Misplaced Pages

#274725

249-806: The Royal Netherlands Army ( Dutch : Koninklijke Landmacht , KL) is the land branch of the Netherlands Armed Forces . Though the Royal Netherlands Army was raised on 9 January 1814, its origins date back to 1572, when the Staatse Leger was raised making the Dutch standing army one of the oldest in the world. It fought in the Napoleonic Wars , World War II , the Indonesian War of Independence and

498-578: A common ancestor with languages such as English, German, and the Scandinavian languages . All Germanic languages are subject to the Grimm's law and Verner's law sound shifts, which originated in the Proto-Germanic language and define the basic features differentiating them from other Indo-European languages. This is assumed to have taken place in approximately the mid-first millennium BCE in

747-517: A distinctive unit insignia on the right arm, while the Dutch flag and the wearer's regiment or corps are worn on the left arm. To optimise the effectiveness of the uniform, multiple camouflage patterns are in use: The service dress uniform ( Dagelijks tenue, DT ) is used for everyday office, barracks and non-field duty purposes. The uniform was designed by the famous couturier Frans Molenaar and entered service in 2000. It consists of trousers ,

996-467: A schwa . The Middle Dutch dialect areas were affected by political boundaries. The sphere of political influence of a certain ruler often also created a sphere of linguistic influence, with the language within the area becoming more homogenous. Following the contemporary political divisions they are in order of importance: A process of standardisation started in the Middle Ages , especially under

1245-601: A synod taking place in Corbridge , England , where the decisions are being written down " tam Latine quam theodisce " meaning "in Latin as well as common vernacular". According to a hypothesis by De Grauwe, In northern West Francia (i.e. modern-day Belgium) the term would take on a new meaning during the Early Middle Ages , when, within the context of a highly dichromatic linguistic landscape, it came to be

1494-450: A charge by the pike men of the opposing square. The manoeuvre had to be executed in a disciplined way, however, to avoid confusion in the ranks, especially as the enemy was not sitting idly by. It therefore had to be drilled into the soldiers. And this drilling of the tactical manoeuvre was one of the mainstays of the reform. It required an attendant organisational reform, because the education of recruits now had to be entrusted to specialists,

1743-524: A comparison between the West Germanic languages, see the sections Phonology, Grammar, and Vocabulary. Dutch dialects are primarily the dialects that are both related with the Dutch language and are spoken in the same language area as the Dutch standard language . Although heavily under the influence of the standard language, some of them remain diverse and are found in the Netherlands and in

1992-467: A consequence evolve (along with Alemannic , Bavarian and Lombardic ) into Old High German. At more or less the same time the Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law, moving over Western Europe from west to east, led to the development of Old English (or Anglo-Saxon), Old Frisian and Old Saxon . Hardly influenced by either development, Old Dutch probably remained relatively close to the original language of

2241-544: A convenient arrangement with the Dutch during which they defended themselves against attempts by the Spanish high command to return them to obedience by force, at the same time preventing the capture of a few Dutch fortresses by the Spaniards. Finally, in this context a form of more regular "re-recruitment" should be mentioned that in practice had some quantitative importance: the ransoming of prisoners of war . Though in

2490-555: A few instances in which entire armies were hired "off the shelf" so to speak. The best-known example is the engagement of the troops of Ernst von Mansfeld in the early 1620s, but the augmentation of the army in 1688 with Prussian troops to replace the invasion forces that the Republic sent to England to bring about the Glorious Revolution in that country may count as another (as also the employment of Danish troops in

2739-647: A heightened state of readiness. Other reforms were of a more imitative nature. The reason for the lightning advance of the French army was its great superiority in numbers. An army of 125,000 French faced a Dutch field army of only 22,000. The difference in the total strengths of the two armies was not as large, as the Dutch had managed to double the size of the States Army from its peacetime strength of about 35,000 to about 80,000 in early 1672 through frantic recruitment efforts. Most of these additional troops garrisoned

SECTION 10

#1732776713275

2988-636: A hindrance than a boon by the top commanders. The Duke of Marlborough was especially caustic about them, when he commanded the States Army during the War of Spanish Succession , but a deputy like Sicco van Goslinga sometimes rendered useful services during that campaign. Though in principle all troops were allocated to a particular province, in later years the States-General was sometimes forced to raise troops that individual provinces refused to pay for. These "unrepartitioned" troops had to be paid for from

3237-476: A jacket, dress shirt , neck tie and headgear ( beret , peaked cap or side cap ), in a gray-green fabric. The special dress uniform ( Gelegenheidstenue, GLT ) is worn for certain formal occasions. It consists of the garments of the service dress uniform, differing by the white dress shirt, black neck tie, white gloves, decorations worn in Prussian arrangement, while officers wear an orange sash around

3486-440: A military force is usually seen as "derivative", in the case of the States Army it played an important formative role, and also influenced the peculiarities of the organisation. Though 16th-century armies were usually preponderantly mercenary, there often were elements of feudal levies and of volunteers. These were lacking in the States Army (the civic militia or Schutterij was not part of the army). Apparently it never occurred to

3735-582: A minority language in Germany and northern France's French Flanders . Though Belgium as a whole is multilingual, three of the four language areas into which the country is divided ( Flanders , francophone Wallonia , and the German-speaking Community ) are largely monolingual, with Brussels being bilingual. The Netherlands and Belgium produce the vast majority of music , films , books and other media written or spoken in Dutch. Dutch

3984-670: A minority) and the province of Walloon Brabant . Brabantian expands into small parts in the west of Limburg while its strong influence on the East Flemish of East Flanders and eastern Zeelandic Flanders weakens towards the west. In a small area in the northwest of North Brabant ( Willemstad ), Hollandic is spoken. Conventionally, the Kleverlandish dialects are distinguished from Brabantian, but there are no objective criteria apart from geography to do so. Over 5 million people live in an area with some form of Brabantian being

4233-564: A mortar firing exercise, a third serviceman was severely wounded. The incident lead to the resignation of the minister of Defence Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert and Chief of Defence Tom Middendorp after a critical report by the Dutch Safety Board found that the safety-standards were subpar. The Netherlands have ended their troop contribution to the peacekeeping mission in May 2019 to send troops to Afghanistan instead. The cabinet of

4482-433: A multinatinational battle group that is headed by Germany. Each rotation is composed of armoured infantry companies equipped with CV90 35NL IFVs and Boxer AFVs , or artillery batteries equipped with PzH 2000NL self-propelled howitzers . The core fighting element of the army consists of three brigades: 11 Airmobile Brigade , 13 Light Brigade and 43 Mechanised Brigade . The number of full-time professional personnel

4731-420: A number of closely related, mutually intelligible dialects spoken in the former Old Dutch area. Where Old Dutch fragments are very hard to read for untrained Modern Dutch speakers, the various literary works of Middle Dutch are somewhat more accessible. The most notable difference between Old and Middle Dutch is in a feature of speech known as vowel reduction , whereby vowels in unstressed syllables are leveled to

4980-579: A political border, because the traditional dialects are strongly influenced by the national standard varieties. While a somewhat heterogeneous group of Low Franconian dialects, Limburgish has received official status as a regional language in the Netherlands and Germany, but not in Belgium. Due to this official recognition, it receives protection by chapter 2 of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages . Afrikaans , although to

5229-601: A reinforced army company was deployed to Afghanistan to provide support in maintaining public order, and providing security in and around the capital Kabul . In addition, military assistance was provided to the Afghan National Army and to local security troops. The troops were deployed under the command of NATO 's International Security Assistance Force mission. Between 2006 and 2010, the Netherlands deployed personnel to southern Afghanistan. Together with

SECTION 20

#1732776713275

5478-413: A result, Nederduits no longer serves as a synonym for the Dutch language. In the 19th century, the term " Diets " was revived by Dutch linguists and historians as well, as a poetic name for Middle Dutch and its literature . Old Dutch can be discerned more or less around the same time as Old English (Anglo-Saxon), Old High German , Old Frisian , and Old Saxon . These names are derived from

5727-509: A result, when West Flemings try to talk Standard Dutch, they are often unable to pronounce the g-sound, and pronounce it similar to the h-sound. This leaves, for example, no difference between " held " (hero) and " geld " (money). Or in some cases, they are aware of the problem, and hyper-correct the "h" into a voiced velar fricative or g-sound, again leaving no difference. The West Flemish variety historically spoken in adjacent parts in France

5976-705: A role in the Seven Years' War , because the Republic again managed to remain neutral, and the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War , because that, like the First and Second Anglo-Dutch War were exclusively naval conflicts). The swan song of the States Army was the Flanders Campaign of 1793–1795, during which it played an often unappreciated role. The establishment of the army was increased from 45,000 in 1792 to 60,000 in 1793 A veldleger (mobile army)

6225-473: A second or third language in the polyglot Caribbean island countries of Aruba , Curaçao and Sint Maarten . All these countries have recognised Dutch as one of their official languages, and are involved in one way or another in the Dutch Language Union . The Dutch Caribbean municipalities ( St. Eustatius , Saba and Bonaire ) have Dutch as one of the official languages. In Asia, Dutch

6474-421: A share of 58%) to advance even these payments. Though the allocation of a regiment to a certain province did not imply that that unit was a private army of that province, there were often close ties between such a unit and the paying province, especially as far as the appointment of commissioned officers was concerned. Though such appointments were usually made by the captain-general of the army (except when there

6723-575: A short time even three (when Henry Casimir II, Prince of Nassau-Dietz was appointed to the function; he resigned, however, when he did not receive the appointment of first Field-Marshal after the death of Waldeck in 1692). After the death of William III and the beginning of the Second Stadtholderless Period the States-General appointed the Duke of Marlborough as Captain-General of the States Army (though they pointedly gave him

6972-522: A significant degree mutually intelligible with Dutch, is usually not considered a dialect but instead a separate standardised language . It is spoken in South Africa and Namibia. As a daughter language of 17th-century Dutch dialects, Afrikaans evolved in parallel with modern Dutch, but was influenced by various other languages in South Africa. West Frisian ( Westerlauwers Fries ), along with Saterland Frisian and North Frisian , evolved from

7221-419: A somewhat different development since the late Middle Ages. Two dialect groups have been given the official status of regional language (or streektaal ) in the Netherlands. Like several other dialect groups, both are part of a dialect continuum that continues across the national border. The Dutch Low Saxon dialect area comprises the provinces of Groningen , Drenthe and Overijssel , as well as parts of

7470-424: A source language, mainly for law and history students. In Indonesia this involves about 35,000 students. Unlike other European nations, the Dutch chose not to follow a policy of language expansion amongst the indigenous peoples of their colonies. In the last quarter of the 19th century, however, a local elite gained proficiency in Dutch so as to meet the needs of expanding bureaucracy and business. Nevertheless,

7719-545: A stadtholder (Friesland always had a stadtholder during these periods). During the First Stadtholderless Period the function of captain-general of the union was simply left vacant until the very end, in 1672, when William III was appointed, at a moment when he was not yet a stadtholder. In this period the supreme command of the army was first entrusted to the Field-Marshal who was in office at

