Seyss-Inquart is preserved in this article.
I do not think the line about the relations with Canada is entirely accurate any more. Only the elderly in the Netherlands associate Canada with the liberation after the second world war. For younger generations, other images are more important. Canada's reputation has suffered badly in the Netherlands as a result of regularly recurring negative publicity in the Dutch press about the clubbing of baby seals in the Arctic. I amended the line about Canada accordingly, but it might be considered to take out the line about Dutch-Canadian relations completely, as it does not seem very relevant in this section on Dutch history (why is there no reference to relations with the U.S., arguably a country that has influenced the Netherlands more than Canada, or with post-war Germany?) ( R3NL 20:22, 10 September 2006 (UTC))
I agree. In my view the whole line about Canada could be deleted. ( R3NL 19:30, 14 September 2006 (UTC))
I detect some mistakes in references in the paragraphs on Dutch plans to deport Germans from Dutch territory and annex swathes of German territory after WW2. One of the footnotes should refer to article 4, not to article 5. Careful reading of that article demonstrates, moreover, that the British authorities in northern Germany did not expel 100.000 Dutch from the British occupation zone, but only threatened to do so in reaction to the expulsion of Germans from Dutch territory.
In a more geneneral sense, I do not think it is proportionate to devote four or five paragraphs to Dutch-German relations in the aftermath of WW2. This Wikipedia article contains only one paragraph on the mass murder of more than 100.000 Jewish citizens of the Netherlands in German concntration camps. Devoting another three or four paragraphs to (only very partially implemented) plans for expulsion of Germans and annexation of German territory seems entirely out of proportion. I would be in favour of deleting these paragraphs. ( 87.80.96.66 17:18, 21 October 2006 (UTC))
Could anyone tell me where exactly the article quoted in footnote 5 mentions that the British occupation authorities threatened to expell 100,000 Dutch from northern Germany? It is not in there, yet the footnote has not been removed from the article. ( 87.80.96.66 17:42, 23 December 2006 (UTC))
Someone has changed this part of the article slightly. The so-called reference to the reaction of the British authorities in occupied Germany, expelling 100,000 Dutch from Northern Germany, is now referenced by footnote 7 instead of footnote 5. But after having read the article on Dutch plans to annex parts of Germany (to which footnote 7 refers), I can only conclude that no mention is made there to this British reaction. This part of the text is faulty and should be removed.
I have removed some sentences on the expulsion of Germans from the Netherlands after WW2. Careful reading of the articles quoted in the footnote shows that they do not corroborate the statements made in this part of the Wikipedia entry. ( 87.65.143.224)
I'm reviewing articles from Version 0.5 that have been "downgraded" during our work period, and noticed that a large chunk of material about the "golden age" had been removed. I find it hard to believe that was not caused by a vandal, but could someone who maintains/watches this page please review my edit. If I've made some mistake, please revert, but I would have thought this was one of the most important periods in Dutch history! Walkerma 05:44, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
I recently fell in love with the History of Poland is dealt with, which is with dates. Currently this is eccentially a huge pile of information, in my vision this will be a starting point to a wide array of sub articles dealing with specific articles. Rex 19:50, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Some text about prehistoric and Roman times has been deleted long ago. I readded it with minor modifications. Icek 02:51, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
Since adding the tag seems to be a one man's action that has never been clarified by the editor that submitted this tag, Daniel Case (never contributing to Talk nor contributing in any other way to the article) I think is appropiate to remove this weird comment. Thanks. Rokus01 08:34, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
..The Dutch didn't regard themselves as Germans any more since the 15th century, but they officially remained a part of Germany until 1648..
How would Americans feel if their history page said that they remained officially an English colony till 1812 just because the Brits wrote the history books?
America's independence is 1776, ours 1581. At the latest.
Jcwf 04:44, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
I was a bit quick in editing the introduction. In my history comment I noted that there was no reference to the Swifterbant culture independently re-establishing agriculture, but I since found I missed a citation in the Swifterbant culture article. My suggestion is to move some of this discussion out of this article into the Swifterbant culture article.
I also still stand by my edit of the introduction - to state the Netherlands is an (underestimated) cradle of civilization is very strong and in my opinion unwarranted, and many countries can make claims like this. Reinventing agriculture just seems plain wrong - it's stated that they were influenced by other agriculturalists and adopted it, not reinvented it from scratch or something. Martijn Faassen 02:39, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
If you are talking about modesty, you are absolutely right. However, has history not been too modest so far towards an area that harboured the homelands of Swifterbant, Bell-Beakers and the Salian Franks? Certainly, this does not fit the practice of rather putting prestigeous nations on the platform, and the availability of archeological facts does not fit the tendency to point at virtually unexplored, far away regions otherwise. Still, don't underestimate Swifterbant, so far they are the oldest culture on the line leading to Funnelbeaker, Corded Ware and Beaker cultures.
I can understand your doubts concerning the cultural achievements of Swifterbant. After all they just left the hunter-gatherer stage. However, the acculturation of Northern Europe was different from the gradual spread of agriculture from Turkey to the Balkans and so on. Here, indigeous people took up agriculture in their own ways, without being an extension of the wave of agricultural lifestyles radiating from the Orient. The word acculturation might not reflect this break sufficiently. Besides, being semi-sedentairy by nature (they were fishermen!), the limited cultivation of certain crops did not involve a sudden a change of lifestyle, it predated the advent of certain neighbouring agriculturists and even might have been the way prehistoric people had added certain crops to their menu already for thousands of years.
I also can understand your doubt concerning the cultural achievements of the Salian Franks, since after all they (and their offspring) only rose to preeminence having their new centres in France and Germany.
However, the Bell Beakers are represented everywhere as carriers of a civilized package of attributes that incended most of Central and Western Europe - maybe even Italy, the wider identification of Beaker cultures seems to emerge as a new field of scholarly discussion. This package was already established when they started to expand. This means, it was established were it originated: in the Netherlands and lover Rhine valley. Sure, they incorporated state of the art technology from all over, just like the Western civilization did when they started to expand. That's why they preferred rivers and coastal areas. And just like the Western civilization, they improved on their acquired package of civilized items themselves and put the base of something completely new. This is indeed a significant contribution to civilization. Underestimated, since we already know all of this for almost forty years, and still it doesn't seem to fully enter. Rokus01 22:44, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
I miss the point here. What is wrong about the Netherlands being an attested cradle of people and (also prehistoric) civilization? Where are you afraid of? Examples abound. The Beaker phenomenon was pivotal in spreading Bronze culture and the emergence of trade routes as far as China - where Bronze was accepted gratefully at that other end of the silk route. Ironically, it seems all we miss is indeed a pityful government to promote indigenous culture wearing feathered crowns like in Venezuela (Chavez) or Bolivia (Morales), or having a tax-paid ministry for making an inventory of (alleged) feats to boost nationalistic self confidence. Instead we have mister Schonken. From scientific point of view, I wonder what is better. In short, I don't mind any political bias bullying towards the repression of sourced facts and any positive interpretation, while obviously accepting wholesale the unsourced bias of other nations. Rokus01 08:14, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
I restored the claims of an indigenous development of agriculture. It was sourced before with two notable references, however, since this view was contested by a sock and a rouge admin I also added a pagenumber and a quote. Rokus01 ( talk) 21:53, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
Martijn, sure we have to focus on content. That is why I filtered out the contributions of an attack account, and will continue to do so. Unfortunately I deleted all that referred to the unfocussed attacks, indeed for having nothing to do with content. Rokus01 ( talk) 22:17, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
can somebody fix the intro please? "The history of the Netherlands technically began more than 152,000 years ago" is extremely unprofessional. Just state that the area was inhabited since the paleolithic. The lead should also be shorter. dab (𒁳) 17:25, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
Rokus01, I'm fine with your recent edits to the intro, but you shouldn't have flagged them as minor, and I'd have appreciated an edit summary. Martijn Faassen 00:03, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
I just added something about the Peace of Münster in the intro. -The Bold Guy- 18:10, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
I am fascinated by how many Dutch people I meet with Roman names like Lucius Vilnius, for example. Is there more to this than the Wiki explains? Is there a Roman sub-culture still existing in the Netherlands? Are Dutch people of Roman ancestry a kind of elite? It would be good to have a section in the Wiki page about this. TonyG (Australia) - 07 Dec 2007.
