There has never been a "Dutch state" in the world! From the Dutch War of Independence more than 400 years ago to today, there is no one called the "Dutch State".
Europe in the 16th century was the heyday of the Renaissance and the development of science. With the rise of urbanization, in addition to the traditional aristocratic and commoner classes, a third class emerged in European society: the bourgeoisie.
At that time, the Netherlands region not only included the modern Netherlands, but also Belgium, Luxembourg and parts of northern France. The Dutch region is very prosperous in commerce, with handicrafts and commerce. Thanks to the discovery of new shipping routes, the Netherlands became one of the most advanced and wealthy regions in Europe. The bourgeoisie occupies a considerable part here.
At the beginning of the 16th century, the rulers of Spain acquired the right to rule and the succession to the throne of the Netherlands through marriage, so the Netherlands became Spanish territory.
However, Spain, as the traditional Catholic camp, has deep-rooted feudal ideas. The Spanish rulers carried out the brutal rule of medieval European feudalism in the Netherlands, using exploitation and enslavement as a means of rule.
Spain's perverse rule in the Netherlands dealt a major blow to the economy, causing many factories to close and unemployment to soar. What a fatal blow to the economy-focused Netherlands! Not only the bourgeoisie was dissatisfied, but even the nobles and commoners were strongly dissatisfied.
For civilians, they are unemployed, unemployed, and their livelihoods are devastated.
For their part, the aristocracy hoped to get rid of Spanish control and continue to develop commerce, and they also wanted to take advantage of the Reformation to seize the land and property of the Catholic Church.
For their part, the bourgeoisie was dissatisfied with the fact that the fruits of the development of the commercial economy had been taken away by the feudal rulers.
In this way, the three social classes of the Netherlands, rarely united in interest, and their common enemy was the Spanish rulers.
In addition, the persecution of Protestants by the Spanish rulers further intensified the contradictions. Discontent grew, and eventually in 1566 the people of the Netherlands could not stand it, and emotions erupted, with mass demonstrations and protests.
The Dutch besieged the Doge's Palace, ostensibly demanding an end to the persecution of Protestants, but behind them were deep-seated elements of long-standing dissatisfaction with Spanish rule.
The Governor of the Netherlands did not heed the demands of the Dutch and forcefully dispersed the demonstrators. This intensified the contradiction and added fire to the dutch bourgeois revolution that took place two years later.
In 1568, the Revolution broke out in the Netherlands, the Dutch War of Independence, which was fought intermittently for 80 years, and was also known as the "Eighty Years' War".
In the War of Independence, the Battle of Leiden in 1574 was an important turning point that is worth mentioning.
Leiden is a coastal city in the Netherlands, an old town that has existed since the Roman period, but was the second largest city after Amsterdam in the 16th century, and it is the birthplace of the Dutch tulip.
A Spanish army of more than 8,000 men, armed with 62 guns, surrounded the city of Leyden. The Dutch swore to die, even though they had only a poorly equipped Citizen Guard. The eye could not be guarded, and it was about to be breached by the Spanish army. The Dutch had a plan to open the dam gates of Schiedam and Rotterdam, causing the of the Ijssel River to burst and flooding the besieging Spanish army positions and camps.
This was the first victory in the War of Independence, which greatly encouraged the people of the Netherlands and inspired the people of other regions. Thus, the War of Independence swept through the entire Netherlands.
But the Netherlands was not monolithic, and the independent rebel armies were divided into two camps, north and south, with some differences between them over religious issues and their own affairs.
The northern provinces of the Netherlands formed the "Utrecht League", which was the most active and thorough resistance to Spanish rule. The southern provinces of the Netherlands formed the "League of Arras", which they believed should compromise with the Spaniards. As a result, the fates of the two began to diverge.
In the years that followed, the Northern Rebels were steadfast in their convictions and defeated the Spaniards several times. The southern rebels were afraid to follow suit, but were quickly defeated by the Spanish army and eventually remained under Spanish control.
In 1581, the 7 northern provinces of the Utrecht League declared their independence from Spanish rule, deposed King Philip II of Spain, and established the "United Republic of the Seven Provinces of the Netherlands".
After years of foreign wars, Spain also began to have a crisis of domination, and there was no flawless balance between the war with the republics of the seven provinces of the Netherlands. So in 1609, Spain signed the Twelve-Year Truce Agreement with the Republic of the Seven Provinces of the Netherlands, and everyone temporarily suspended their troops and recuperated.
But only nine years later, Europe saw the Outbreak of the Thirty Years' War, a great European scuffle that evolved from the civil war of the Holy Roman Empire. Spain and the republics of the seven provinces of the Netherlands were all involved in the war.
In 1648, the Thirty Years' War ended.
This war led to the division of Germany, the rise of France, the decline of Spain, and the genuine independence of the Netherlands, among others...
The Treaty of Westphalia, signed after the war, formed the concept of national sovereignty and the starting point of the modern international system.
The Thirty Years' War had caused Spain to lose not only a great deal of territory, but also to its position as a hegemon in Europe, and they were certainly powerless to prevent dutch independence, though they might be reluctant.
As the political and economic center of the United Republic of the Seven Provinces of the Netherlands, the Dutch Province also assumes the responsibility of leading the other six provinces, so the Netherlands is often directly called the Netherlands after independence. The Netherlands is their official name, and the Netherlands is equivalent to a nickname.
Recent rumors that the Netherlands will change its name to the Netherlands are actually wrong. Instead of changing their names, they used their original official names.
Then, some people may wonder again, after the independence of the Netherlands, it was obviously a "republic", why is it now the "kingdom" of the Netherlands? This is because in 1815 the Netherlands was changed to the "Kingdom" and in 1848 a constitutional monarchy was established.
Driven by curiosity, excavating historical materials anecdotes—— [Curiosity Mining Group]