Royal Netherlands Army - Misplaced Pages Continue

7968-563: A stalemate, as neither Parma nor Orange had sufficient troops and materiel to field an army capable of conducting a major offensive. Having withdrawn his Spanish and Italian troops as required by the Union of Arras , Parma had replaced his foreign personnel with German or 'native' (Low Countries) soldiers for a total of 93 infantry companies, 57 of which were necessary for garrisoning strategic points. The remaining 36 companies ( c. 5,400–7,200 men) were available for attack. The combined forces of

8217-563: A strategic breakthrough in the war in the Spanish Netherlands , even when the Dutch Republic entered into an offensive alliance with France in 1635. The logistical limitations to the size of field armies that kept the optimum size around 30,000 men till Louvois invented his system of forward bases around 1665, prevented the Dutch, even in combination with the French (as they tried in the ill-fated invasion of 1635), to gain

8466-450: A sufficient numerical superiority over the Army of Flanders to defeat that army in the field if an invasion from the east was attempted. An invasion from the north would require the patience destruction of the line of fortifications and water obstacles that the Spaniards had constructed opposite the equivalent Dutch defensive belt. And this proved again too much for the offensive capabilities of

8715-422: A tercio, but had a proportionally larger complement of firearms and used different tactics as a consequence of the tactical reforms of Maurice. As in other mercenary armies of the day the raising of new troops was usually contracted out to military entrepreneurs. The States-General usually concluded a so-called Capitulatie with such a businessman, setting out the details, like the number of troops to be raised,

8964-520: A threatening chess piece on a chess board, often to good effect. The main war was fought with garrisons and besieging forces. The army that really employed the new tactics was that of Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden , who used them, with some improvements of his own, to great effect in the 1630s. Following the defeats of the States Army after the French invasion of the Rampjaar , 1672, William III introduced important organisational and logistical reforms in

9213-562: A traditional organisation in which a distinction exists between arms of services. This organisation is purely ceremonial. Generally speaking, combat and combat support units are organised in arms, and support units are organised in services. There are two exceptions: the Engineers and the Signals Service. The arms and services can in turn be further divided into one, or multiple regiments. These administrative organisations safeguard

9462-479: A trooper with his horse 150 guilders. This system was continued until the end of the Dutch Republic in 1795. Henceforth the government bore the "business risk" of war. In exchange the captains lost their entrepreneurial status and were transformed to professional officers in the modern sense, with all that entailed for tightened discipline. The advantage for the army was that its losses (for instance after battles) were much more rapidly replenished, enabling it to maintain

9711-552: A unique prestige dialect and has a large dialectal continuum consisting of 28 main dialects, which can themselves be further divided into at least 600 distinguishable varieties. In the Netherlands, the Hollandic dialect dominates in national broadcast media while in Flanders Brabantian dialect dominates in that capacity, making them in turn unofficial prestige dialects in their respective countries. Outside

9960-537: Is kantor , handdoek "towel" in Indonesian is handuk , or bushalte "bus stop" in Indonesian is halte bus . In addition, many Indonesian words are calques of Dutch; for example, rumah sakit "hospital" is calqued on the Dutch ziekenhuis (literally "sickhouse"), kebun binatang "zoo" on dierentuin (literally "animal garden"), undang-undang dasar "constitution" from grondwet (literally "ground law"). These account for some of

10209-418: Is Sranan Tongo , spoken natively by about a fifth of the population. Dutch States Army Despite the fact that the standard work by Ten Raa and De Bas about the States Army in its title proudly proclaims that the foundation of the army was laid in the first year of the Dutch war of independence, 1568, modern historians put the start date later, between 1576 (the year in which the States-General joined

Royal Netherlands Army - Misplaced Pages Continue

10458-474: Is 21,225, in addition to around 4,046 reservists. The Royal Netherlands Army is a volunteer force; compulsory military service has not been abolished but has been suspended. The other three services, (the Royal Netherlands Navy , Royal Netherlands Air Force and Royal Marechaussee ), are fully volunteer forces as well. Besides the hierarchical organisation, the Royal Netherlands Army upholds

10707-506: Is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family , spoken by about 25 million people as a first language and 5 million as a second language and is the third most spoken Germanic language. In Europe, Dutch is the native language of most of the population of the Netherlands and Flanders (which includes 60% of the population of Belgium ). Dutch was one of the official languages of South Africa until 1925, when it

10956-466: Is a calque of the aforementioned Roman province Germania Inferior and an attempt by early Dutch grammarians to give their language more prestige by linking it to Roman times. Likewise, Hoogduits ("High German") and Overlands ("Upper-landish") came into use as a Dutch exonym for the various German dialects used in neighboring German states. Use of Nederduytsch was popular in the 16th century but ultimately lost out over Nederlands during

11205-473: Is a monocentric language , at least what concerns its written form, with all speakers using the same standard form (authorised by the Dutch Language Union ) based on a Dutch orthography defined in the so-called " Green Booklet " authoritative dictionary and employing the Latin alphabet when writing; however, pronunciation varies between dialects. Indeed, in stark contrast to its written uniformity, Dutch lacks

11454-537: Is also an official language of several international organisations, such as the European Union , Union of South American Nations and the Caribbean Community . At an academic level, Dutch is taught in about 175 universities in 40 countries. About 15,000 students worldwide study Dutch at university. In Europe, Dutch is the majority language in the Netherlands (96%) and Belgium (59%) as well as

11703-587: Is found in the Salic law . In this Frankish document written around 510 the oldest Dutch sentence has been identified: Maltho thi afrio lito ("I say to you, I free you, serf") used to free a serf. Another old fragment of Dutch is Visc flot aftar themo uuatare ("A fish was swimming in the water"). The oldest conserved larger Dutch text is the Utrecht baptismal vow (776–800) starting with Forsachistu diobolae ... ec forsacho diabolae (litt.: "Forsake you

11952-471: Is mostly Germanic; it incorporates slightly more Romance loans than German, but far fewer than English. In Belgium, the Netherlands and Suriname, the native official name for Dutch is Nederlands (historically Nederlandsch before the Dutch orthographic reforms ). Sometimes Vlaams (" Flemish ") is used as well to describe Standard Dutch in Flanders , whereas Hollands (" Hollandic ")

12201-487: Is occasionally used as a colloquial term for the standard language in the central and northwestern parts of the Netherlands. English uses the adjective Dutch as a noun for the language of the Netherlands and Flanders. The word is derived from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz . The stem of this word, *þeudō , meant "people" in Proto-Germanic, and *-iskaz was an adjective-forming suffix, of which -ish

12450-569: Is so distinct that it might be considered as a separate language variant, although the strong significance of language in Belgian politics would prevent the government from classifying them as such. An oddity of the dialect is that, the voiced velar fricative (written as "g" in Dutch) shifts to a voiced glottal fricative (written as "h" in Dutch), while the letter "h" becomes mute (like in French). As

12699-585: Is sometimes called French Flemish and is listed as a French minority language . However, only a very small and aging minority of the French-Flemish population still speaks and understands West Flemish. Hollandic is spoken in Holland and Utrecht , though the original forms of this dialect (which were heavily influenced by a West Frisian substratum and, from the 16th century on, by Brabantian dialects ) are now relatively rare. The urban dialects of

SECTION 50

#1732776713275

12948-637: Is spoken in Limburg (Belgium) as well as in the remaining part of Limburg (Netherlands) and extends across the German border. West Flemish ( Westvlaams ) is spoken in West Flanders , the western part of Zeelandic Flanders and also in French Flanders , where it virtually became extinct to make way for French. The West Flemish group of dialects, spoken in West Flanders and Zeeland ,

13197-595: Is taught in various educational centres in Indonesia, the most important of which is the Erasmus Language Centre (ETC) in Jakarta . Each year, some 1,500 to 2,000 students take Dutch courses there. In total, several thousand Indonesians study Dutch as a foreign language. Owing to centuries of Dutch rule in Indonesia, many old documents are written in Dutch. Many universities therefore include Dutch as

13446-662: Is the Modern English form. Theodiscus was its Latinised form and used as an adjective referring to the Germanic vernaculars of the Early Middle Ages . In this sense, it meant "the language of the common people". The term was used as opposed to Latin , the non -native language of writing and the Catholic Church . It was first recorded in 786, when the Bishop of Ostia writes to Pope Adrian I about

13695-404: Is the case with the ( standardised ) West Frisian language . It is spoken alongside Dutch in the province of Friesland . Dutch dialects and regional languages are not spoken as often as they used to be, especially in the Netherlands. Recent research by Geert Driessen shows that the use of dialects and regional languages among both Dutch adults and youth is in heavy decline. In 1995, 27 percent of

13944-530: Is the sole official language, and over 60 percent of the population speaks it as a mother tongue . Dutch is the obligatory medium of instruction in schools in Suriname, even for non-native speakers. A further twenty-four percent of the population speaks Dutch as a second language . Suriname gained its independence from the Netherlands in 1975 and has been an associate member of the Dutch Language Union since 2004. The lingua franca of Suriname, however,

14193-656: The Regiment Huzaren van Boreel and the Regiment Huzaren Prinses Catharina-Amalia . One has responsibility for the army's active reconnaissance units, while the other has been formed as the parent regiment for units equipped with main battle tanks (MBTs). Prior to 2012, the army also included full armoured regiments equipped with MBTs. One of these, the Regiment Huzaren Prins Alexander ,

14442-712: The 1st Panzer Division . In 2023, the final brigade of the Royal Netherlands Army, the 13th Light Brigade , was integrated into the 10th Panzer Division of the German Bundeswehr . Additionally, the German Air Defence Missile Group 61 ( German : Flugabwehrraketengruppe 61 ) was integrated into the Dutch Joint Ground-based Air Defence Command in 2018. The Royal Netherlands Army was raised on 9 January 1814, but its origins date back to

14691-531: The 2006 New Zealand census , 26,982 people, or 0.70 percent of the total population, reported to speak Dutch to sufficient fluency that they could hold an everyday conversation. In contrast to the colonies in the East Indies , from the second half of the 19th century onwards, the Netherlands envisaged the expansion of Dutch in its colonies in the West Indies . Until 1863, when slavery was abolished in

14940-612: The Armed Forces of the Netherlands is exercised by the government (consisting of the King and the cabinet ministers ); there is thus no constitutional supreme commander . However, army personnel do swear allegiance to the Dutch monarch . Dutch army doctrine strongly emphasises international co-operation. The Netherlands are a founding member of, and strong contributor to NATO , while closely co-operating with fellow member states during European Union -led missions as well. Moreover,

15189-1082: The Australian armed forces , Dutch forces were assigned the province of Uruzgan as their area of operations . In mid-2006, Dutch special forces of the Korps Commandotroepen as part of the Deployment Task Force successfully deployed to Tarin Kowt to lay the ground for the increasing numbers of engineers who were due to build a base there. By August 2006 the Netherlands had deployed the majority of 1,400 troops to Uruzgan province in southern Afghanistan at Multi National Base Tarin Kot (Kamp Holland) in Tarin Kowt (1,200) and Kamp Hadrian in Deh Rahwod (200). PzH 2000 self-propelled artillery pieces were deployed and used in combat for