Some dutch people have latin names because latin was a language that some scholars and clergy had learned to speak and read since it was a part of their occupations. All dutch people have germanic ancestry and some may have some celtic ancestry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.244.177.17 ( talk) 04:24, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
I would like to know what people think about the anachronistic references to "Netherlands" and "Dutch" in this article. Take these sentences for example:
Considering there was no "Netherlands" and no "Dutch" at this time, aren't sentences like this completely misleading? They ruin the article for me.
Even if this is repaired, what term should be used? A phrase like "the provinces that are now called the Netherlands" seems too much of a mouthful. The Dutch version of this article addresses this problem expressly at the start:
I suppose the problem is artificially trying to construct a history for a political unit that did not exist until the 17th centry. The answer is probably not to keep making references to it. It's poor style in any case. Schildewaert ( talk) 23:21, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
Is anyone else distressed by the quality of the language and content of this article? Schildewaert ( talk) 00:37, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
Let me ad a few remarks about things that could use some looking into;
I expanded the section on the Burgundian period. I added a small section on the Frisian peasants rebellion from 1515 until 1523 lead by Pier Gerlofs Donia. Was signed,
Jouke Bersma —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.172.170.26 ( talk) 10:00, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
Commencing review. BlackJack | talk page 12:02, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
I've done a quick scan to see if there any fundamental issues and can report as follows on the quickfail criteria:
So, unless I find POV when I read the article in depth, the only major problem is the shortage of citations. I do not think it will help anyone to quickfail the article on that basis so I will place {{cn}} tags as I read through it. Unfortunately, this does mean the article will probably fail GA but at least I can highlight where work is needed.
I do have another problem which is that I have seen several examples of unsatisfactory prose such as "Julius Caesar and his empire conquered Gaul". I will try to improve prose, grammar and spelling as I work through the review but it depends on the scale of the problem.
Otherwise, the article seems well-served by images and there is plenty of linkage. Not sure if it should have more categories and I will look into that.
Watch this space. BlackJack | talk page 12:49, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
The article fails GA.
I have made comments above about the poor quality of the prose in many areas and about the shortage of citations. The article also fails because the lead does not adequately summarise the content.
Not only does the lead contain poor prose, it is at times divorced from the main content. For example, the first paragraph refers to the Roman province of Gallia Belgica and this is not mentioned anywhere in the main text. What is needed is for someone to rewrite the lead to provide consistency by accurately summarising the article.
Using the good article criteria, the article rates as follows:
I considered placing the article "On Hold" for a time while citations are provided and the necessary improvements are made to the lead and the prose, but I have decided to "Fail" it. I notice that the nominator is new to the article and has only made a few recent edits so his commitment remains uncertain. I cannot identify any editor who is a regular, let alone main, contributor. This leads me to suspect that the commitment is not there and so the improvements will not be done in a reasonable timeframe.
I think the cause of the article's problems is this lack of committed editors because it has been receiving occasional edits from all and sundry with no one to take on the mantle of a co-ordinator. The inconsistency between the lead and the content is a reflection of that situation.
For what it is worth, I will keep the article in my own watchlist and make edits as and when. It has at least interested me in the subject when previously I had only a superficial knowledge of Dutch history. BlackJack | talk page 14:56, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
Under a proposal made by me, the pages Patrician and Patricianship -- whose names presently are not specific enough -- will be renamed as follows:
(I dropped an earlier proposal for merging the two pages.)
For the rationale for renaming the pages and a couple of associated other changes, as well as the opinions of user:Johnbod, please see the discussion page at Talk:Patricianship.
My question is, do people here support my renaming proposal, or if not support it, at least would not oppose it.
Thanks in advance for all replies-- Goodmorningworld ( talk) 14:37, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
I agree that removing the template may not be according to the procedure, but the procedure also requires discussion on the talk page, which is missing.
There's really nothing to merge in the Dutch miracle article. Besides, that article has already given three different definitions of what the Dutch miracle might be. Mvdleeuw ( talk) 06:12, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
If nobody objects, I will remove the template shortly. Mvdleeuw ( talk) 06:57, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
I removed the slave trade reference since it is not specific about who owned and operated in the african slave trade. The "Dutch" colonies had many people who were not ethnically germanic living in them and therefore are not dutch. Most all of the black african slave owners and traders who historians call dutch were actually jewish people who had moved from spain to the netherlands. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.99.132.30 ( talk) 17:00, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
The postma book is not specific about the ethnicity of the slave owners. I deleted it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.160.141.90 ( talk) 15:54, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
This article desperately requires editing. There are organisational problems and language problems. I've been checking it out for a few years now, occasionally editing something. I'm a little reluctant to get involved because of the "drive-by shooting" that is conducted here by casual visitors. I suppose it's not vandalism, but it often seems to be done (in sub-standard English) by people who haven't read the complete article, perceive the profiling of a specific point as more important than maintaining the integrity of the article, have no intention of referencing their additions, confuse Dutch history with Dutch nationalism, and have odd notions about what English speakers wish to (or should!) read about Dutch history. It would be better to create a series of sub-articles on specific subjects and then just summarise them here. It would also be better for the editors of the sub-articles to turn their attention to what's going on there. But that does not seem to be happening. If no-one objects, I'll try to edit this article slowly over the course of a period of time, but without summarising every individual micro-change. I don't think there will be any objection given the magnitude of the number of errors. Also, I'm not going to start with the problematic introduction. Schildewaert ( talk) 07:01, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
I propose to move this part of the article to a separate page and then just leave a brief one paragraph overview here. I'll wait a few days for objections to be raised. Schildewaert ( talk) 07:09, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
I've taken out this sentence, because it doesn't make sense in this context of Dutch prehistory. It seems to refer to a diaspora "from Ireland". If the author wants to put it back in, here is the code:
from Ireland to the Carpathian Basin and south along the Atlantic coast and following the Rhone valley as far as Portugal, North Africa and Sicily, even penetrating northern and central Italy. [1]
References
http://rictornorton.co.uk/eighteen/1730news.htm - Some 250+ men executed. Notable? Pär Larsson ( talk) 20:16, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
With respect to the original author(s), the text relating to the 19th century is particularly problematic from both a language and content perspective. I started to edit it myself, but I've stopped for now. This whole section needs to be properly rewritten by someone with expertise and access to secondary sources. I thought the improvements could come from the article on "William I" or the article on "United Kingdom of the Netherlands", but those two articles are also unfootnoted and not that well written.
I would like to invite the original author(s), or someone else who understands 19th century Dutch history, to amend this text (with proper footnotes of course). It's a shame the Dutch articles are unfootnoted because the easiest approach would have been to translate them. If no one takes up the challenge, I'll do it myself, but the result will be the amendment of most of the current text. Schildewaert ( talk) 20:22, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
"The Franks came to dominate the area and from their speech the Dutch language arose."
How does this account for the Low Saxon languages spoken in the east of the Netherlands? 81.68.255.36 ( talk) 15:01, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
I like what you did, we on the Veluwe should not be forgotten, right? Just wanted to have it noted somewhere in the article. Thanks! ;) 81.68.255.36 ( talk) 22:11, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
The section deleted was a duplicate 450 words of the main Frisii article which considers various possibilities of what might have been the cause. ( Frisii says "In the 3rd and 4th centuries the population of Frisia steadily decreased, and by the 5th century the population had dropped dramatically. The coastal lands would remain largely unpopulated for the next two centuries. When conditions improved Frisia would receive an influx of new settlers, mostly Saxons, and these would eventually be referred to as 'Frisians', though they were not necessarily descended from the ancient Frisii.") That is the coverage for the disappearance of a group belongs in the Frisii article where it is. --the group is important for the long term narrative only when it was a distinctive element and none of that was removed. The article is too long and this kind of detail is not needed when the interested reader can read the text by one click. History books do not pay much attention to the disappearance issue -- see Ton Derks; Nico Roymans (2009). Ethnic Constructs in Antiquity: The Role of Power and Tradition. Amsterdam University Press. p. 323. for recent research Rjensen ( talk) 10:53, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
What I do feel this article desperately needs is some explanation of the relationship and differences between the Frisians and the Low Saxons. My research has not uncovered an explanation of that. The Dutch Wikipedia article on the Frisii has this (unfortunately unfootnoted) sentence:
This statement raises more questions for me than answers. But if it is right, and if it is supported by the sources, the current paragraph should be amended according. I also found this unreferenced statement on the page for Anglo-Frisian Language:
This seems right to me, but what isn't clear to me is the process that led to such a clear distinction between Frisians and Low Saxons today. Schildewaert ( talk) 23:36, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
This part was recently added:
However, it is not clear whether this applies to Belgium or the southern part of the Netherlands. The reference to "priest" seems to exclude most of the modern Netherlands. If it pertains to the situation in Belgium, how relevant is it to this article? Schildewaert ( talk) 07:54, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
I'm willing to discuss the issue of how to list and depict the various tribal groupings associated with the pre-Roman period. This particular map is useful, not because of its accuracy, but because of its comprehensiveness. It is accurate enough to give the casual reader a basic understanding, and the symbolic nature of the representation is fully explained in the caption. A more detailed presentation of the tribal groupings can be presented in an article devoted to that topic. I was absolutely delighted to find that someone had made this image and posted it on Wikimedia. It belongs in this article, unless you can find another map that presents it better. I do think a listing of the various tribes is more or less essential to anyone seeking to understand the situation. I would like to avoid the situation of the only tribal group presented being the Batavians.
