How did the Dutch manage to defeat, or at least resist, the Spanish?

>>3056912
Because they beat the Spanish the way that the Americans beat the British and the Vietnamese beat the Americans and lots of little powers at the end of large Empires have done throughout history. They were simply an enormous amount of trouble to take down, far more so than could be gained by subduing them.

I can't even think of land battles where the Dutch beat the Spanish off the top of my head, although I'm sure there are some. Mostly they buttonholed up in their cities, flooded the countryside, raided with their ships, and counted on the costs of the war driving things for the Hapsburgs, who after had a great deal of trouble projecting force into the Netherlands without prohibitive expense.

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There was a stalemate, Spain won at land and the dutch (that btw were supported by other countries) on the sea but that ended when Spain decided to help Austria during the 30 years war, there were revolts in Catalonia and Portugal too, and the spanish armies were bussy fighting the french and protestants over all Europe. So basically the war exhaustion killed them.

>>3056912

What kind of question is this?
France was at war with Spain too. And France back then had more than twice the population of Spain.
Also, around 1640 Spain had a civil war against Portugal which regained its independence, and Catalonia.

Spain was often at war with France, the Netherlands, the UK, Germans protestant states and Turks, simulatenously.

Basically, without Richelieu (a Catholic priest who allied who believed in realpolitik and allied France with protestants and muslims) there would be no protestants in continental europe (outside the British Islands and Scandinavia)

>>3057140
Riego?

>>3056912

A bit of geography and a bit of timing.

The Flanders revolt was widely succesful at the beggining, with most of the Low Countries falling in the hands of the rebels except for the Artois, that sooned formed the Union of Arras in opposition to the rebel Union of Utrecht. This 'Dutch' revolt was more of a Flemish revolt. The important centers were the 'Belgian' ones, notably Brussels and Antwerp.

Within the next decade the Tercios managed to recover all of 'Belgium', culminating in the capture, and sack, of Antwerp in 1585 and most of 'Netherlands' with the exception of Utrecht, Holland and Zealand proper, were the waterline geography favoured the rebels. But instead of 'finishing off' the revolt, 2 events at this critical moment drifted the attention of the Army of Flanders away from that front. First the invasion of England, as the main body of the Army was ordered to move to Gravelines to embark for the projected invasion of England in 1588, and almost immediately, the redeployment of this same Army under Farnesio to France to intervene in support of the Catholic League against Henry of Navarre and relieve Paris from the Protestant siege.

This intervention took many years and was succesful in relieving Paris and forcing Henry to convert to Catholicism. But in the meantime the, now proper Dutch rebels, on the brink of collapse, had been given the oxigen they needed to regroup and retake much of the Netherlands proper in front of very weakened northern garrisons (as Farnesio with the main body of the Army of Flanders was campaigning in France). In addition to this, there was a third front, the war with England that was also consuming financial and naval resources.

So by the mid 90s by the time the intervention in France was finished and the Army was back in the Low Countries, the Dutch position was pretty consolidated, with Amsterdam now being the new Antwerp, and after ~20 yrs of war efforts the spanish finances were exhausted.

>>3056912
Just as the USA beat England the same way did the Dutch defeat Spain

>>3057340

A truce followed and again that further consolidated the Dutch position.

The Spanish Low Countries now lacked a vital 'good' port. Antwerp was effectively blockaded by Dutch posession of Zeeland and the Scheldt estuary, which translated into its neutralization as a commercial hub in further benefit of Amsterdam and Holland in general at the expense of 'Belgium', and the difficulty to send military reinforcements by sea. They mainly had to come from Italy, all along the 'Spanish road'.

When the 30yrs war started, again priority was given to support Austria and the HRE rather than the war with the Netherlands, but by then, even if that hadn't been the case, the Netherlands had already become a solid, wealthy state with a powerful merchant and military navy, and dominant of the trade routes in the Baltic-North Sea-Rhein-North German natural waterways. Hard nut to crack even if all focus had been put on them.

>>3057340
>>3057390
Very interesting, thanks.
Why did the Netherlands was easily invaded by France in 1672? Obviously, the joint attack (France on Land, England on sea) was hard to repulse. But against Spain, the Dutch put up a great fight, while France almost steamroll them. Did the United Provinces become weak?

>>3057163
What about that mason?

>>3058048
Around that time The United Provinces tried to defend the Southern Netherlands. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. That's the reason why Southern Dutch cities are now French (Rijsel/Lille, Duinkerken, Roubaix, Arras, Saint-Omer). The French land armies were just bigger.

>>3058174

The french should give them back

>>3056912
Initially the Dutch army sucked balls. Later on it was reformed and actually managed to win a battle at Nieuwpoort. However the stadthouder was furious and never attempted to fight a battle again because they were pointless according to him.

One thing the Dutch did well was paying their troops on time, this is something the Spanish never quite got around to doing.

>>3058048

The land army had been woefully neglected for years. At the start of the war with France and England (and Cologne and Munster) the republic didn't even have a stadtholder so no commander in chief.

>>3056912
There's also the fact that the Dutch were really good at sieges and spend most of the land war sieging or relieving sieges, trying to avoid direct battle. Stadtholder Maurice of Orange conquered 50-something cities in his lifetime. And his half-brother Frederick Henry is nicknamed ''The city forcer'' in the Netherlands, he managed to capture 's-Hertogenbosch, a Habsburg bulwark in the swamp considered impenetrable at the time.

This explains >>3057340 >>3057390 point about the Netherlands being able to consolidate and reinforce their position.

>>3058048
The Dutch land army had been neglected as Johan de Witt, the 'Raadspensionaris' (Basically the head of the Dutch States General and one of the two most powerful man in the country, together with the Stadholder) of the Netherlands was more interested in building up the navy in order to protect their trade. He also kept there from being a Stadtholder, because the Stadtholder and Raadspensionaris were usually bitter rivals for power in the republic. This means there was no-one to really lead the army succesfully as was done during th 80-years war.
Johan de Witt was killed by a mod for these reasons, as he was held responsible for the failings. When he was killed William III was appointed Stadtholder, some say William orchestrated the mob that killed De Witt. William managed to fight France to a stalemate and was invited by the British parlaiment to take the throne, resulting in the Glorious Revolution.

It's interesting to point out however that because of Johan's focus on the Dutch Navy they were able to hold out and overcome the English fleet during this war.

>>3058732
*killed by a mob

>>3058462
They should, but they won't, because the French consider it as an integral part of France