SECTION 60

#1732776713275

15438-483: The Barrier Treaties of 1709–15. They allowed the Republic a sense of safety at relatively low expense, and provided the main function for the States Army during most of the 18th century:garrisoning the fortresses). The neglect of the army then exacted its toll and, as in 1672, the inevitable defeats the States Army sustained led to a popular revolution that once again brought a member of the House of Orange-Nassau to dictatorial power, this time William IV in 1747. William IV

15687-443: The Battle of Nieuwpoort . The Dutch States Army of the Dutch Republic saw action in the Eighty Years' War , the Dano-Swedish War , the Franco-Dutch War , the Nine Years' War , the War of Spanish Succession , the War of Austrian Succession , as well as the French Revolutionary Wars . With the French conquest of the Netherlands, the Staatse Leger was replaced by the army of the Batavian Republic in 1795, which in turn

15936-407: The Battle of Rotterdam and the Battle of the Afsluitdijk , the devastating German bombing of Rotterdam and the threat of bombing the city of Utrecht forced the Dutch supreme command to capitulate. The Royal Netherlands army was disbanded during the German occupation, however army personnel continued the battle against the German occupiers during the war. Army resistance began to rise again with

16185-498: The Battle of the Boyne , though technically these were in the employ of William III as king of England). Most curious was the employment on a temporary basis of a tercio of Spanish mutineers, who provisionally entered the service of the States-General in 1602–1604, pending the resolution of their dispute with the government in Brussels. The mutineers formally remained in Spanish service as a coherent military formation, and they did not consider themselves "defectors," but they arrived at

16434-413: The Bergakker inscription , found near the Dutch city of Tiel , which may represent a primary record of 5th-century Frankish. Although some place names recorded in Roman texts such as vadam (modern Dutch: wad , English: "mudflat"), could arguably be considered as the oldest single "Dutch" words, the Bergakker inscription yields the oldest evidence of Dutch morphology. However, interpretations of

16683-400: The Brussels and Flemish regions of Belgium . The areas in which they are spoken often correspond with former medieval counties and duchies. The Netherlands (but not Belgium) distinguishes between a dialect and a streektaal (" regional language "). Those words are actually more political than linguistic because a regional language unites a large group of very different varieties. Such is

16932-463: The Dutch East Indies , the expeditionary land force First Division "7 December" was established in 1946. Approximately 25,000 volunteers and 95,000 conscripts were deployed to the East during the conflict, 4,751 servicemen were killed. During the Korean War , 4,748 members of the army, the Royal Netherlands Navy and the Netherlands Marine Corps formed the Nederlands Detachement Verenigde Naties and were dispatched to East Asia to fight against

17181-417: The Dutch Revolt against Philip II of Spain , and started raising its own troops) and 1588 (the year in which the northern Netherlands became a republic after the departure of the Earl of Leicester ), though there is no definite agreement on an exact date. However, the army did not spring wholly formed from the brow of Mars; there were predecessors. The roots of the army are to be found in the armies raised by

17430-408: The Earl of Athlone . The Duke of Brunswick was field-marshal before and after his tenure of the captaincy-general. Below the top command there were a few top positions in the first years of the existence of the army that differed from the later organisation, though they later evolved into the more familiar positions, like the generaal van de vivres (quarter-master general), and the master-general of

17679-495: The High German consonant shift , does not use Germanic umlaut as a grammatical marker, has largely abandoned the use of the subjunctive , and has levelled much of its morphology , including most of its case system . Features shared with German, however, include the survival of two to three grammatical genders  – albeit with few grammatical consequences  – as well as the use of modal particles , final-obstruent devoicing , and (similar) word order . Dutch vocabulary

17928-767: The Holy Roman Empire , France, and later also the Protestant Swiss Cantons (with whom special treaties were made for this purpose). Other than the Army of Flanders the Dutch States Army kept these foreign contingents separate in their own regiments. This had the advantage that in case of threatened mutiny one contingent could be checked by the others. The army leadership also often exploited the rivalry between these "Nations" to extract extra efforts, for instance by organizing "races" between contingents of sappers of different nationality for

18177-483: The House of Orange-Nassau after 1586) as their stadtholder this did not lead to a divided command in practice, even though a potential conflict was present, because the province of Friesland always had a different stadtholder (and captain-general), until William IV received the appointment in all provinces in 1747. The first two stadtholders who nominally shared the captaincy-general, Maurice and William Louis , shared

18426-527: The Huguenot side in 1569–1571, he apparently came away with a favorable impression of French military organisation and tactics, which prompted him to implement a number of reforms when he started raising mercenary troops on behalf of the rebellious States of Holland after 1572. These reforms included taking away the right of self-government of the mercenary bands and their corporate form of military justice; these organisational aspects were henceforth modeled on

18675-866: The Korean War , as well as served with NATO on the Cold War frontiers in West Germany from the 1950s to the 1990s. Since 1990, the army has been sent into the Iraq War (from 2003) and into the War in Afghanistan , as well as deployed in several United Nations' peacekeeping missions (notably with UNIFIL in Lebanon, UNPROFOR in Bosnia-Herzegovina and MINUSMA in Mali). The tasks of

18924-493: The Low Countries , its meaning being largely implicitly provided by the regional orientation of medieval Dutch society: apart from the higher echelons of the clergy and nobility, mobility was largely static and hence while "Dutch" could by extension also be used in its earlier sense, referring to what today would be called Germanic dialects as opposed to Romance dialects , in many cases it was understood or meant to refer to

19173-591: The Low Franconian languages, paired with its sister language Limburgish or East Low Franconian. Its closest relative is the mutually intelligible daughter language Afrikaans. Other West Germanic languages related to Dutch are German , English and the un-standardised languages Low German and Yiddish . Dutch stands out in combining some Ingvaeonic characteristics (occurring consistently in English and Frisian and reduced in intensity from west to east over

19422-561: The Meuse valley). These costs contributed to the heavy burden the Dutch tax payer had to bear: Holland alone contributed 9.3 million guilders in 1630; 11 million in 1634; 12.3 million in 1635; and in 1640 10.2 million to the war budget. These sums exceeded the ordinary revenues of the province. The difference had to be borrowed from investors. In 1634 the Southern Quarter of the province alone already owed 44.4 million guilders. Still,

19671-745: The Orangist uprising against Napoleonic rule, an independent Dutch army was reformed by the new Kingdom of the United Netherlands . Several militias of the Dutch States Army were integrated into this newly formed Netherlands Mobile Army, and it became an integral part of the allied army during the Hundred Days campaign that culminated in the Battle of Waterloo . Units such as Baron Chassé's were essential to securing victory for

19920-531: The Randstad , which are Hollandic dialects, do not diverge from standard Dutch very much, but there is a clear difference between the city dialects of Rotterdam , The Hague , Amsterdam and Utrecht . In some rural Hollandic areas more authentic Hollandic dialects are still being used, especially north of Amsterdam. Another group of dialects based on Hollandic is that spoken in the cities and larger towns of Friesland , where it partially displaced West Frisian in

20169-516: The Royal House of the Netherlands . Only the sovereign can grant a military unit a colour or standard, therefore the royal cypher of the monarch that granted the regiment its (original) colour is displayed. In addition, the colours and standards are often inscribed with (historical) battle honours. By prominently displaying them, the aim is to add to the esprit de corps , uphold the collective memory and serve as inspiration for future actions of

20418-560: The Siege of Srebrenica and the ensuing Srebrenica massacre . Bosnian Serb troops under the command of general Ratko Mladic , sentenced to life imprisonment on accounts of participating in genocide , crimes against humanity , and war crimes in 2017, invaded the enclave of Srebrenica and subsequently deported and massacred a large share of the present Bosniak men and boys. A contingent of 1,345 troops (comprising Army and Dutch Marines , supported by Royal Netherlands Air Force helicopters)

20667-543: The Southern Netherlands (now Belgium and Luxembourg), developments were different. Under subsequent Spanish , Austrian and French rule , the standardisation of Dutch language came to a standstill. The state, law, and increasingly education used French, yet more than half the Belgian population were speaking a variety of Dutch. In the course of the 19th century, the Flemish Movement stood up for

20916-527: The Twelve Years' Truce ) was about 600,000 guilders annually. In the period between 1621 and 1629 (when the Republic was on the defensive against Spain) the cost rose to between 800,000 and 1 million guilders annually. After 1629 (when the Republic went on the offensive and increased the size of the army) the cost rose again to between 1.5 and 2 million guilders annually, with a peak of 3 million in 1632 (when Frederick Henry made his sweep of fortresses in

21165-497: The antonym of *walhisk (Romance-speakers, specifically Old French ). The word, now rendered as dietsc (Southwestern variant) or duutsc (Central and Northern Variant), could refer to the Dutch language itself, as well as a broader Germanic category depending on context. During the High Middle Ages " Dietsc / Duutsc " was increasingly used as an umbrella term for the specific Germanic dialects spoken in

21414-530: The continental West Germanic plane) with dominant Istvaeonic characteristics, some of which are also incorporated in German. Unlike German, Dutch (apart from Limburgish) has not been influenced at all by the south to north movement of the High German consonant shift and had some changes of its own. The cumulation of these changes resulted over time in separate, but related standard languages with various degrees of similarities and differences between them. For

21663-434: The differences in vocabulary between Indonesian and Malay. Some regional languages in Indonesia have some Dutch loanwords as well; for example, Sundanese word Katel or "frying pan" origin in Dutch is " ketel ". The Javanese word for "bike/ bicycle " " pit " can be traced back to its origin in Dutch " fiets ". The Malacca state of Malaysia was also colonized by the Dutch in its longest period that Malacca

21912-642: The pre-Roman Northern European Iron Age . The Germanic languages are traditionally divided into three groups: East (now extinct), West , and North Germanic. They remained mutually intelligible throughout the Migration Period . Dutch is part of the West Germanic group, which also includes English, Scots , Frisian , Low German (Old Saxon) and High German . It is characterised by a number of phonological and morphological innovations not found in North or East Germanic. The West Germanic varieties of

22161-461: The (special) service dress uniform and mess dress uniform can both be worn in a tropics colourway. There are four main uniform categories: The combat uniform ( Gevechtstenue, GVT ) is the day-to-day combat uniform, known as Gevechtstenue (GVT M93) and consists of a Disruptive Pattern Material (DPM) jacket and trousers with additional items such as thermals and waterproofs that can be worn underneath. Army combat uniforms are fitted with

22410-518: The 14th to 15th century onward, its urban centers ( Deventer , Zwolle , Kampen , Zutphen and Doesburg ) have been increasingly influenced by the western written Dutch and became a linguistically mixed area. From the 17th century onward, it was gradually integrated into the Dutch language area. Dutch Low Saxon used to be at one end of the Low German dialect continuum . However, the national border has given way to dialect boundaries coinciding with

22659-538: The 16th century and is known as Stadsfries ("Urban Frisian"). Hollandic together with inter alia Kleverlandish and North Brabantian , but without Stadsfries, are the Central Dutch dialects . Brabantian is named after the historical Duchy of Brabant , which corresponded mainly to the provinces of North Brabant and southern Gelderland , the Belgian provinces of Antwerp and Flemish Brabant , as well as Brussels (where its native speakers have become