I've looked carefully at your new list of the tribal groupings in the section on the Batavians, and I don't understand why you are unwilling to list them in a separate section, or integrate them into the section that is already there. Your list raises issues for me. Your comment about the Frisians for example is a repetition of comments made elsewhere. I'm sorry, but I feel this list should be removed or integrated more smoothly into the existing text. It essentially ruins the treatment of this subject. I don't see this as vandalism, but you are riding roughshod over the text that is already there. Schildewaert ( talk) 02:26, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
The article and the lead are both far outside WP norms and have generally been written in a wordy way. The lead reads like a mini version of the whole article. I think it would be pretty easy to compress the lead without losing much, but I wanted to give a warning and not shock anyone. I think this is still too long.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 15:02, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
Now | Proposal |
---|---|
The history of the Netherlands is the history of a seafaring people thriving on a watery lowland
river delta on the
North Sea in northwestern Europe. When the
Romans and written history arrived in 57 BC, the country was sparsely populated by various tribal groups at the periphery of the empire. Over four centuries of
Roman rule had profound demographic effects, resulting eventually in the establishment of three primary
Germanic peoples in the area:
Frisians,
Low Saxons and the
Franks.
Hiberno-Scottish and
Anglo-Saxon missionaries led them to adopt Christianity by the 8th century. The descendants of the
Salian Franks eventually came to dominate the area, and from their speech the
Dutch language arose.
Carolingian rule, loose integration into the Holy Roman Empire and Viking depredation followed, the local noblemen being left relatively free to carve out highly independent duchies and counties. For several centuries, Brabant, Holland, Zeeland, Friesland, Gelre and the others fought intermittently amongst themselves, but at the same time trade continued and grew, land was reclaimed, and cities prospered. Forced by nature to work together, over the centuries they built and maintained a network of polders and dikes that kept out the sea and the floods, in the process transforming their desolate landscape into a highly productive garden-state, mastering the North Sea and the high seas beyond, and emerging out of the struggle as one of the most urban and enterprising nations in Europe. By 1433, the Duke of Burgundy had assumed control over most of the Dutch-speaking territories and the concept of a nation of Dutch-speaking people emerged. However, under Charles V and then Philip II, the Burgundian Netherlands became part of the Spanish empire. The Protestant Reformation made Calvinism the dominant religion in the north (The Netherlands). Protestantism lost its gains in the South after the Catholic Counter Reformation, leaving the South (Belgium) almost wholly Catholic. The Spanish counterattack was led by Duke of Alba and Alexander Farnese. In 1566 William of Orange, a Calvinist, launched the Eighty Years' War to liberate the Dutch of all religions from the Catholic Spaniards. The Dutch revolt was an epic struggle against the Spanish; it finally was won in the North with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, but the Spanish remained in control in the South. The Dutch Republic was born, a Dutch-speaking nation with a Protestant majority, many Catholics and thousands of Jews—and an unusual policy of tolerance. Holland benefited greatly from the decline of Antwerp and the massive influx of Protestant refugees. During the Revolt commerce flourished and the United Provinces prospered. Amsterdam became the most important trading centre in northern Europe. In the Dutch Golden Age, which had its zenith around 1667, there was a remarkable flowering of trade, industry (especially shipbuilding), the arts (especially painting) and the sciences. Using its naval power and vast commercial fleet, the province of Holland, built a worldwide Dutch empire, a maritime power with a commercial, imperial and colonial reach that extended to Asia, Africa and the Americas. The trade in slaves was especially profitable. By the mid-18th century decline had set in because of several economic factors. The population was small—under two million. A series of wars with the British and the French were expensive. The country's political system was dominated by wealthy regents and (sometimes) by stadtholders drawn from the House of Orange. Eventually, Amsterdam lost its leading position to London. In 1784 a war with Great Britain ended particularly disastrously. There was growing unrest and conflict between the Orangists and the Patriots inspired by the French Revolution, and finally conflict with France itself. A pro-French Batavian Republic was established (1795–1806), and with the consolidation of French power under Napoleon gradually turned into a French satellite state, culminating in the Kingdom of Holland (1806–1810) and later simply an imperial province. After the Battle of Leipzig and subsequent collapse of the French Empire in 1813, the Netherlands was restored as a "sovereign principality" with the House of Orange providing a monarch. The Vienna Conference in 1815 confirmed this authority by creating the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. King William I was also given rule over Belgium. But the cultural chasm between North and South was too great. Belgium revolted in 1830 and the European powers recognized its independence. After an initially conservative period, strong liberal sentiments arose in the Netherlands, so that in the 1848 constitution the country was made a parliamentary democracy with a constitutional monarch. Industrialization and urbanization made it a prosperous small nation with a large empire. The Netherlands was neutral during the First World War, and the 1920s and 1930s were quiet years. On 10 May 1940 Nazi Germany invaded the country and, after destroying Rotterdam, occupied it. Around 100,000 Dutch Jews were murdered in the Holocaust and many others died as well. On 5 May 1945, the war ended after liberation by mainly Canadian forces. The post-war years were a time of hardship, natural disaster and mass emigration, followed by rebuilding, large-scale public works programmes (especially the Delta Works), economic recovery, European integration and the gradual introduction of a welfare state. There was also a conflict with Indonesia, which ended with the Dutch withdrawing completely from their former colonies there in 1961. Suriname declared independence in 1975. Many people from Indonesia and Suriname, and later from other countries as well, moved to the Netherlands, which resulted in the transformation of the country into a multicultural society. The second half of the 20th century was marked by relative peace and prosperity. By the 21st century, the Netherlands had become a modern, dynamic country with a successful, internationally oriented economy (the 16th largest in the world in 2010) and a high standard of living. |
The history of the Netherlands is the history of a seafaring people thriving on a watery lowland
river delta on the
North Sea in northwestern Europe. For four centuries the region formed a militarized border zone of the
Roman empire, which came under increasing pressure from
Germanic peoples moving westwards. As Roman power collapsed and the
Middle Ages began, three dominant
Germanic peoples coalesced in the area,
Frisians in the north,
Low Saxons in the northeast, and the
Franks.
