Anglo-Dutch wars
Four naval conflicts between the Dutch Republic and England.
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The Anglo–Dutch wars were a series of four conflicts between the Dutch Republic and England or Great Britain, spanning from 1652 to 1784. Almost all battles were naval engagements, driven by trade and colonial rivalry. England won the first war, the Dutch the second and third, while the fourth war was a severe Dutch defeat.
Background
During the 16th century, both the English and the Dutch were involved in European religious conflicts of the Reformation between the Roman Catholic House of Habsburg and Protestant states. The Age of Exploration led both to seek profits in the Americas. In the early 1600s, the Dutch, while still fighting the Eighty Years' War with the Habsburgs, began long-distance sea exploration. Their innovation in trading shares of joint-stock companies financed expeditions through stock subscriptions sold in the United Provinces and London.
They established colonies in North America, India, and the East Indies, and succeeded in privateering; in 1628 Admiral Piet Heyn captured a large Spanish treasure fleet. Dutch East Indiamen voyages built an officer class and institutional knowledge later replicated by the British East India Company. By the mid-17th century, the Dutch, alongside the Portuguese, became main European traders in Asia.
Their merchant fleet grew enormously through cheap mass production of fluyt ships, giving them one of Europe's largest mercantile fleets, with more merchant ships than all other nations combined, and a dominant position in Baltic maritime trade. In 1648 the Dutch concluded the Peace of Münster with Spain. His unexpected death in 1650 added to political tensions.
Wars
Cromwell's naval expansion gave England larger, more powerful warships while the Dutch admiralties sold many of theirs. However, the Dutch had more merchant ships, lower freight rates, better financing, and a wider range of goods, though Spanish blockades limited their operations in southern Europe and the Mediterranean, giving England an advantage there. In October 1651, the English Parliament passed the first Navigation Act, requiring goods imported into England to be carried by English ships or vessels from the exporting countries, excluding Dutch middlemen.
Agitation among Dutch merchants increased after Admiral Sir George Ayscue captured 27 Dutch merchant ships trading illegally with the English royalist colony of Barbados. The Dutch responded by enlisting armed merchantmen into their navy.
In 1652, Lord Protector Cromwell required foreign warships in the North Sea or English Channel to lower their colours when encountering English warships. On 29 May 1652, Lieutenant-Admiral Maarten Tromp refused to lower his colours before an English fleet under General at Sea Robert Blake, leading to the Battle of Dover. The Commonwealth of England then declared war on the Dutch Republic on 10 July.
More in Military History of the Thirteen Colonies
Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Anglo-Dutch wars (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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