22908-688: The 7th century. It was replaced in France by Old French (a Romance language with a considerable Old Frankish influence). However, the Old Franconian language did not die out at large, as it continued to be spoken in the Low Countries, and subsequently evolved into what is now called Old Low Franconian or Old Dutch in the Low Countries. In fact, Old Frankish could be reconstructed from Old Dutch and Frankish loanwords in Old French. The term Old Dutch or Old Low Franconian refers to

23157-542: The 9,084 soldiers who served in Lebanon, 9 soldiers were killed in action. The Fall of the Iron Curtain and the ensuing end of the Cold War has had a significant impact on the Dutch armed forces as a whole, but on the army in particular. Mandatory conscription was suspended and surplus equipment deemed unnecessary was sold. An airmobile brigade was formed and co-operation with allied countries, Germany in particular,

23406-704: The Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif as part of NATO 's Resolute Support Mission . Dutch troops co-operate with personnel of the German Kommando Spezialkräfte as part of the German-Dutch lead Special Operations Advisory Team (SOAT). The SOAT provides advice and assistance during operations to an Afghan police tactical unit , the Afghan Territorial Force-888 (ATF-888). The SOAT has been granted authority to deploy in

23655-556: The Dutch 43 Mechanised Brigade , at the same time becoming a combined German-Dutch unit, with one of the three tank companies and part of the staff and support companies manned with Dutch troops. The services ( Dienstvakken ) consist of the logistical service, which comprises four regiments, and four stand-alone support services. The Royal Netherlands Army consists of the following services and regiments: The Royal Netherlands Army uniform has multiple categories, ranging from ceremonial uniforms to combat dress to evening wear. In addition,

23904-399: The Dutch Republic to "punch above its weight" in military matters. Without the international "open market" for professional soldiers, the Republic, with its population of about 1.5 million in the 17th century, would simply have lacked the manpower base to compete with countries like Spain (10 million inhabitants at the time) and France (20 million). By the end of 1579, the belligerents were at

24153-417: The Dutch adult population spoke a dialect or regional language on a regular basis, but in 2011, that was no more than 11 percent. In 1995, 12 percent of children of primary school age spoke a dialect or regional language, but in 2011, that had declined to four percent. Of the officially recognised regional languages Limburgish is spoken the most (in 2011 among adults 54%, among children 31%) and Dutch Low Saxon

24402-490: The Dutch government remained reluctant to teach Dutch on a large scale for fear of destabilising the colony. Dutch, the language of power, was supposed to remain in the hands of the leading elite. After independence, Dutch was dropped as an official language and replaced by Indonesian , but this does not mean that Dutch has completely disappeared in Indonesia: Indonesian Dutch , a regional variety of

24651-415: The Dutch standard language is largely absent, and speakers of these Dutch dialects will use German or French in everyday speech. Dutch is not afforded legal status in France or Germany, either by the central or regional public authorities, and knowledge of the language is declining among younger generations. As a foreign language , Dutch is mainly taught in primary and secondary schools in areas adjacent to

24900-531: The Dutch standard language, it is not mutually intelligible with Dutch and considered a sister language of Dutch, like English and German. Approximate distribution of native Dutch speakers worldwide: Dutch is an official language of the Netherlands proper (not enshrined in the constitution but in administrative law ), Belgium, Suriname, the Dutch Caribbean municipalities (St. Eustatius, Saba and Bonaire), Aruba , Curaçao and Sint Maarten . Dutch

25149-408: The Dutch, was still spoken by about 500,000 half-blood in Indonesia in 1985. Yet the Indonesian language inherited many words from Dutch: words for everyday life as well as scientific and technological terms. One scholar argues that 20% of Indonesian words can be traced back to Dutch words, many of which are transliterated to reflect phonetic pronunciation e.g. kantoor "office" in Indonesian

25398-602: The Franks. However, the language did experience developments of its own, such as very early final-obstruent devoicing . In fact, the find at Bergakker indicates that the language may already have experienced this shift during the Old Frankish period. Attestations of Old Dutch sentences are extremely rare. The language is mostly recorded on fragmentary relics, and words have been reconstructed from Middle Dutch and loan words from Old Dutch in other languages. The oldest recorded

25647-455: The French agreed to send reinforcements. The Netherlands continued the policy of neutrality during World War I . This stance arose partly from a strict policy of neutrality in international affairs that started in 1830 with the secession of Belgium . Dutch neutrality was not guaranteed by the major powers in Europe however, nor was it a part of the Dutch constitution. The country's neutrality

25896-473: The French example. Orange also shrank the size of the companies to about 150 men, and introduced the French model of commissioned and non-commissioned officers to replace the Landsknecht organisation. He finally changed the proportion of firearms to polearms decidedly in favor of the former in the newly raised companies. Except for the preponderance of firearms, these reforms remained in place throughout

26145-444: The French well fed during the campaign in hitherto unsustainable numbers, but also allowed Louis XIV to start his campaigns while his opponents were still waiting for the grass to grow for their cavalry horses. The Dutch government now had to make an attempt to imitate this logistical reform to be able to equal the French numbers in the field. Unlike the French, they based their system on the economic might of early-modern capitalism in

26394-524: The I Corps was the force strategic reserve and was located in the Vesting Holland, around The Hague , Leiden , Haarlem and in the Westland . The German invasion posed a complete surprise for the army command and shocked the Dutch population. While the Royal Netherlands Army initially managed to slow down the German advance and fought back in intense battles, such as the Battle for The Hague ,

26643-531: The Nassauer tactical reforms attracted, both in their own time, and in the recent debates by historians of the Military Revolution , these were in practice less important than the less spectacular, but equally effective, siege-warfare methods that Maurice, William Louis, and their successor Frederick Henry employed to such devastating effect. Their methods in this respect were not as revolutionary as

26892-636: The Netherlands announced in 2016 that the Netherlands would contribute troops to the NATO Enhanced Forward Presence mission in Lithuania to protect and reassure countries on NATO 's eastern flank— Baltic countries and Poland in particular—of their security following increased political tensions sparked by the Russo-Ukrainian War . The Dutch contribution currently equates to approximately 270 troops, integrated into

27141-576: The Netherlands and Flanders . In French-speaking Belgium , over 300,000 pupils are enrolled in Dutch courses, followed by over 23,000 in the German states of Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia , and about 7,000 in the French region of Nord-Pas-de-Calais (of which 4,550 are in primary school). At an academic level, the largest number of faculties of neerlandistiek can be found in Germany (30 universities), followed by France (20 universities) and

27390-412: The Netherlands and Belgium, the dialect spoken in and around the German town of Kleve ( Kleverlandish ) is historically and genetically a Low Franconian variety. In North-Western France, the area around Calais was historically Dutch-speaking (West Flemish), of which an estimated 20,000 are daily speakers. The cities of Dunkirk , Gravelines and Bourbourg only became predominantly French-speaking by

27639-539: The Netherlands, although there are recognisable differences in pronunciation, comparable to the pronunciation differences between standard British and standard American English. In 1980 the Netherlands and Belgium concluded the Language Union Treaty . This treaty lays down the principle that the two countries must gear their language policy to each other, among other things, for a common system of spelling. Dutch belongs to its own West Germanic sub-group,

27888-460: The Netherlands, however. Instead of entrusting the supply of bread to government bureaucrats it was contracted out to the firm of Antonio Alvares Machado and Jacob Pereira, two Portuguese-Jewish businessmen, living in Amsterdam; these two were the leading providiteurs general , as William had them called, and the firm organised the entire process of the supply of bread to the Dutch field army from

28137-503: The Republic, and especially the province of Holland, generated so many savings that needed profitable investment opportunities, that the Dutch capital market had little trouble in generating the necessary public loans. The credit of the States was excellent, because the system of public finance, with its revenue streams dedicated to the service of the public debt (unique at the time in Europe, though England would copy it after 1689) attracted

28386-582: The Royal Netherlands Army are laid out in the Constitution of the Netherlands : defend the territory of the Kingdom of the Netherlands (including the Dutch Caribbean ) and all of its allies, protect and advance the international legal order and to support the (local) government in law enforcement, disaster relief and humanitarian aid, both nationally and internationally. The supreme authority over

28635-719: The Royal Netherlands Army consists of a single battalion. The current order of battle includes a total of seven infantry battalions – of these, two are classed as foot guards and the remainder as line infantry . The staff support companies of 11 Airmobile Brigade , 13 Light Brigade and 43 Mechanised Brigade are part of the Garderegiment Grenadiers en Jagers , the Garderegiment Fusiliers Prinses Irene and Regiment Infanterie Johan Willem Friso , respectively. The cavalry arm currently consists of two active regiments –

28884-515: The Royal Netherlands Army: All regiments and corps are granted a colour ( vaandel ) or standard ( standaard ), including (since 2002) the artillery corps, which at the time was a breach with tradition. The colours and standards form the embodiment of the history and character of the respective regiment or corps. The standards are smaller in size because of a historical reason: horseback units would often struggle with

29133-530: The States Army followed the French reforms in other respects also, developing its own array of supply bases in the Spanish Netherlands. This enabled the Dutch not only to match the size of the French field armies, but also to extend their own campaign season in the early Spring. These reforms, combined with the fact that at the end of the Guerre de Holland in 1678 the organisational structure of

29382-431: The States Army that enabled it to recover in a remarkably short time, and to drive the French from the country. The most direct threat to the survival of the States Army in the months after the lightning advance of the French into the Dutch heartland was a financial one: the three occupied provinces Gelderland, Overijssel, and Utrecht no longer paid the troops that were on their "repartition," which would soon have resulted in

29631-475: The States Army that never was able to overcome the defenses of Antwerp, the main strategic obstacle to an invasion of the Southern Netherlands from the north. The war therefore ended in a strategic stalemate between the Dutch and the Spaniards in the 1640s, though for their part the French (faced with easier terrain) made large conquests in that period. The strain on the public finances caused by

29880-464: The States Army. That army only took shape after the Union of Utrecht was formed in 1579 and the influence of the States of Brabant and the States of Flanders in the States-General was eliminated due to the territorial gains of the duke of Parma who conquered their territories. The core of that new army were the troops raised by Holland on the model introduced after 1572. Although the financing of

30129-497: The States Army. Maurice was not in favor of looking for open battles, as this could result in expensive losses of valuable mercenary soldiers. He preferred the steady but more secure slog of siege warfare, in which he (and his successor Frederick Henry) developed a great proficiency. The States Army therefore seldom engaged in open battles during the entire course of the Eighty Years' War, but used its field army strategically as

30378-458: The Union of Utrecht had 'too much to do' within its own borders to send any money. The following table gives the strengths of the Dutch States Army, the Army of Flanders and the French army at pivotal years in their respective conflicts. Mercenary armies leveled the playing field. But they were very expensive to maintain. For instance, the cost of fielding the States Army before 1609 (the year of

30627-674: The United Kingdom (5 universities). Despite the Dutch presence in Indonesia for almost 350 years, as the Asian bulk of the Dutch East Indies , the Dutch language has no official status there and the small minority that can speak the language fluently are either educated members of the oldest generation, or employed in the legal profession such as historians, diplomats, lawyers, jurists and linguists/polyglots, as certain law codes are still only available in Dutch. Dutch