During the Middle Ages, the descendants of the Salian Franks, the Carolingian dynasty, came to dominate the area militarily, as well as a large part of Western Europe. The region of the Netherlands therefore became part of Lower Lotharingia within the Frankish Holy Roman Empire. For several centuries, lordships such as Brabant, Holland, Zeeland, Friesland, Guelders and others held a changing patchwork of territories. There was no unified equivalent of the modern Netherlands. By 1433, the Duke of Burgundy had assumed control over most of the lowlands territories in Lower Lotharingia, creating the Burgundian Netherlands. This also included modern Belgium, Luxemburg, and a part of France. Under Charles V these were declared independent of Germany and France. But under his Habsburg dynasty, they also then became part of the new Spanish empire. This became a source of violent division when new Protestant had an important impact in many parts of the region, especially in Dutch speaking areas. The Catholic Kings of Spain took strong measures against protestantism and other dissent, and this polarized the peoples of what are now Belgium and Holland. The subsequent Dutch revolt finally led to the splitting of the Burgundian Netherlands into a southern " Spanish Netherlands", roughly equivalent to Belgium and Luxembourg, and a northern " United Provinces", from which the modern Netherlands has developed. In the Dutch Golden Age, which had its zenith around 1667, there was a remarkable flowering of trade, industry (especially shipbuilding), the arts (especially painting) and the sciences. A worldwide Dutch empire developed, and the Dutch East India Company became one of the earliest and most important companies of all time. During the 18th century the power and wealth of the Netherlands declined. A series of wars with the British and the French weakened it, while Britain (with its own East India Company became stronger. There was growing unrest and conflict between the Orangists and the Patriots. Later, a pro-French Batavian Republic was established (1795–1806), and this gradually turned into a French satellite state, the Kingdom of Holland (1806–1810), and later simply an imperial province. After the collapse of the French Empire in 1813, an expanded Netherlands was restored with the House of Orange as monarchs, ruling a " United Kingdom of the Netherlands" which included Belgium and Luxembourg. Belgium revolted in 1830 and by 1839 new borders had been agreed, dividing the Netherlands into the three countries in the region today. After an initially conservative period, in the 1848 constitution the country became a parliamentary democracy with a constitutional monarch. Modern Luxembourg initially remained united with the Netherlands, but today is ruled by a separate branch of the Dutch royal family. The Netherlands was neutral during the First World War, but during the Second World War, the Netherlands was invaded and occupied by Germany. The post-war peace years as in many parts of Europe, were initially a time of hardship, and mass migration, followed by rebuilding, large-scale public works programmes (especially the Delta Works). Indonesia rebelled from Dutch and became independent in 1961. Suriname declared independence in 1975. Economic recovery, European integration and the gradual introduction of a welfare state followed. The second half of the 20th century was marked by relative peace and prosperity. The Netherlands formed a new economic alliance with Belgium and Luxembourg, the Benelux, and then all three became founding members of the European Union. |
Just a quick note to remark that I have received no comments about the above proposal. To give some examples of things removed:
...all such things seem rather unusual diversions in a lead about a the entire history of the Netherlands. Is there any reason not to put the above proposed lead in as at least a small step towards trying to compress this article a bit?-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 16:49, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
I feel this section has to be toned down a little, because it's more about historiographical questions than about the actual presence of these groups. The latter is not really in doubt. The meaning or impact of that is another matter. I will look into that in the near future. Gerard von Hebel ( talk) 16:59, 13 April 2016 (UTC)
Who exactly surrendered? The Fortress Holland? The forces in the mainland? All forces? The Netherlands as a nation? Due to an exile government the last scenario is unlikely. Another question is, if parts of the forces (especially Air Force and Navy units) could escape and fought comparable to the Polish Armed Forces in the West together with the allies. Another question is, if the Netherlands were at war with Italy as well.-- Stubenviech ( talk) 08:14, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:
Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. — Community Tech bot ( talk) 20:15, 14 February 2019 (UTC)
Since a long time, I have been planning to improve the prehistory section. I will start soon, and welcome all collaboration. TrangaBellam ( talk) 07:23, 8 October 2021 (UTC)
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talk page for discussing improvements to the
History of the Netherlands article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
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The introductory paragraphs of the article leave off facts regarding the Netherlands major involvement in the enslavement and murder of many Africans, and Pacific Islanders. (These facts should be at the beginning, I would add them but I'm blocked when I attempt to edit wikipedia article racism). Further, the mention of the Dutch East India Company doesn't even mention that the company traded in slaves, but also other stolen resources from Africa, and Pacific and Caribbean, etc. Nederlandse Westindische Compagnie or WIC (the Dutch East Indian Company) transported up to 600,000 black slaves to Suriname, the Dutch Antilles and Aruba. "Between 1612 and 1872, the Dutch operated from some 10 fortresses along the Gold Coast (now Ghana), from which slaves were shipped across the Atlantic. The trade declined between 1780 and 1815. The Dutch part in the Atlantic slave trade is estimated at 5-7 percent, or some 550,000-600,000 Africans."
The Netherlands was one of the last countries to abolish slavery in 1863."
knap werk! -
Mathijs
Dank je. -
Andre Engels
Yes, very impressive! --
LMS
You should work for the CIA. :-D (The entire history they collected was about 5 lines long) --KQ
I have amended the Belgian revolution a bit. You made it sound like the Flemings were forced into independence and though pro-French elements were responsible for igniting the revolt, the core sentiments among both Flemings and Walloons were more as I described IMHO. -- [[User:Scipius]
---
I added a little known fact about WWI and the German Army taking a short cut over a small bit of Lands of the Netherlands, maybe someone can add to this. --
Golf
---
I always learned in school that there was no actual relation between the old Frisians (in Roman times), and the later ones? The new frisians took up the name of the region. (the remark about "still do")
I think this section is not exactly accurate.
The history of this small country starts with its first inhabitants, hunters that lived during the last ice age thousands of years ago. Notable remains of that period include the monumental Hunebeds in the province Drenthe.
It makes it seem as if the hunebeds were put up by hunters during the last ice age, 8,000 BCE or so. According to a random google they were built between 3400 and 3200 BCE. That's quite a huge distance in time. According to the same source the people who put up these monuments were early farmers. It's like confusing ancient egypt with the reign of Charlemaine.. Martijn faassen 23:12, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I'd like to put this article on the main page, but the introduction could use some beefing up. Also, someone else noted that the painting (the Nightwatch) seems a bit arbitrary, and that a better painting (perhaps a painting of a historical event described in the article) would be better. →Raul654 00:56, Jan 29, 2005 (UTC)
Although this article is pretty good, and may have been good enough to be featured on Wikipedia in the past, I don't think it's living up to Wikipedia's current standards for featured articles. I mean, I have just added quite a considerable amount of additions and corrections, and I still feel like there's lots missing/wrong. For instance: the introduction is really odd, there is nothing about peoples coming in before the Romans (Batafs, Westgoths, the like), the Holy Roman Empire bit is rather short considering the timespan (+- 500-1500!) and important developments, there is next to nothing on the Eighty Years' War (yes, I know there's an article but there should be something in the main article as well), nothing about cultural life in the Golden Age (science, arts), oh and that part should probably be sectioned (subdivided, but not divided!) in Eighty Years' War and Golden Age. There is very little contemporary history and most of it is about institutions and the like (where are 'depillarization', 60's-70's cultural changes, immigration?), the balance is odd at times (quite a lot about Indonesia compared to the rest), the language is rather poor sometimes and I agree with some comments that have been made about the images - there should probably be a different painting at the top (not sure what, though), and I feel there should be an image of William of Orange (Greatest Dutchman, after all ;) ). Don't worry, there's a lot that I like about the article (otherwise I wouldn't work on it), and hey, if we all work together we can give this article the smothering love that it needs :D.
Junes 18:50, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Although I very much like your additions, Thames, because they are well-written and important, a problem is becoming apparent. Some sections have grown so much that the balance is completely gone. Of course, the Golden Age is very important in the history of the Netherlands, and that should merit a longer section, but now it's about 6 times longer than the Holy Roman Empire section. The 20th century is also very long in comparison to the rest. Of course, we could just expand the other sections greatly, but that would mean the article could no longer serve as an introductory text. So it's probably best to make some new articles or merge the information into other existing articles. There a two useful articles here: Dutch Golden Age and Eighty Years' War. The first is a thorough article on the cultural and social history of the Golden Age, but doesn't concern politics. The second is not so thorough, and needs improvement. I think some of mine and your additions could perfectly amend that article. Also, a third article would be very useful, something like History of the Dutch Golden Age, which focuses mainly on political events. However, that would be a lot of work and I'm not ready to write it now. But I'd like to hear your views on it before I merge the History and the Eighty Years' War. What I still miss by the way, and for which there would be plenty of room to expand on in the war article, is some of the more selfish reasons for the revolt: privileges that were taken away, more bureaucratic governing instead of by nobility. As for the 20th century, there's probably enough now to merit a seperate article, and I will as soon as I get to it. Junes 18:27, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
This is the first time I've posted a comment on Wikipedia, so forgive me if I'm doing it wrong in some way.
I enjoyed this history (and others here on similar topics). It would be great if it could explore in more depth the early origins of the Dutch as a people. Who are the Dutch exactly? Not in terms of legend or national identity (e.g. Batavians) but in purely historical terms. The current article deals with this but only for a few lines.
I think English-speakers who are interested in the history of this nation would like to know more about its early relationship between Anglo-Saxon lands. Apparently there were strong ties between SE England and the Frisians. The Dutch were christianised by Anglo-Saxons whose language was apparently intelligible. (Is that correct?) Why does England have so much written in Old English, but in Old Dutch there is virtually nothing?
