Open Thread 163

Comments

1. August 18, 2024AJ gyles said...

   Weird question, but whatever...

   I read a book a few years ago (can't remember the name) about battles during the age of sail. Specifically, on the middle period, before the Napoleonic wars, like the 1600s. And the Anglo-Dutch wars that happened at that time.

   The first thing that jumped out at was- holy shit, I've never even heard of those wars! And they were a big deal! Like, an all-out struggle for naval domination between the two naval superpowers of their time! Am I just stupid, or are those wars kind of ignored in most history classes?

   And- the meat of my question- was it possible for the Dutch to have won those wars? As I see it, the English developed a virtous cycle where they won naval wars, captured enemy ships, gained fighting experience, killed off the enemy sailers, and gradually got better and better over time. Culminating in the battle of Trafalagar where the French and Spanish had a clear material lead but Villeneuve didn't even want to fight, because he knew that his crews lacked the proper training for a fight against the British.

   But the Anglo-Dutch wars weren't like that. The Dutch were experienced sailers, with a proud naval tradition of their own, and in many ways the dominant naval pwoer of their era. Could things have gone differently? Could we have a world where New York was still New Amsterdam?

2. August 18, 2024Tony Zbaraschuk said...

   Mahan has a bunch of stuff on the Anglo-Dutch wars (recall '1660-1783' in the subtitle!), but looking backwards from the future it's much easier to see things that are closer to you; World War II, World War I, and the Napoleonic Wars are in better view than the 17th century. Plus the theory and systems of naval war were still developing in the 17th century, and we like to study the mature form of the system rather than the adolescent form.

   The Dutch have the problem of any continental power; at some point you have to deal with the people marching across your border, and ships are not useful for this. (Same with France and Germany later.) England being an island, and the US dominating its continent and shielded by the World Ocean, found it easier to fund the navy to the full required levels and let the army wither until it was needed.

   Finally, Holland had the size problem -- England, especially once overseas colonization started, could fund and man a much larger navy than any one of its continental competitors. Perhaps if the Netherlands had come out of the Eighty Years' War including the Spanish Netherlands (modern Belgium) and parts of the Hanseatic League (north German ports), it would have been in a position to compete with Britain more effectively.

3. August 18, 2024John Schilling said...

   Holland also had a size problem in that their ports were not really suitable for deep-draft warships by 18th century standards. They were eventually able to dredge out some of their harbors to accomodate a 74-gun ship of the line, but they were still using 64s pretty heavily when the rest of the world had moved on, and I don't think they operated any true three-deckers in that period.

   During the period where they were winning the Anglo-Dutch Wars, this didn't matter so much because a 64 was still an impressively powerful ship.