30876-621: The West Indies, slaves were forbidden to speak Dutch, with the effect that local creoles such as Papiamento and Sranan Tongo which were based not on Dutch but rather other European languages, became common in the Dutch West Indies. However, as most of the people in the Colony of Surinam (now Suriname ) worked on Dutch plantations, this reinforced the use of Dutch as a means for direct communication. In Suriname today, Dutch

31125-419: The account of the company captains, who received a fixed loopgeld (literally: "marching money") for the infantry or the equivalent Anrittgelt for the cavalry. The new recruits were concentrated at the muster place, where they were registered by the muster commissioner, a functionary of the States-General. The registration encompassed the noting down of a number of particulars about the individual recruits in

31374-691: The allied army. The army was involved in various conflicts since 1814, including the Waterloo campaign (1815) and different colonial wars (1825–1925). During the Belgian Revolution , from 1830 to 1832, the army was deployed to restore order in the southern provinces. After initial Dutch military success and widespread Belgian defeat during battles of the Ten Days' Campaign , the Belgian rebels appealed to France for military support. The severely outnumbered Dutch troops were forced to retreat when

31623-417: The appointment of William IV, Prince of Orange to stadtholder of all the provinces. After his early death Duke Louis Ernest of Brunswick-Lüneburg held the position during the minority of William V . In this entire period the position of Field-Marshal was occupied by a succession of sometimes foreign generals of the States Army, of proven competence, like the already mentioned Waldeck, Nassau-Ouwerkerk , and

31872-661: The area known as the Low Countries goes back further in time, with the Romans referring to the region as Germania Inferior ("Lower" Germania). It is a reference to the Low Countries' downriver location at the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta near the North Sea . From 1551, the designation Nederlands received strong competition from the name Nederduytsch (literally "Low Dutch", Dutch being used in its archaic sense covering all continental West Germanic languages). It

32121-486: The army for the duration of the First Stadtholderless Period. This curtailment (and the deterioration of the quality of the army that it entailed) led to the debacle of 1672 and the rise to power of William III. After his death in 1702 the Regents again declined to appoint a new stadtholder (and the Second Stadtholderless Period began), but their natural inclination to again curtail the army had to be postponed till after

32370-405: The army was left in place, while reducing the size of the army to peacetime levels, transformed the States Army to a truly professional "standing army" for the first time. The States Army was instrumental in keeping the armed forces of far larger European powers, like Spain and France, at bay in a series of armed conflicts during the extended 17th century (1590–1715). Despite the attention that

32619-529: The army, but Catholics were allowed to enroll, and some did. Besides this regular method of direct recruitment, the Republic occasionally used extraordinary methods. In times of emergency the army could be augmented by mobilizing the civic militias (as happened during the emergencies of 1629 and 1672), or more usefully (as the civic militia had a limited military value) by mobilizing the so-called waardgelders . These were troops hired on temporary contracts (in contradistinction with regular troops, who were hired for

32868-415: The artillery, and the general of the cavalry. The other field officers already had their modern titles. The basic unit of the States Army was the company of foot (called a vendel ) or of horse (called a vaan ). This was commanded by a Captain ( Ritmeester in a cavalry company), who was assisted by a Lieutenant and an Ensign (infantry) or Cornet (cavalry) as commissioned officers. The infantry company

33117-572: The authorities in the Republic to organize a volunteer or conscript army; mercenaries were the only feasible option. This had already been the case under the Habsburg rulers, when the States of the several provinces were asked to pay for the raising of the Habsburg armies, and played a role in their financial administration, like mustering . The authorities of the rebel provinces continued where they had left off in this respect. They were, however, content to limit their role to financial administration and

33366-624: The borders of other standard language areas. In most cases, the heavy influence of the standard language has broken the dialect continuum . Examples are the Gronings dialect spoken in Groningen as well as the closely related varieties in adjacent East Frisia (Germany). Kleverlandish is a dialect spoken in southern Gelderland , the northern tip of Limburg , and northeast of North Brabant (Netherlands), but also in adjacent parts of North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany). Limburgish ( Limburgs )

33615-505: The buying of grain to the timely delivery of bread to the camps at a level sufficient to sustain the large numbers of the Dutch field armies in the subsequent wars with France through the War of Spanish Succession. This logistical support enabled William III to make his daring sortie to capture the strategic fortress of Bonn in 1673, which forced the French to evacuate the occupied Dutch provinces, because their supply lines were cut. In later years

33864-479: The case with the Gronings dialect , which is considered a variety of the Dutch Low Saxon regional language, but it is relatively distinct from other Dutch Low Saxon varieties. Also, some Dutch dialects are more remote from the Dutch standard language than some varieties of a regional language are. Within the Netherlands, a further distinction is made between a regional language and a separate language, which

34113-512: The cavalry companies also varied, between 80 and 150 horse. The companies were often formed as part of regiments when the troops were first raised. But these regiments did not play an important organisational role. Instead, the companies were combined into "battalions" as fighting formations, in contradistinction to the Tercio of the Spanish Army of Flanders . The battalion was smaller than

34362-553: The close of the 18th century, with (Hoog)Duytsch establishing itself as the Dutch exonym for German during this same period. In the 19th century Germany saw the rise of the categorisation of dialects, with German dialectologists terming the German dialects spoken in the mountainous south of Germany as Hochdeutsch ("High German"). Subsequently, German dialects spoken in the north were designated as Niederdeutsch ("Low German"). The names for these dialects were calqued by Dutch linguists as Nederduits and Hoogduits . As

34611-437: The combined Franco-Dutch army of 50,000 that invaded the Spanish Netherlands in 1635 and subsequently almost starved, simply could not manage the strain of supplying the daily bread of the soldiers. The French Secretary of State for War Louvois had developed a system of forward supply bases, well-stocked with fodder for the horses and bread grain for the soldiers before the start of the annual campaign season. This not only kept

34860-607: The company (the pike square remained in force) was just part of the total tactical reform. Older armies had divided the total force in three parts (hence the Spanish word "tercio" for each of these parts): a van , main, and rear , which in the Spanish conception were little differentiated, though the companies were deployed in a chequerboard formation for mutual support. The two stadtholders tried to improve on this by dividing their army into tactical units of around 900 men (6 companies), called "battalions," that could operate independently. They hoped in this way to gain flexibility and spread

35109-407: The company sergeants. At first the musketeers were placed on both flanks of a square of pike men, as in the conventional formation. But after 1609 the musketeers were placed in a continuous front before the pike men when they fired their volleys, only retreating into the safety of the pike squares when the opposing pike men, or the cavalry, charged them. The linear formation of the musketeer part of

35358-468: The confidence of investors. (See Economic history of the Netherlands (1500–1815) ).This system of mobilization of financial resources made the Republic one of the first fiscal-military states. After 1588 the financing of the war expenditures of the Republic was put on a new organizational footing. In the Union-of-Utrecht treaty defense of the Union was indicated as one of the main functions of

35607-523: The confusion caused by the hasty retreat of the field army behind the Dutch Water Line , combined with the haphazard return of the garrisons of the Dutch fortresses that had so ignominiously capitulated to the French, caused large apparent diminutions of the effective strength of the companies that the captains had to replenish for their own account under the system described above. This threatened to bankrupt many captains, just when they were needed

35856-485: The cost of regiments and companies to the several provinces. This statement was drawn up periodically by the Council of State (not to be confused with the present-day Dutch Council of State , though it was a predecessor of the latter), an advisory organ of the States-General that was charged with a number of military-administrative functions. It is often mistaken for the annual "war budget" of the Republic, but this function

36105-413: The course of fifteen centuries. During that period, they forced Old Frisian back from the western coast to the north of the Low Countries, and influenced or even replaced Old Saxon spoken in the east (contiguous with the Low German area). On the other hand, Dutch has been replaced in adjacent lands in present-day France and Germany. The division into Old, Middle and Modern Dutch is mostly conventional, since

36354-462: The death of William II in 1650, Johan Wolfert van Brederode. But after his death in 1655 even this function was left vacant, because it was politically awkward for the States of Holland to appoint either of the candidates for the function, the Frisian stadtholder William Frederick, or John Maurice, Prince of Nassau-Siegen . Henceforth the States Army usually had two Field-Marshals, and after 1689 for

36603-540: The declaration of independence of Indonesia, Western New Guinea , the "wild east" of the Dutch East Indies , remained a Dutch colony until 1962, known as Netherlands New Guinea . Despite prolonged Dutch presence, the Dutch language is not spoken by many Papuans, the colony having been ceded to Indonesia in 1963. Dutch-speaking immigrant communities can also be found in Australia and New Zealand. The 2011 Australian census showed 37,248 people speaking Dutch at home. At

36852-451: The defensive capacity of the company, as the rate of fire of firearms was slow, and musketeers needed to shelter in the safety of the squares of pike men when they were reloading. To counter this problem the important tactical invention of volley fire by ranks was introduced, combined with the ancient concept of the counter-march, already used by the Roman legions . This combined manoeuvre had

37101-425: The desire to ensure that money was well-spent in military matters was the institution of field deputies . These functionaries were delegated by the States of the provinces to be near the High Command during campaigns, where they were empowered to make urgent political decisions on behalf of the States-General. Unfortunately, these deputies often interfered with operational decisions and were generally considered more of

37350-428: The development of a separate Dutch language. It was spoken by the descendants of the Salian Franks who occupied what is now the southern Netherlands , northern Belgium , part of northern France, and parts of the Lower Rhine regions of Germany. The High German consonant shift, moving over Western Europe from south to west, caused a differentiation with the Central and High Franconian in Germany. The latter would as

37599-418: The devil? ... I forsake the devil"). If only for its poetic content, the most famous Old Dutch sentence is probably Hebban olla vogala nestas hagunnan, hinase hic enda tu, wat unbidan we nu ("All birds have started making nests, except me and you, what are we waiting for"), is dated to around the year 1100, written by a Flemish monk in a convent in Rochester , England . Since the sentence speaks to

37848-430: The disastrous French invasion of Russia in 1812, and the actions of the Pontonniers company under Captain Benthien at the Berezina River ( Battle of Berezina ) are especially noteworthy. New research points out that, contrary to long-held belief, around half of the Dutch contingent of the Grande Armée survived the Russian Campaign. In 1814, a year after the return of William I of the Netherlands to Scheveningen and

38097-400: The dominant tactics of the time had been developed by their opponents, the Spanish commanders, and these favored the Spanish troops (who were well-drilled in them) over their imitators. What they needed was a new tactical conception that addressed the weaknesses in the Spanish tactics. Starting in 1596 they introduced a number of reforms that addressed both problems. First of all, they changed

38346-413: The duration) to perform guard duties in garrisoned cities when the regular troops were away on campaign during the summer months. But in time of emergency they sometimes were sent to the mobile army. The Republic usually used military entrepreneurs only on the level of regiments, not entire armies, if only to keep control of the drilling of the soldiers and the high command of the troops. Still, there were

38595-427: The effective strength, because captains then often dismissed their best-paid soldiers to remain ahead in the financial game. A better approach seemed to be to offer carrots instead of sticks. In the first place captains were given some leeway by allowing them a certain percentage of missing troops, without consequences for their payment. Also, in some cases the nominal strength of companies was lowered intentionally, at