The medieval Flemish and Dutch (many of them anyway) are presumably the inheritors of the Franks. Dutch essentially developed from Old Low Franconian. The Franks were centered in Flanders, but extended into the southern Netherlands. We read about the Frisians inhabiting the area north of the two rivers and having a large trading influence over the surrounding areas. In 900 most of the Netherlands is still Frisian, all the way down to the main rivers; by 1300 we're looking at a country that has become largely Frankish and is on the verge of world empire. By the time of the Golden Age we see a Holland that is made up of these magnificent prosperous cities - Amsterdam, Leiden, Rotterdam, Haarlem, etc. - but they obviously didn't just pop up out of nowhere.
So what happened between around 900 and 1300 to change the country from being primarily Frisian speaking to being primarily Frankish speaking? From terp-dwelling to Golden Age? From having no written records in Dutch to producing a Vermeer? Was it a slow migration north? Or did Franks create Frankish towns and cities that were surrounded by Frisians? Did the Frisians become culturally and linguistically "Frankicised" for social or economic reasons? Did Vikings or Charlemagne have anything to do with it? What was the dynamic here? Isn't this transition from Frisian to Frankish a really important part of Dutch history? If not, why not? I would love to read more about it. We read much about the Frankish conquest of France, but little about the expansion northwards.
I am also interested in other 5th to 13th century aspects. English sources have much to say about early medieval society in France, England and Germany, but so little about the Netherlands. - the transition from busy Roman outpost to sparsely populated Frisian empire - the Christianisation of the Netherlands and the role of Irish and Anglo-Saxon missionaries - the role played by the Dutch in the Crusades and the church - the history of the language itself
If this leads anywhere thanks! (Alex)
Thanks by the way Alex, for your copy-editing. There were quite a bit of errors in the article because it wasn't written by native speakers. I saw you changed some American spelling to British spelling. I think that's probably a good idea (the Wikipedia policy is to use consistent spelling, and to make the choice depending who is most likely to read it. Because of the proximity of the UK to the Netherlands, British spelling would be best.) Junes 22:28, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)
It would be nice to have a detailed section on the colonial history of the netherlands, how it came about, which countries etc.
I agree, this would also make the mentioning of decolonisation of Indonesia in the post WWII section less awkward.-- Arnoutf 23:43, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
It would also be fair to write something on slave's trade.
The following may seem like a trite remark, but this is about a deep-rooted misconception and even an insult. The article says "The Netherlands is now a modern, industrialised nation". Sounds fine, but it suggests there are non-modern countries. Can anyone think of a nation that is not now a modern nation? And would they then dare tell this to an inhabitant of that country in their face? If a nation exists now, it's by definition a modern nation, right? Or does it really mean western and are non-western countries, ehm ... backward or something? Sorry for being so dutch :) DirkvdM July 3, 2005 08:03 (UTC)
Dirk's comments show a lack of exposure to travel off the beaten track. There are many nations, particularly in Africa and the Pacific, which it would be difficult to classify as "modern". Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, etc. No slight intended, they just don't have modernised economies and depend on foreign aid to survive. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.68.69.137 ( talk) 11:32, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
Hello, how could I copy the schematic about the history of the Low Countries, I´m translating this article into the Spanish Wikipedia. Thanks. Delp. Sorry, i cant sign because im not registered here.
I put this in here and corresponing material in the Armada article as it is very easy for nations to ignore other people's contribution to and experience of history (even to fall into the trap of believing their own nation's propaganda). My aim is to draw attention to the wider pattern which clearly exists, though my knowledge is too narrow, for the reason given, for me to be competent to achieve this fully. Maybe there is an article already covering the broader view at this period. If so, I have missed it. ( RJP 13:16, 30 October 2005 (UTC))
During the period of rule of Spain in the Netherlands, was the Spanish language known by Dutch citizens? If no, why not? The Spanish could have exerted a much greater influence on the Netherlands if their subjects knew Spanish. Stallions2010 23:05, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Can anyone point me to John Lothrop Motley's source material regarding the death sentence for the whole of The Netherlands? The passage from his work 'The Rise of the Dutch Republic' regarding a decree by the Holy Office of the Inquisition is often quoted but I have also read that this document (if it existed) was a forgery. Reading Motley's history, one can clearly feel the admiration of the author for William of Orange as well as his loathing for the Duke of Alva ( both understandable ) but it has been suggested that Motley ( 1814-1877 ) may have painted a more extreme picture of Spanish infamy at this time than was in fact the case. -- User:Tamurello 10:50, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
I have to concur with Tamurello. I have tried to find documentation to verify this claim, which I have heard in several places, and been unable to do so. I have also looked into Motley a bit, and he is widely regarded as being heavily influenced by his own Whig view of history and his anti-Catholic stance in 'Dutch Republic' (e.g., his references to the pope as the "Roman tyrant"). He is not regarded as reliable by historians. Cf. Robert Wheaton, "Motley and the Dutch Historians," New England Quarterly 35 (2007), 318-336, who states that "special pleading, outrageous bias, and an uncritical use of sources are all apparent to the casual reader". I have deleted the sentence from Motley for now, until someone can provide some objective corroboration. - Alan
66.31.47.139 15:53, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
Shouldnt there be a navigational template? most other history pages have a template listing all the different history period article. – Tutmøsis (Talk) 20:01, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
So there's not a single mention of floods in the history of the Netherlands? -- euyyn 00:52, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
I’ve added a few lines on how Dutch wealth during the so called “golden period” came partly from their extensive slaving. For references and for those interested in the appalling human cost of the Dutch wealth, se the following links:
-- Stor stark7 Talk 15:57, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
I am wondering if reparations were ever offered for the Netherland's involvement in slave trade. - aba lead a at yahoo dot com (one-word ID)
I included that the jews who lived in the Netherlands were the main driving force behind bringing the slave trade to the netherlands and were also its main practioners. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.160.141.90 ( talk) 17:58, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
I edited the line on Arthur Seyss-Inquart in the secion on WW2 and moved it another part of the article. The semi-colon in the original implies that he was a Dutch collaborator instead of an Austrian National Socialist, imposed by the Nazi regime as Reich Commissioner of the Netherlands. By moving the line, the link to the excellent Wikipedia entry on Seyss-Inquart is preserved in this article.
I do not think the line about the relations with Canada is entirely accurate any more. Only the elderly in the Netherlands associate Canada with the liberation after the second world war. For younger generations, other images are more important. Canada's reputation has suffered badly in the Netherlands as a result of regularly recurring negative publicity in the Dutch press about the clubbing of baby seals in the Arctic. I amended the line about Canada accordingly, but it might be considered to take out the line about Dutch-Canadian relations completely, as it does not seem very relevant in this section on Dutch history (why is there no reference to relations with the U.S., arguably a country that has influenced the Netherlands more than Canada, or with post-war Germany?) ( R3NL 20:22, 10 September 2006 (UTC))
I agree. In my view the whole line about Canada could be deleted. ( R3NL 19:30, 14 September 2006 (UTC))
I detect some mistakes in references in the paragraphs on Dutch plans to deport Germans from Dutch territory and annex swathes of German territory after WW2. One of the footnotes should refer to article 4, not to article 5. Careful reading of that article demonstrates, moreover, that the British authorities in northern Germany did not expel 100.000 Dutch from the British occupation zone, but only threatened to do so in reaction to the expulsion of Germans from Dutch territory.
In a more geneneral sense, I do not think it is proportionate to devote four or five paragraphs to Dutch-German relations in the aftermath of WW2. This Wikipedia article contains only one paragraph on the mass murder of more than 100.000 Jewish citizens of the Netherlands in German concntration camps. Devoting another three or four paragraphs to (only very partially implemented) plans for expulsion of Germans and annexation of German territory seems entirely out of proportion. I would be in favour of deleting these paragraphs. ( 87.80.96.66 17:18, 21 October 2006 (UTC))
Could anyone tell me where exactly the article quoted in footnote 5 mentions that the British occupation authorities threatened to expell 100,000 Dutch from northern Germany? It is not in there, yet the footnote has not been removed from the article. ( 87.80.96.66 17:42, 23 December 2006 (UTC))
Someone has changed this part of the article slightly. The so-called reference to the reaction of the British authorities in occupied Germany, expelling 100,000 Dutch from Northern Germany, is now referenced by footnote 7 instead of footnote 5. But after having read the article on Dutch plans to annex parts of Germany (to which footnote 7 refers), I can only conclude that no mention is made there to this British reaction. This part of the text is faulty and should be removed.
I have removed some sentences on the expulsion of Germans from the Netherlands after WW2. Careful reading of the articles quoted in the footnote shows that they do not corroborate the statements made in this part of the Wikipedia entry. ( 87.65.143.224)
I'm reviewing articles from Version 0.5 that have been "downgraded" during our work period, and noticed that a large chunk of material about the "golden age" had been removed. I find it hard to believe that was not caused by a vandal, but could someone who maintains/watches this page please review my edit. If I've made some mistake, please revert, but I would have thought this was one of the most important periods in Dutch history! Walkerma 05:44, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
I recently fell in love with the History of Poland is dealt with, which is with dates. Currently this is eccentially a huge pile of information, in my vision this will be a starting point to a wide array of sub articles dealing with specific articles. Rex 19:50, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Some text about prehistoric and Roman times has been deleted long ago. I readded it with minor modifications. Icek 02:51, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
Since adding the tag seems to be a one man's action that has never been clarified by the editor that submitted this tag, Daniel Case (never contributing to Talk nor contributing in any other way to the article) I think is appropiate to remove this weird comment. Thanks. Rokus01 08:34, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
..The Dutch didn't regard themselves as Germans any more since the 15th century, but they officially remained a part of Germany until 1648..
How would Americans feel if their history page said that they remained officially an English colony till 1812 just because the Brits wrote the history books?
America's independence is 1776, ours 1581. At the latest.
Jcwf 04:44, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
I was a bit quick in editing the introduction. In my history comment I noted that there was no reference to the Swifterbant culture independently re-establishing agriculture, but I since found I missed a citation in the Swifterbant culture article. My suggestion is to move some of this discussion out of this article into the Swifterbant culture article.
I also still stand by my edit of the introduction - to state the Netherlands is an (underestimated) cradle of civilization is very strong and in my opinion unwarranted, and many countries can make claims like this. Reinventing agriculture just seems plain wrong - it's stated that they were influenced by other agriculturalists and adopted it, not reinvented it from scratch or something. Martijn Faassen 02:39, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
If you are talking about modesty, you are absolutely right. However, has history not been too modest so far towards an area that harboured the homelands of Swifterbant, Bell-Beakers and the Salian Franks? Certainly, this does not fit the practice of rather putting prestigeous nations on the platform, and the availability of archeological facts does not fit the tendency to point at virtually unexplored, far away regions otherwise. Still, don't underestimate Swifterbant, so far they are the oldest culture on the line leading to Funnelbeaker, Corded Ware and Beaker cultures.
I can understand your doubts concerning the cultural achievements of Swifterbant. After all they just left the hunter-gatherer stage. However, the acculturation of Northern Europe was different from the gradual spread of agriculture from Turkey to the Balkans and so on. Here, indigeous people took up agriculture in their own ways, without being an extension of the wave of agricultural lifestyles radiating from the Orient. The word acculturation might not reflect this break sufficiently. Besides, being semi-sedentairy by nature (they were fishermen!), the limited cultivation of certain crops did not involve a sudden a change of lifestyle, it predated the advent of certain neighbouring agriculturists and even might have been the way prehistoric people had added certain crops to their menu already for thousands of years.
I also can understand your doubt concerning the cultural achievements of the Salian Franks, since after all they (and their offspring) only rose to preeminence having their new centres in France and Germany.
However, the Bell Beakers are represented everywhere as carriers of a civilized package of attributes that incended most of Central and Western Europe - maybe even Italy, the wider identification of Beaker cultures seems to emerge as a new field of scholarly discussion. This package was already established when they started to expand. This means, it was established were it originated: in the Netherlands and lover Rhine valley. Sure, they incorporated state of the art technology from all over, just like the Western civilization did when they started to expand. That's why they preferred rivers and coastal areas. And just like the Western civilization, they improved on their acquired package of civilized items themselves and put the base of something completely new. This is indeed a significant contribution to civilization. Underestimated, since we already know all of this for almost forty years, and still it doesn't seem to fully enter. Rokus01 22:44, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
I miss the point here. What is wrong about the Netherlands being an attested cradle of people and (also prehistoric) civilization? Where are you afraid of? Examples abound. The Beaker phenomenon was pivotal in spreading Bronze culture and the emergence of trade routes as far as China - where Bronze was accepted gratefully at that other end of the silk route. Ironically, it seems all we miss is indeed a pityful government to promote indigenous culture wearing feathered crowns like in Venezuela (Chavez) or Bolivia (Morales), or having a tax-paid ministry for making an inventory of (alleged) feats to boost nationalistic self confidence. Instead we have mister Schonken. From scientific point of view, I wonder what is better. In short, I don't mind any political bias bullying towards the repression of sourced facts and any positive interpretation, while obviously accepting wholesale the unsourced bias of other nations. Rokus01 08:14, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
I restored the claims of an indigenous development of agriculture. It was sourced before with two notable references, however, since this view was contested by a sock and a rouge admin I also added a pagenumber and a quote. Rokus01 ( talk) 21:53, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
Martijn, sure we have to focus on content. That is why I filtered out the contributions of an attack account, and will continue to do so. Unfortunately I deleted all that referred to the unfocussed attacks, indeed for having nothing to do with content. Rokus01 ( talk) 22:17, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
can somebody fix the intro please? "The history of the Netherlands technically began more than 152,000 years ago" is extremely unprofessional. Just state that the area was inhabited since the paleolithic. The lead should also be shorter. dab (𒁳) 17:25, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
Rokus01, I'm fine with your recent edits to the intro, but you shouldn't have flagged them as minor, and I'd have appreciated an edit summary. Martijn Faassen 00:03, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
I just added something about the Peace of Münster in the intro. -The Bold Guy- 18:10, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
I am fascinated by how many Dutch people I meet with Roman names like Lucius Vilnius, for example. Is there more to this than the Wiki explains? Is there a Roman sub-culture still existing in the Netherlands? Are Dutch people of Roman ancestry a kind of elite? It would be good to have a section in the Wiki page about this. TonyG (Australia) - 07 Dec 2007.
Some dutch people have latin names because latin was a language that some scholars and clergy had learned to speak and read since it was a part of their occupations. All dutch people have germanic ancestry and some may have some celtic ancestry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.244.177.17 ( talk) 04:24, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
I would like to know what people think about the anachronistic references to "Netherlands" and "Dutch" in this article. Take these sentences for example:
Considering there was no "Netherlands" and no "Dutch" at this time, aren't sentences like this completely misleading? They ruin the article for me.
Even if this is repaired, what term should be used? A phrase like "the provinces that are now called the Netherlands" seems too much of a mouthful. The Dutch version of this article addresses this problem expressly at the start:
I suppose the problem is artificially trying to construct a history for a political unit that did not exist until the 17th centry. The answer is probably not to keep making references to it. It's poor style in any case. Schildewaert ( talk) 23:21, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
Is anyone else distressed by the quality of the language and content of this article? Schildewaert ( talk) 00:37, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
Let me ad a few remarks about things that could use some looking into;
I expanded the section on the Burgundian period. I added a small section on the Frisian peasants rebellion from 1515 until 1523 lead by Pier Gerlofs Donia. Was signed,
Jouke Bersma —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.172.170.26 ( talk) 10:00, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
Commencing review. BlackJack | talk page 12:02, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
I've done a quick scan to see if there any fundamental issues and can report as follows on the quickfail criteria:
So, unless I find POV when I read the article in depth, the only major problem is the shortage of citations. I do not think it will help anyone to quickfail the article on that basis so I will place {{cn}} tags as I read through it. Unfortunately, this does mean the article will probably fail GA but at least I can highlight where work is needed.
I do have another problem which is that I have seen several examples of unsatisfactory prose such as "Julius Caesar and his empire conquered Gaul". I will try to improve prose, grammar and spelling as I work through the review but it depends on the scale of the problem.
Otherwise, the article seems well-served by images and there is plenty of linkage. Not sure if it should have more categories and I will look into that.
Watch this space. BlackJack | talk page 12:49, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
The article fails GA.
I have made comments above about the poor quality of the prose in many areas and about the shortage of citations. The article also fails because the lead does not adequately summarise the content.
Not only does the lead contain poor prose, it is at times divorced from the main content. For example, the first paragraph refers to the Roman province of Gallia Belgica and this is not mentioned anywhere in the main text. What is needed is for someone to rewrite the lead to provide consistency by accurately summarising the article.
Using the good article criteria, the article rates as follows:
I considered placing the article "On Hold" for a time while citations are provided and the necessary improvements are made to the lead and the prose, but I have decided to "Fail" it. I notice that the nominator is new to the article and has only made a few recent edits so his commitment remains uncertain. I cannot identify any editor who is a regular, let alone main, contributor. This leads me to suspect that the commitment is not there and so the improvements will not be done in a reasonable timeframe.