38844-424: The end of the 19th century. In the countryside, until World War I , many elementary schools continued to teach in Dutch, and the Catholic Church continued to preach and teach the catechism in Dutch in many parishes. During the second half of the 19th century, Dutch was banned from all levels of education by both Prussia and France and lost most of its functions as a cultural language. In both Germany and France,

39093-423: The end of the War of the Spanish Succession. But then history repeated itself: the army was reduced in size to the absolute minimum that could still be considered safe. Because at the same time the Republic abdicated its pretensions to the status of a Great Power and embarked on a policy of neutrality, and to the fact that the Republic's hereditary enemies Spain and France for different reasons temporarily did not pose

39342-502: The entirety of Afghanistan. Special forces of the Korps Commandotroepen have been deployed to Mali since 2014 as part of the UN-mission MINUSMA . The primary task of the Dutch forces has been to gather intelligence concerning local Islamist groups and to protect the people of Mali against radical Islamist groups. Since 2016, personnel of 11th Airmobile Brigade and 13th Light Brigade have been included in rotations. On 6 July 2016, two servicemen of 11 Airmobile Brigade were killed during

39591-453: The extra costs. These could be substantial as the captains had to organize their own regular recruitment drives. On the other hand, the captains had little incentive to keep their units at fighting strength, because they (and their men) had little intention of actually fighting, if they could help it, so they did not see a personal advantage in keeping their units at optimum readiness. This dilemma understandably motivated them to make it appear to

39840-414: The federal republic. Though every participating province retained certain prerogatives (like reserving the supreme command of its forces for its own stadtholder ), in practice they agreed to pool their resources and pay a fixed quota of the cost of the army establishment. This establishment was enumerated in the so-called Staat van Oorlog (probably best translated as "statement of war") that "repartitioned"

40089-469: The first stages of the Eighty Years' War both parties had mercilessly executed prisoners of war (a practice that continued for a long time in the war on sea), this practice was soon recognized as a waste of money, as prisoners were often ready and able to offer large sums of money to regain their freedom. The practice of ransoming had long been customary in medieval wars and there was no reason to forgo its pecuniary advantages in this conflict. Informal ransoming

40338-412: The first time. The Dutch forces operated under the command of the ISAF Task Force Uruzgan and were involved in some of the more intensive combat operations in southern Afghanistan, including Operation Medusa and the Battle of Chora . On 18 April 2008, the second day of his command, the son of the Commander of the Royal Netherlands Army Lieutenant-general Peter van Uhm , Lieutenant Dennis van Uhm,

40587-496: The first trench to reach the ditch of a besieged fortress, as happened during the Siege of Breda (1637) . The downside of this policy was that sometimes epic brawls erupted between the contingents. This recruitment policy implied that usually half of the States Army consisted of foreign troops, and in times of expansion of the army even more. The army had a Scots Brigade during its entire existence. The English regiments were paid off after they refused to swear allegiance just before

40836-429: The form of musters (that in principle were conducted in the same way as the original muster) to combat these abuses. But frequent musters had their own downside. In principle after every muster the troops should be paid their arrears, which was not always possible; failure to pay would present a risk of mutiny. Furthermore, the reduction of the effective strength and payments after a muster could lead to further reduction of

41085-401: The formation of the Princess Irene Brigade and No. 2 (Dutch) Troop (predecessor to the Korps Commandotroepen ) as part of the Free Dutch Forces in exile, and with army personnel active in the Dutch resistance . In the East, the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army was defeated by the Japanese in 1942; few elements managed to escape. Today's army grew out of the wartime force, starting with

41334-548: The founding of the Staatse Leger (the Army of the Dutch States) in 1572: the creation of one of the first modern standing armies. Under the command of famous commanders such as Maurice of Orange and William Louis of Nassau-Dillenburg , the army developed into one of the best-organised and best-trained armies of the 17th and early 18th centuries. The innovative army underwent a thorough process of professionalisation under their command including revolutionary foot drill and siege tactics, proven effective during sieges such as

41583-403: The history of the Republic that the States Army was used by its leader to intervene in the politics of the day. Understandably, this experience made the Regents that opposed the policies of the Orangist party very wary of an overbearing army. After William II's unexpectedly early death in the same year these Regents therefore tried to make sure that such an intervention could not recur by curtailing

41832-490: The history of the mercenary troops, first of the States of Holland, and later of the States-General (though they are often ascribed to Orange's son Maurice of Nassau ). In the interim between 1576 and 1588, however, the preponderance of the forces fighting for the States-General, either in its own pay, or in the pay of foreign allies, like the duke of Anjou and the Earl of Leicester, did not follow this organisational model These forces can, however, not be seen as predecessors of

42081-415: The imagination, it is often erroneously stated as the oldest Dutch sentence. Old Dutch naturally evolved into Middle Dutch . The year 1150 is often cited as the time of the discontinuity, but it actually marks a time of profuse Dutch writing; during this period a rich Medieval Dutch literature developed. There was at that time no overarching standard language ; Middle Dutch is rather a collective name for

42330-467: The influence of the Burgundian Ducal Court in Dijon ( Brussels after 1477). The dialects of Flanders and Brabant were the most influential around this time. The process of standardisation became much stronger at the start of the 16th century, mainly based on the urban dialect of Antwerp . The 1585 fall of Antwerp to the Spanish army led to a flight to the northern Netherlands, where the Dutch Republic declared its independence from Spain. This influenced

42579-432: The language now known as Dutch. In the Low Countries Dietsch or its Early Modern Dutch form Duytsch as an endonym for Dutch gradually went out of common use and was gradually replaced by the Dutch endonym Nederlands . This designation (first attested in 1482) started at the Burgundian court in the 15th century, although the use of neder , laag , bas , and inferior ("nether" or "low") to refer to

42828-425: The large sized poles of the regular colours, and therefore chose to wield a shorter version. To this day, the mounted units of the Royal Netherland Army, such as cavalry , field artillery and horse artillery , use the smaller sized standards. The Royal Marechaussee , which used to be a mounted unit of the Royal Netherlands Army, owns a standard as well. In contrast to the functional use of colours and standards in

43077-427: The last tank unit and sold the remaining Leopard tanks due another series of large budget cuts while also dismissing 6,000 servicemen and women. On 18 May 2011, the last Leopard 2 fired the final shot at the Bergen-Hohne Training Area . In 2014, the Dutch defence budget hit a new low, 7.4 billion euros (1.09% of GDP), resulting in the combat readiness of both personnel and equipment being subpar. The negative trend

43326-512: The least (adults 15%, children 1%). The decline of the West Frisian language in Friesland occupies a middle position (adults 44%, children 22%). Dialects are most often spoken in rural areas, but many cities have a distinct city dialect. For example, the city of Ghent has very distinct "g", "e" and "r" sounds that greatly differ from its surrounding villages. The Brussels dialect combines Brabantian with words adopted from Walloon and French . Some dialects had, until recently, extensions across

43575-404: The liberation of parts of the Netherlands in 1944; the Dutch had plans to contribute a 200,000 strong army to the defeat of Germany and Japan. Between 1945 and 1949, the Royal Netherlands Army, which originally used mainly war volunteers but later was heavily dependent on conscripts, was deployed to the Dutch East Indies during the Indonesian War of Independence . To restore Dutch authority in

43824-400: The limited revenues of the States-General itself, mostly the taxes it raised in the Generality Lands . As these troops became a severe burden to the "Generality," they were generally the first to be let go at the periodic army reductions, and generally not well cared for. From the days of the Habsburg rulers the States Army inherited the structure of its top command. The commander-in-chief of

44073-405: The loss of these regiments. Holland therefore agreed to temporarily take over the financing of these troops, on top of the 58% of the costs of the war that it normally already paid. But on the level of the company a different liquidity crisis threatened to ruin the captains. First of all, many "solicitors-military," afraid they would not be repaid, refused to extend further credit. At the same time

44322-420: The many Dutch fortresses, however, which subsequently often surrendered without a fight to the French, or were simply bypassed. In any case, 22,000 was about the maximum the Dutch could support logistically in the field. The reason why the French were able to support a far larger field army was that they had developed a superior logistical system in the recent War of Devolution . Previous armies of large size, like

44571-437: The modern standard languages . In this age no standard languages had yet developed, while a perfect West Germanic dialect continuum remained present; the division reflects the contingent future contribution dialect groups would have to the later languages. The early form of Dutch was a set of Franconian dialects spoken by the Salian Franks in the 5th century. These happened to develop through Middle Dutch to Modern Dutch over

44820-482: The money streams to his company passed through his hands, if only because he often advanced the irregularly paid monthly wages on a daily basis in the form of "loans" to his men. This was a necessity, because the wages were often in arrears. They were supposed to be paid with a periodicity of 42 days (the so-called heremaand ), but often payment was deferred and the captain had to advance the money, thereby extending credit to his paymasters. At first this financial risk made

45069-432: The most. At the behest of William III the government now stepped in to avert this danger which might have resulted in a breakdown of the army. The States of Holland agreed to compensate the captains for the loss of soldiers at a fixed rate, which enabled the captains to bring their companies up to strength again without courting financial ruin. A soldier killed in action would bring 33 guilders (later increased to 50 guilders);

45318-454: The musketeers deploy in blocks of five or more ranks and nine files, in which the ranks successively fired their weapon simultaneously. After discharging its weapon the first rank would turn right, turn the corner of the block-formation and march to the rear, where it would start reloading, while the new first rank fired a volley, and so on. This tactic enabled the unit to sustain a relatively rapid rate of fire of sufficient "density" to discourage

45567-423: The muster commissioners that their units were up to strength. The methods of fraud were well-known, due to extensive use, and received specific names in the military business. One trick was to include so-called passe-volants (the French term for this practice; in English they were called " faggots "): civilians that passed themselves of as soldiers during the muster in exchange for a small bribe. A variant of this

45816-408: The muster roll, so as to give a possibility of checking identities at future musters. After the muster the recruits swore to obey the articles of war. They then received their weapons (and in later years also their uniforms) for which they had to reimburse their captains by a deduction of their wages. Only after this first muster the first installment of the wages was made available to the captain, who

46065-409: The need to support large troop levels formed a continuous motivation for the Dutch Regents to limit the resources for the army. This was a source of tension within the government of the Republic between the stadtholder and the States during the entire history of the Republic. In 1650 this tension led to a coup d'état by the then captain-general William II, one of the three times (1618, 1650 and 1787) in

46314-411: The new tactics step by step, like the 1607 Wapenhandelinghe van Roers Musquetten ende Spiessen by Jacob de Gheyn II . This helped to engender a tactical military revolution in other countries also. The new tactics eventually even reached the English army, just in time for the Civil War. Remarkably, the new techniques were only tried once, though successfully, at the Battle of Nieuwpoort in 1600, by

46563-418: The organisational and tactical reforms, but they made the States Army a formidable offensive force nevertheless in the Eighty Years' War. The same applies in a defensive sense for the engineers who built the new trace italienne -type fortresses in strategic belts that frustrated would-be invaders for centuries to come. Nevertheless, military-technical constraints of the day prevented the States Army to achieve