I think the cause of the article's problems is this lack of committed editors because it has been receiving occasional edits from all and sundry with no one to take on the mantle of a co-ordinator. The inconsistency between the lead and the content is a reflection of that situation.
For what it is worth, I will keep the article in my own watchlist and make edits as and when. It has at least interested me in the subject when previously I had only a superficial knowledge of Dutch history. BlackJack | talk page 14:56, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
Under a proposal made by me, the pages Patrician and Patricianship -- whose names presently are not specific enough -- will be renamed as follows:
(I dropped an earlier proposal for merging the two pages.)
For the rationale for renaming the pages and a couple of associated other changes, as well as the opinions of user:Johnbod, please see the discussion page at Talk:Patricianship.
My question is, do people here support my renaming proposal, or if not support it, at least would not oppose it.
Thanks in advance for all replies-- Goodmorningworld ( talk) 14:37, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
I agree that removing the template may not be according to the procedure, but the procedure also requires discussion on the talk page, which is missing.
There's really nothing to merge in the Dutch miracle article. Besides, that article has already given three different definitions of what the Dutch miracle might be. Mvdleeuw ( talk) 06:12, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
If nobody objects, I will remove the template shortly. Mvdleeuw ( talk) 06:57, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
I removed the slave trade reference since it is not specific about who owned and operated in the african slave trade. The "Dutch" colonies had many people who were not ethnically germanic living in them and therefore are not dutch. Most all of the black african slave owners and traders who historians call dutch were actually jewish people who had moved from spain to the netherlands. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.99.132.30 ( talk) 17:00, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
The postma book is not specific about the ethnicity of the slave owners. I deleted it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.160.141.90 ( talk) 15:54, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
This article desperately requires editing. There are organisational problems and language problems. I've been checking it out for a few years now, occasionally editing something. I'm a little reluctant to get involved because of the "drive-by shooting" that is conducted here by casual visitors. I suppose it's not vandalism, but it often seems to be done (in sub-standard English) by people who haven't read the complete article, perceive the profiling of a specific point as more important than maintaining the integrity of the article, have no intention of referencing their additions, confuse Dutch history with Dutch nationalism, and have odd notions about what English speakers wish to (or should!) read about Dutch history. It would be better to create a series of sub-articles on specific subjects and then just summarise them here. It would also be better for the editors of the sub-articles to turn their attention to what's going on there. But that does not seem to be happening. If no-one objects, I'll try to edit this article slowly over the course of a period of time, but without summarising every individual micro-change. I don't think there will be any objection given the magnitude of the number of errors. Also, I'm not going to start with the problematic introduction. Schildewaert ( talk) 07:01, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
I propose to move this part of the article to a separate page and then just leave a brief one paragraph overview here. I'll wait a few days for objections to be raised. Schildewaert ( talk) 07:09, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
I've taken out this sentence, because it doesn't make sense in this context of Dutch prehistory. It seems to refer to a diaspora "from Ireland". If the author wants to put it back in, here is the code:
from Ireland to the Carpathian Basin and south along the Atlantic coast and following the Rhone valley as far as Portugal, North Africa and Sicily, even penetrating northern and central Italy. [1]
References
http://rictornorton.co.uk/eighteen/1730news.htm - Some 250+ men executed. Notable? Pär Larsson ( talk) 20:16, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
With respect to the original author(s), the text relating to the 19th century is particularly problematic from both a language and content perspective. I started to edit it myself, but I've stopped for now. This whole section needs to be properly rewritten by someone with expertise and access to secondary sources. I thought the improvements could come from the article on "William I" or the article on "United Kingdom of the Netherlands", but those two articles are also unfootnoted and not that well written.
I would like to invite the original author(s), or someone else who understands 19th century Dutch history, to amend this text (with proper footnotes of course). It's a shame the Dutch articles are unfootnoted because the easiest approach would have been to translate them. If no one takes up the challenge, I'll do it myself, but the result will be the amendment of most of the current text. Schildewaert ( talk) 20:22, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
"The Franks came to dominate the area and from their speech the Dutch language arose."
How does this account for the Low Saxon languages spoken in the east of the Netherlands? 81.68.255.36 ( talk) 15:01, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
I like what you did, we on the Veluwe should not be forgotten, right? Just wanted to have it noted somewhere in the article. Thanks! ;) 81.68.255.36 ( talk) 22:11, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
The section deleted was a duplicate 450 words of the main Frisii article which considers various possibilities of what might have been the cause. ( Frisii says "In the 3rd and 4th centuries the population of Frisia steadily decreased, and by the 5th century the population had dropped dramatically. The coastal lands would remain largely unpopulated for the next two centuries. When conditions improved Frisia would receive an influx of new settlers, mostly Saxons, and these would eventually be referred to as 'Frisians', though they were not necessarily descended from the ancient Frisii.") That is the coverage for the disappearance of a group belongs in the Frisii article where it is. --the group is important for the long term narrative only when it was a distinctive element and none of that was removed. The article is too long and this kind of detail is not needed when the interested reader can read the text by one click. History books do not pay much attention to the disappearance issue -- see Ton Derks; Nico Roymans (2009). Ethnic Constructs in Antiquity: The Role of Power and Tradition. Amsterdam University Press. p. 323. for recent research Rjensen ( talk) 10:53, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
What I do feel this article desperately needs is some explanation of the relationship and differences between the Frisians and the Low Saxons. My research has not uncovered an explanation of that. The Dutch Wikipedia article on the Frisii has this (unfortunately unfootnoted) sentence:
This statement raises more questions for me than answers. But if it is right, and if it is supported by the sources, the current paragraph should be amended according. I also found this unreferenced statement on the page for Anglo-Frisian Language:
This seems right to me, but what isn't clear to me is the process that led to such a clear distinction between Frisians and Low Saxons today. Schildewaert ( talk) 23:36, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
This part was recently added:
However, it is not clear whether this applies to Belgium or the southern part of the Netherlands. The reference to "priest" seems to exclude most of the modern Netherlands. If it pertains to the situation in Belgium, how relevant is it to this article? Schildewaert ( talk) 07:54, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
I'm willing to discuss the issue of how to list and depict the various tribal groupings associated with the pre-Roman period. This particular map is useful, not because of its accuracy, but because of its comprehensiveness. It is accurate enough to give the casual reader a basic understanding, and the symbolic nature of the representation is fully explained in the caption. A more detailed presentation of the tribal groupings can be presented in an article devoted to that topic. I was absolutely delighted to find that someone had made this image and posted it on Wikimedia. It belongs in this article, unless you can find another map that presents it better. I do think a listing of the various tribes is more or less essential to anyone seeking to understand the situation. I would like to avoid the situation of the only tribal group presented being the Batavians.
I've looked carefully at your new list of the tribal groupings in the section on the Batavians, and I don't understand why you are unwilling to list them in a separate section, or integrate them into the section that is already there. Your list raises issues for me. Your comment about the Frisians for example is a repetition of comments made elsewhere. I'm sorry, but I feel this list should be removed or integrated more smoothly into the existing text. It essentially ruins the treatment of this subject. I don't see this as vandalism, but you are riding roughshod over the text that is already there. Schildewaert ( talk) 02:26, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
The article and the lead are both far outside WP norms and have generally been written in a wordy way. The lead reads like a mini version of the whole article. I think it would be pretty easy to compress the lead without losing much, but I wanted to give a warning and not shock anyone. I think this is still too long.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 15:02, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
Now | Proposal |
---|---|
The history of the Netherlands is the history of a seafaring people thriving on a watery lowland
river delta on the
North Sea in northwestern Europe. When the
Romans and written history arrived in 57 BC, the country was sparsely populated by various tribal groups at the periphery of the empire. Over four centuries of
Roman rule had profound demographic effects, resulting eventually in the establishment of three primary
Germanic peoples in the area:
Frisians,
Low Saxons and the
Franks.
Hiberno-Scottish and
Anglo-Saxon missionaries led them to adopt Christianity by the 8th century. The descendants of the
Salian Franks eventually came to dominate the area, and from their speech the
Dutch language arose.
Carolingian rule, loose integration into the Holy Roman Empire and Viking depredation followed, the local noblemen being left relatively free to carve out highly independent duchies and counties. For several centuries, Brabant, Holland, Zeeland, Friesland, Gelre and the others fought intermittently amongst themselves, but at the same time trade continued and grew, land was reclaimed, and cities prospered. Forced by nature to work together, over the centuries they built and maintained a network of polders and dikes that kept out the sea and the floods, in the process transforming their desolate landscape into a highly productive garden-state, mastering the North Sea and the high seas beyond, and emerging out of the struggle as one of the most urban and enterprising nations in Europe. By 1433, the Duke of Burgundy had assumed control over most of the Dutch-speaking territories and the concept of a nation of Dutch-speaking people emerged. However, under Charles V and then Philip II, the Burgundian Netherlands became part of the Spanish empire. The Protestant Reformation made Calvinism the dominant religion in the north (The Netherlands). Protestantism lost its gains in the South after the Catholic Counter Reformation, leaving the South (Belgium) almost wholly Catholic. The Spanish counterattack was led by Duke of Alba and Alexander Farnese. In 1566 William of Orange, a Calvinist, launched the Eighty Years' War to liberate the Dutch of all religions from the Catholic Spaniards. The Dutch revolt was an epic struggle against the Spanish; it finally was won in the North with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, but the Spanish remained in control in the South. The Dutch Republic was born, a Dutch-speaking nation with a Protestant majority, many Catholics and thousands of Jews—and an unusual policy of tolerance. Holland benefited greatly from the decline of Antwerp and the massive influx of Protestant refugees. During the Revolt commerce flourished and the United Provinces prospered. Amsterdam became the most important trading centre in northern Europe. In the Dutch Golden Age, which had its zenith around 1667, there was a remarkable flowering of trade, industry (especially shipbuilding), the arts (especially painting) and the sciences. Using its naval power and vast commercial fleet, the province of Holland, built a worldwide Dutch empire, a maritime power with a commercial, imperial and colonial reach that extended to Asia, Africa and the Americas. The trade in slaves was especially profitable. By the mid-18th century decline had set in because of several economic factors. The population was small—under two million. A series of wars with the British and the French were expensive. The country's political system was dominated by wealthy regents and (sometimes) by stadtholders drawn from the House of Orange. Eventually, Amsterdam lost its leading position to London. In 1784 a war with Great Britain ended particularly disastrously. There was growing unrest and conflict between the Orangists and the Patriots inspired by the French Revolution, and finally conflict with France itself. A pro-French Batavian Republic was established (1795–1806), and with the consolidation of French power under Napoleon gradually turned into a French satellite state, culminating in the Kingdom of Holland (1806–1810) and later simply an imperial province. After the Battle of Leipzig and subsequent collapse of the French Empire in 1813, the Netherlands was restored as a "sovereign principality" with the House of Orange providing a monarch. The Vienna Conference in 1815 confirmed this authority by creating the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. King William I was also given rule over Belgium. But the cultural chasm between North and South was too great. Belgium revolted in 1830 and the European powers recognized its independence. After an initially conservative period, strong liberal sentiments arose in the Netherlands, so that in the 1848 constitution the country was made a parliamentary democracy with a constitutional monarch. Industrialization and urbanization made it a prosperous small nation with a large empire. The Netherlands was neutral during the First World War, and the 1920s and 1930s were quiet years. On 10 May 1940 Nazi Germany invaded the country and, after destroying Rotterdam, occupied it. Around 100,000 Dutch Jews were murdered in the Holocaust and many others died as well. On 5 May 1945, the war ended after liberation by mainly Canadian forces. The post-war years were a time of hardship, natural disaster and mass emigration, followed by rebuilding, large-scale public works programmes (especially the Delta Works), economic recovery, European integration and the gradual introduction of a welfare state. There was also a conflict with Indonesia, which ended with the Dutch withdrawing completely from their former colonies there in 1961. Suriname declared independence in 1975. Many people from Indonesia and Suriname, and later from other countries as well, moved to the Netherlands, which resulted in the transformation of the country into a multicultural society. The second half of the 20th century was marked by relative peace and prosperity. By the 21st century, the Netherlands had become a modern, dynamic country with a successful, internationally oriented economy (the 16th largest in the world in 2010) and a high standard of living. |
The history of the Netherlands is the history of a seafaring people thriving on a watery lowland
river delta on the
North Sea in northwestern Europe. For four centuries the region formed a militarized border zone of the
Roman empire, which came under increasing pressure from
Germanic peoples moving westwards. As Roman power collapsed and the
Middle Ages began, three dominant
Germanic peoples coalesced in the area,
Frisians in the north,
Low Saxons in the northeast, and the
Franks.
During the Middle Ages, the descendants of the Salian Franks, the Carolingian dynasty, came to dominate the area militarily, as well as a large part of Western Europe. The region of the Netherlands therefore became part of Lower Lotharingia within the Frankish Holy Roman Empire. For several centuries, lordships such as Brabant, Holland, Zeeland, Friesland, Guelders and others held a changing patchwork of territories. There was no unified equivalent of the modern Netherlands. By 1433, the Duke of Burgundy had assumed control over most of the lowlands territories in Lower Lotharingia, creating the Burgundian Netherlands. This also included modern Belgium, Luxemburg, and a part of France. Under Charles V these were declared independent of Germany and France. But under his Habsburg dynasty, they also then became part of the new Spanish empire. This became a source of violent division when new Protestant had an important impact in many parts of the region, especially in Dutch speaking areas. The Catholic Kings of Spain took strong measures against protestantism and other dissent, and this polarized the peoples of what are now Belgium and Holland. The subsequent Dutch revolt finally led to the splitting of the Burgundian Netherlands into a southern " Spanish Netherlands", roughly equivalent to Belgium and Luxembourg, and a northern " United Provinces", from which the modern Netherlands has developed. In the Dutch Golden Age, which had its zenith around 1667, there was a remarkable flowering of trade, industry (especially shipbuilding), the arts (especially painting) and the sciences. A worldwide Dutch empire developed, and the Dutch East India Company became one of the earliest and most important companies of all time. During the 18th century the power and wealth of the Netherlands declined. A series of wars with the British and the French weakened it, while Britain (with its own East India Company became stronger. There was growing unrest and conflict between the Orangists and the Patriots. Later, a pro-French Batavian Republic was established (1795–1806), and this gradually turned into a French satellite state, the Kingdom of Holland (1806–1810), and later simply an imperial province. After the collapse of the French Empire in 1813, an expanded Netherlands was restored with the House of Orange as monarchs, ruling a " United Kingdom of the Netherlands" which included Belgium and Luxembourg. Belgium revolted in 1830 and by 1839 new borders had been agreed, dividing the Netherlands into the three countries in the region today. After an initially conservative period, in the 1848 constitution the country became a parliamentary democracy with a constitutional monarch. Modern Luxembourg initially remained united with the Netherlands, but today is ruled by a separate branch of the Dutch royal family. The Netherlands was neutral during the First World War, but during the Second World War, the Netherlands was invaded and occupied by Germany. The post-war peace years as in many parts of Europe, were initially a time of hardship, and mass migration, followed by rebuilding, large-scale public works programmes (especially the Delta Works). Indonesia rebelled from Dutch and became independent in 1961. Suriname declared independence in 1975. Economic recovery, European integration and the gradual introduction of a welfare state followed. The second half of the 20th century was marked by relative peace and prosperity. The Netherlands formed a new economic alliance with Belgium and Luxembourg, the Benelux, and then all three became founding members of the European Union. |
Just a quick note to remark that I have received no comments about the above proposal. To give some examples of things removed:
...all such things seem rather unusual diversions in a lead about a the entire history of the Netherlands. Is there any reason not to put the above proposed lead in as at least a small step towards trying to compress this article a bit?-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 16:49, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
I feel this section has to be toned down a little, because it's more about historiographical questions than about the actual presence of these groups. The latter is not really in doubt. The meaning or impact of that is another matter. I will look into that in the near future. Gerard von Hebel ( talk) 16:59, 13 April 2016 (UTC)
Who exactly surrendered? The Fortress Holland? The forces in the mainland? All forces? The Netherlands as a nation? Due to an exile government the last scenario is unlikely. Another question is, if parts of the forces (especially Air Force and Navy units) could escape and fought comparable to the Polish Armed Forces in the West together with the allies. Another question is, if the Netherlands were at war with Italy as well.-- Stubenviech ( talk) 08:14, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:
Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. — Community Tech bot ( talk) 20:15, 14 February 2019 (UTC)
Since a long time, I have been planning to improve the prehistory section. I will start soon, and welcome all collaboration. TrangaBellam ( talk) 07:23, 8 October 2021 (UTC)