46812-470: The original Dutch language version dating from colonial times remains the authoritative version. Up to half a million native speakers reside in the United States, Canada and Australia combined, and historical linguistic minorities on the verge of extinction remain in parts of France and Germany. Dutch is one of the closest relatives of both German and English, and is colloquially said to be "roughly in between" them. Dutch, like English, has not undergone

47061-411: The participation of the Dutch brigade in the Peninsular War between 1808 and 1810. The independent army was disbanded in 1810, when Napoleon decided to integrate the Netherlands into France (" La Hollande est reunie à l'Empire "): Dutch military units became part of the Grande Armée (the present-day French 126th Infantry Regiment has Dutch origins). Dutch military elements participated in

47310-404: The past, during which they served as landmarks on the battlefield, their contemporary role has been greatly reduced. Nonetheless, they continue to play an important role during various military ceremonies. For example, soldiers swear the oath of enlistment while holding the respective colour or standard. Moreover, the colours and standards constitute an important connection between military units and

47559-411: The pay rates to be offered, the muster place, and the so-called Artikelbrief (the Articles of War governing the conduct of the troops). The entrepreneur usually took a commission himself as Colonel of the "regiment" to be raised (although the term "regiment is used loosely here, as it did not yet connote a military formation of a fixed size). Subsequently the colonel sent out recruiters to the areas where

47808-421: The possession of capital an informal prerequisite for becoming a captain, but later the provision of capital was taken over by so-called solliciteurs-militair ("military solicitors"), private Through this expedient the men received some pay regularly, which appreciably reduced the frequency of mutinies, certainly in comparison with the Army of Flanders. Because the manpower potential of the Republic's territory

48057-415: The predominant colloquial language out of the area's 22 million Dutch-speakers. Limburgish , spoken in both Belgian Limburg and Netherlands Limburg and in adjacent parts in Germany, is considered a dialect in Belgium, while having obtained the official status of regional language in the Netherlands. Limburgish has been influenced by the Ripuarian varieties like the Colognian dialect , and has had

48306-411: The provinces of Gelderland , Flevoland , Friesland and Utrecht . This group, which is not Low Franconian but instead Low Saxon and close to neighbouring Low German, has been elevated by the Netherlands (and by Germany) to the legal status of streektaal ( regional language ) according to the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages . It is regarded as Dutch for a number of reasons. From

48555-405: The provincial military forces had traditionally been the royal stadtholder, who acted as the Captain-General. He had a deputy (in Habsburg days known as the maréchal de l'ost ) who received the title of Field-Marshal. This arrangement was taken over by the Republic, even though the provincial forces were now merged into a unified federal force. As most provinces selected the same person (a member of

48804-430: The raising of the necessary money via the financing of a fiscal-military state (see the financial history of the Dutch Republic ). The latter already formed a considerable burden on the public finances of the provinces in the time of Charles V, and contributed to the formation of early-modern institutions for the management of the public debt, in which the Dutch had a pioneering role. These financial institutions helped

49053-409: The rebel States-General were twice as large on paper, with Orange's war budget of December 1579 listing 96 defensive companies on garrison duty plus 101 companies available for field action. But in practice he could field far fewer, as the provinces were customarily hesitant to agree to deploy their troops beyond their own borders. In part, this was because irregular payment for out-of-province soldiers

49302-428: The recruiting was to take place. These advertised the opportunity to enroll by having drummers attract attention in public places. The recruiters then signed up the new recruits (sometimes offering a signing bonus, though this was risky, because many who received this absconded before entering service). The recruits were then marched off to the agreed place of first muster. During this transport they were housed and fed for

49551-538: The relative preponderance of polearms over firearms. Henceforth a company of 119 men would have 38% pikes , 25% muskets , and 37% wheellock arquebuses , compared with the old formation that had more than 50% polearms, like pikes and halberds . Because the wheel locks were deemed unreliable, by 1609 the arquebuses were phased out and all firearms were to be muskets. In the cavalry the lancers were after 1596 replaced with cuirassiers and arquebusiers, both armed with firearms. The loss of pike men potentially diminished

49800-429: The remainder of the war. Similar cartels were concluded in later wars. As in other early-modern mercenary armies muster fraud was endemic in the States Army. This was due to the difficult position of the captains as entrepreneurs. They were paid according to the effective strength of their companies as established at the regular musters that the provinces held for the units on their repartitie . That effective strength

50049-405: The remaining provinces, introduced important tactical reforms that would be copied by other European armies, thereby engendering a tactical Military Revolution in the first half of the 17th century. The problem they tried to solve was that the lack of uniformity in armaments and tactical skills of the mercenary formations they hired on the open market made coordinated fighting difficult. In addition

50298-623: The respective unit. The ranks of the Royal Netherlands were established by royal decree of Queen Juliana in 1956. Each regiment and corps has a distinctive cap badge and beret . Many units also call soldiers of different ranks by different names, for example a NATO OR-1 private is called a hussar ( huzaar ) in cavalry regiments and a cannoneer ( kannonier ) in artillery units. The rank insignia of commissioned officers . The rank insignia of non-commissioned officers and enlisted personnel . Dutch language Dutch ( endonym : Nederlands [ˈneːdərlɑnts] )

50547-437: The responsibilities amicably on an equal footing. Maurice's successor, Frederick Henry, was the first to be appointed as Captain-General (and Admiral) of the Union in 1625, in which capacity he outranked his Frisian colleagues. The Frisian stadtholder William Frederick did not even receive a separate command during Frederick Henry's lifetime. Things became awkward during the periods when a number of provinces refused to appoint

50796-455: The rest of the text lack any consensus. The Franks emerged in the southern Netherlands ( Salian Franks ) and central Germany ( Ripuarian Franks ), and later descended into Gaul . The name of their kingdom survives in that of France. Although they ruled the Gallo-Romans for nearly 300 years, their language, Frankish , became extinct in most of France and was replaced by later forms of the language throughout Luxembourg and Germany in around

51045-423: The rights of Dutch speakers, mostly referred to as "Flemish". However, the dialect variation was a serious disadvantage in the face of the standardised francophony . Since standardisation is a lengthy process, Dutch-speaking Belgium associated itself with the standard language that had already developed in the Netherlands over the centuries. Therefore, the situation in Belgium is essentially no different from that in

51294-439: The risk of a rout when single units broke under attack. These battalion units were deployed chequerboard-like in three lines, again for mutual support. This method of deployment enabled the commander to rotate companies in a disciplined way, again to avoid confusion. Battalions were combined to brigades as fighting formations. To achieve this tactical flexibility companies had to drill in battalion formation. All units had to drill in

51543-400: The rulers of the Habsburg Netherlands , Philip and his father, Charles V in their wars with France before 1559. These were mercenary armies recruited on the "market" of " Landsknechte " and followed the organisation and military customs of that type of mercenary. William the Silent , prince of Orange, who would become the leader of the Dutch Revolt, had received his military education in

51792-462: The same branch of the West Germanic languages as Old English (i.e. Anglo-Frisian ) and are therefore genetically more closely related to English and Scots than to Dutch. The different influences on the respective languages, however, particularly that of Norman French on English and Dutch on West Frisian, have rendered English quite distinct from West Frisian, and West Frisian less distinct from Dutch than from English. Although under heavy influence of

52041-452: The same time keeping the amount of payments constant, thereby giving the troops a pay rise in the bargain. But the best approach would be to have the government take over the entrepreneurial risks of the captain. However, this did only happen in the Republic in the reforms of William III after 1672. In the years after 1590 the cousins William Louis and Maurice of Nassau, stadtholders and captains-general of Friesland and Groningen, respectively

52290-491: The same way. Furthermore, before the campaign the commander-in-chief would communicate his preferences as to the battle formation to his officers by drawing up a battle sketched plan which gave the order of battle in a standardized notation. These methods were promoted by William Louis' brother John VII, Count of Nassau-Siegen , who wrote several works about the techniques that received wide distribution in military circles in Europe. Later, drill manuals were published to illustrate

52539-458: The service of Charles V (he raised his own landsknecht regiment in 1552) and he followed the Habsburg example when he himself organised his invasion of the Netherlands in 1568. His experiences with the German mercenaries he raised were not encouraging: they had a predilection for mutiny before a battle and his invasion was easily defeated by the better-trained and disciplined forces of the duke of Alba . After his short excursion to France, to fight on

52788-402: The set of Franconian dialects (i.e. West Germanic varieties that are assumed to have evolved from Frankish ) spoken in the Low Countries during the Early Middle Ages , from around the 5th to the 12th century. Old Dutch is mostly recorded on fragmentary relics, and words have been reconstructed from Middle Dutch and Old Dutch loanwords in French. Old Dutch is regarded as the primary stage in

53037-518: The spring of 2018, Dutch special operations forces ( KCT and NLMARSOF ) deployed advice and assist (A&A) teams to northern Iraq in co-operation with the Belgian Special Forces Group . During this deployment, they provided support to Kurdish Peshmerga and Iraqi Army forces before, during and after operations in the battle against ISIL , as part of the Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve . The Netherlands currently deploy approximately 60 troops to Iraq. Between 2001 and 2003,

53286-408: The start of the Second Anglo-Dutch War in 1663. The French regiments disappeared during the wars with France at the end of the century, but were replaced with Swiss regiments for the remainder of the existence of the army. Though it is often maintained that the Republic only recruited Protestants in reality this was not a condition of employment. It was true that only Protestant chaplains had access to

53535-411: The successful Dutch-German military co-operation is seen as a harbinger of European defence integration, facing fewer linguistic and cultural issues than the comparable Franco-German Brigade . In 2014, the 11 Airmobile Brigade was integrated into the Rapid Forces Division ; in 2016, the Dutch-German 414 Tank Battalion was integrated into the 43rd Mechanised Brigade , which was in turn integrated into

53784-430: The time are generally split into three dialect groups: Ingvaeonic (North Sea Germanic), Istvaeonic (Weser–Rhine Germanic) and Irminonic (Elbe Germanic). It appears that the Frankish tribes fit primarily into the Istvaeonic dialect group with certain Ingvaeonic influences towards the northwest, which are still seen in modern Dutch. The Frankish language itself is not directly attested, the only possible exception being

54033-407: The title of lieutenant -captain-general to avoid hurting sensibilities in Orangist circles). After the British government dismissed the Duke of Marlborough and concluded a separate armistice with France, in 1712, Prince Eugene of Savoy was appointed lieutenant-captain-general of the Union for the remainder of the War of the Spanish Succession . The function again remained vacant afterward, until

54282-473: The traditions of the operational units. Before the Second World War , regiments were merely given a number, with the exception of the Grenadiers and Jagers regiments. Since the 1950s however, the regiments were given a historical name. The function of a regiment is strictly ceremonial, and is intended to increase esprit de corps . The Royal Netherlands Army consists of the following arms, and subsequent regiments and corps: Each infantry regiment of

54531-417: The transition between them was very gradual. One of the few moments when linguists can detect something of a revolution is when the Dutch standard language emerged and quickly established itself. The development of the Dutch language is illustrated by the following sentence in Old, Middle and Modern Dutch: Among the Indo-European languages , Dutch is grouped within the Germanic languages , meaning it shares

54780-427: The troops in fighting techniques. Other non-commissioned officers at the company level were a quarter-master, two drummers, a clerk and a surgeon. A cavalry company had beside the three commissioned officers a quarter-master, two trumpeters, a clerk and a blacksmith. The size of the infantry company varied: at different times it had 200, 113 or 89 men. Larger companies often had their own Provost Marshal . The size of

55029-626: The troops of the People's Republic of China and North Korea. 122 soldiers were killed in action, 3 soldiers went missing in action . The I (Netherlands) Corps stood watch alongside its NATO allies in Germany during the Cold War. The corps consisted of three divisions during the 1980s, the 1st, 4th, and 5th (reserve) divisions. It was part of the NATO Northern Army Group . The corps's war assignment, as formulated by Commander, Northern Army Group (COMNORTHAG), would be to: Dutch army troops have deployed to Lebanon as part of an international protection force since 1979 War in Lebanon, 1979–1985 UNIFIL . Of

55278-420: The urban dialects of the province of Holland . In 1637, a further important step was made towards a unified language, when the Statenvertaling , the first major Bible translation into Dutch, was created that people from all over the new republic could understand. It used elements from various, even Dutch Low Saxon , dialects but was predominantly based on the urban dialects of Holland of post 16th century. In

55527-413: The usual threats to the Republic's existence, this did only lead to disaster in the course of the War of the Austrian Succession into which the Republic was dragged against its will due to its line of barrier fortresses in the Austrian Netherlands that made its neutrality impossible once France invaded that country. (These barrier fortresses were established after the Peace of Ryswick and reconfirmed by

55776-419: The waist. The mess dress uniform ( Avondtenue, AT ) is worn during formal occasions, such as a dinner or a ball and consists of a black smoking, complemented with a peaked cap and miniature medals. Each regiment and corps within the army has its own full dress uniform ( Ceremonieel tenue, CT ), which is a traditional uniform that is worn during ceremonies and special occasions. In past eras, music

56025-467: Was a known systemic problem, which could cause mutiny when unpaid soldiers could not feed themselves and resorted to force against civilians, desertion, or defection to the enemy. Examples include 'trouble' caused by Edward Norreys 's four English companies stationed in the frontier city of Tournai , because the States of Flanders had failed to pay their wages, and the key border outpost of Bouchain fell to Parma's troops in September 1580 in part because

56274-442: Was actually performed by the "General Petition," also drawn up by the Council of State on the basis of the Staat van Oorlog , and presented to the States of the individual provinces after being approved by the States-General. The provinces ideally remitted their contributions to the paymasters of the army, but in practice especially the inland provinces were tardy in this respect, which often forced Holland (already burdened with paying

56523-486: Was announced that the Netherlands will acquire new tanks. Dutch army personnel was deployed to Bosnia between 1994 and 1995 to, as part of the UN peace force UNPROFOR , to restrain the escalating ethnic violence of the Bosnian War . Three infantry battalion (known as Dutchbats ) of the, at the time, recently established 11 Air Assault Brigade were sequentially deployed to guard the United Nations Safe Areas of any possible threats. This mission became infamous following

56772-417: Was based on the belief that its strategic position between the German Empire , German-occupied Belgium, and the British guaranteed its safety. The Dutch military strategy was aimed exclusively at defence and rested to a large extent on the Dutch Water Line , a defensive ring of rivers and lowland surrounding the core Dutch region of Holland, that could be inundated. At the beginning of the Second World War ,

57021-466: Was broken from 2015 onwards due to a perceived shifting international security situation. The attitude towards defence changed, mainly caused by increasing tensions with Russia (caused by the downing of the MH17 flight and the annexation of Crimea ) and the rise of the Islamic State , resulting in the defence budget seeing an increase of over 50 percent between 2014 and 2020, amounting to 11.04 billion euros (1.35% of GDP) in 2020. In September 2024 it

57270-399: Was collected throughout the 1990s, 2000s and early 2010s resulting in a dramatic downsizing in both budget and size. Of a total of 445 Leopard 2 MBTs originally purchased, 114 tanks and 1 turret were sold to Austria, 100 to Canada, 57 to Norway, 1 driver training tank and 10 turrets to Germany and 38 to Portugal (1 driver training tank). On 8 April 2011, the Dutch Ministry of Defense dissolved

57519-440: Was deployed to Iraq in 2003, based at Camp Smitty near As Samawah (Southern Iraq) with responsibility for the Muthanna Province, as part of the Multinational force in Iraq . On 1 June 2004, the Dutch government renewed their stay through 2005. The Netherlands pulled its troops out of Iraq in March 2005, leaving half a dozen liaison officers until late 2005. The Netherlands lost two soldiers in separate attacks . From 2015 until

57768-409: Was disbanded in 2007 due to budget cuts. The other two, the Regiment Huzaren Van Sytzama (former 1st Hussar Regiment) and the Regiment Huzaren Prins van Oranje (former 2nd Hussar Regiment) were disbanded, along with the army's full armoured capability, in 2012 as a result of further cuts to the Dutch defence budget. In 2016, a German armoured unit, 414 Panzer Battalion , was attached to

58017-496: Was formed under the command of the Hereditary Prince that was sometimes successful ( Siege of Landrecies (1794) ), sometimes woefully unsuccessful ( Battle of Menin (1793) ). It all ended with the collapse of the armies of the First Coalition in January, 1795. Because the 18th century therefore remained rather dismally uneventful the interest of (Dutch) historians for the history of the States Army in that century has been limited. The standard works cited below all limit themselves to

58266-433: Was generally divided in four sections, called esquadres or corporaalschappen , under command of a corporal assisted by a lanspassaat (lance corporal). These functions and titles differed from the usual Landsknecht-organisation. They were introduced by William the Silent in his reforms after 1572. In this organisation the weifels of the Landsknecht organisation were replaced by two Sergeants, who were in charge of drilling

58515-647: Was intensified. The I (NL) Corps was reduced to the First Division "7 December" in 1995, which became part of the newly established I. German/Dutch Corps , and consequently the division headquarters itself was disbanded. In addition, the army increasingly concentrated on peace-keeping and peace-enforcing operations and has been involved in several operations in the former Yugoslavia (1991–present), but also in Cambodia (1992–1994), Haiti (1995–1996), Cyprus (1998–1999), Eritrea and Ethiopia (2001), and most recent in Iraq (2003–2005), Afghanistan (2002–present), Chad (2008–2009) and Mali (2014–2019). As mentioned, peace dividend

58764-454: Was no William III however, and besides he soon after died. The positive results of the revolution of 1672 were therefore not repeated, neither in the political field, nor the military. The Republic and its army remained on their downward course till the demise of the old Republic at the hands of the French in 1795. This was only punctuated by the Anglo-Prussian intervention on the side of stadtholder William V in 1787 (the States Army did not play

59013-425: Was no such functionary, as during the First Stadtholderless Period ), the States of the provinces usually presented him with a list of three nominees to choose from. In other respects (garrisoning of fortresses, provisioning of troops, even movement of troops) there often were tensions between the provinces and the central army command over the "repartitioned" units. The provinces were keen to ensure that their money

59262-452: Was one of two servicemen killed by a road side explosion. As of 1 September 2008, the Netherlands had a total of 1,770 troops in Afghanistan excluding special forces troops. In total, 25 Dutch servicemen were killed in action during the deployment. All Dutch troops were withdrawn from Afghanistan by August 2010. Since 2015, 160 Dutch troops from the Korps Commandotroepen (rotated with NLMARSOF ) and multiple support elements are deployed to

59511-440: Was replaced by Afrikaans , a separate but partially mutually intelligible daughter language of Dutch. Afrikaans, depending on the definition used, may be considered a sister language , spoken, to some degree, by at least 16 million people, mainly in South Africa and Namibia , and evolving from Cape Dutch dialects. In South America, it is the native language of the majority of the population of Suriname , and spoken as

59760-431: Was replaced by the army of the Kingdom of Holland in 1806. This army fought beside the French, to repel the Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland in 1799 and to wage several campaigns in Germany, Austria, and Spain between 1800 and 1810; particularly notable were the engagements of the Horse Artillery (Korps Rijdende Artillerie) at the Battle of Friedland in 1807, the capture of the city of Stralsund in 1807 and 1809, and

60009-503: Was responsible for disbursement to the men. In other words, though the States-General would have preferred direct payment to the men (and often decreed that this should take place) in practice the payment always took place through the intermediary of the captain. This may be explained by the fact that the captain also was a small businessman, who "owned" the company as a profit-making concern, but who ran large financial risks. To protect his financial interests he therefore had to make sure that

60258-433: Was so limited, the States-General had to look beyond Dutch borders for a large part of the recruits. Fortunately, in those days foreign authorities did often not object to recruitment efforts within their territories (at least before the beginning of the Thirty Years' War when recruitment possibilities in Germany became more limited). The Republic therefore was able to obtain large numbers of recruits from Scotland , England,

60507-515: Was soon formalized in a so-called Cartel between the high commands of the two belligerents, first in 1599, and more definitely in 1602. This cartel was a formal treaty that enumerated the rates of exchange for different grades of prisoners and other conditions of treatment (and compensation for housing and feeding). The advantage for the commanders of both armies was that the losses due to the taking of prisoners could be replenished relatively cheaply and speedily. The cartel with Spain remained in force for

60756-464: Was to "borrow" soldiers from other units for the duration of the muster, or even to poach soldiers permanently from other units. The latter subterfuge of course represented fraud on the part of the soldier also, and seemingly increased the rate of desertion at the other unit; it was called "debauchery." To combat this fraud the authorities at first resorted to deterrence (severe punishments were threatened, though seldom imposed) and frequent inspection in

61005-417: Was under foreign control. In the 19th century, the East Indies trade started to dwindle, and with it the importance of Malacca as a trading post. The Dutch state officially ceded Malacca to the British in 1825. It took until 1957 for Malaya to gain its independence. Despite this, the Dutch language is rarely spoken in Malacca or Malaysia and only limited to foreign nationals able to speak the language. After

61254-483: Was used as a means of communication on the battlefield, and today military music retains an important role during military ceremonies such as enlistments and changes of command , and national events such as Prinsjesdag and the annual Remembrance of the Dead ceremony on 4 May. In addition, military bands provide the musical accompaniment during the presentation of letters of credence . Currently, there are four active military bands and fanfare orchestras within

61503-403: Was used in the Dutch East Indies (now mostly Indonesia ) by a limited educated elite of around 2% of the total population, including over 1 million indigenous Indonesians, until it was banned in 1957, but the ban was lifted afterwards. About a fifth of the Indonesian language can be traced to Dutch, including many loan words . Indonesia's Civil Code has not been officially translated, and

61752-416: Was usually far below the nominal strength of the company due to processes of attrition, like losses due to sickness, desertion , battle casualties , including prisoners of war and missing, and "poaching" by other captains of personnel. There was little the captains could do to prevent this natural attrition process, yet they were held responsible for replenishing the ranks, generally without compensation for

62001-452: Was well spent. From Habsburg times they therefore had claimed a role in combating the fraud that was endemic in the mercenary-army system. Every province therefore had the right to muster the troops that it paid for (and if these were garrisoned together with the troops that were paid for by other provinces, those other troops also, because otherwise the fraudulent interchange of troops would be too difficult to prevent). Another consequence of

#274725