Abstract
The doctoral thesis on which War, Capital and the Dutch State (1588–1795) is based, was awarded the biennial Dirk Jacob Veegens Award for research into political, economic and social history by the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities, while it was also shortlisted in 2013 for the World Economic History Congress Dissertation Award. These facts arouse expectations that the book amply fulfils. It argues persuasively that the Dutch Republic, in its capacity to wage war, was not simply a remarkable but ultimately doomed anomaly in an international environment where cut-throat competition between states necessitated a process of linear progressive state formation and centralization. Instead, Brandon proposes, as a ‘federal-brokerage state’ the Republic proved highly successful. Only in the late eighteenth century did fragmentation within its system result ultimately in military and political collapse.
The accepted historical view has been that the Republic was a state living on borrowed time. According to this interpretation its success, and that of its revolt against its Habsburg overlord Spain, were largely the result of the latter’s financial and military overstretch. Resources were required for its wars with the Ottomans, France and England, in addition to its conflict in the Low Countries. Dutch economic dominance during the Republic’s Golden Age depended on internal divisions within France and England. Once these were resolved, Dutch trade primacy was rapidly eroded by French and English economic and military power. By the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1713) the days of the Republic’s great-power status were nearing their end, the remainder of the eighteenth century seeing the long slide into passivity, frustration and a peripheral position.
Brandon offers a compelling alternative to this narrative. Taking Charles Tilly’s famous statement ‘war makes states, and states make war’ as a point of departure, he sets out to explain why, in contrast to other European states, the early modern Dutch Republic did not develop in the direction of a robust, centralized state. This despite the fact that the Republic’s own forces, and the military arms of its East- and West-India Companies VOC and WIC, generally acquitted themselves well in the numerous armed conflicts fought against Spain, England, France, Sweden, Portugal, the North African corsairs and various indigenous Asian, African and American peoples. The Dutch state remained decentralized, with political power vested in the seven provinces and the coordination of its military apparatus divided accordingly, but was nevertheless able consistently to field significant military forces and project naval power over long distances. The explanation, Brandon argues, lies in the nature of the Republic as a federal-brokerage state. The founding of a new polity in de late sixteenth century, during the Revolt against the Spanish Habsburgs, allowed the entrepreneurial elites to establish a symbiosis between their own business interests and the nation’s politics. They occupied dominant positions in the administrations of their own towns and represented these in the provincial estates and the States General. Their ‘colonizing’ of the state placed them in an ideal position to advance their favoured economic policies, not excluding war when this suited their strategic aims or held the promise of financial profit. Serving on admiralty boards, the Council of State, the boards of directors of the VOC, WIC and other institutions, these entrepreneurs were prepared, indeed eager, to draw on their own or their families’ economic assets to facilitate the Republic’s military capacity. Many were involved in the shipbuilding industry, textiles or arms production, or finance, and thus in a position directly to profit from war. The large urban middle class of smaller business men, Brandon maintains, were prepared to support this socioeconomic structure, with its politically dominant military-industrial and military-financial complexes, since they, too, were able to profit from it. Brandon scrutinizes the interaction between state and entrepreneurs in three areas: the protection and expansion of maritime commerce, the building and maintenance of war fleets, and the financing of the armed services. He shows that the federal-brokerage system remained until a late date fit for purpose. Only towards the end of the eighteenth century did the system begin to falter; the decentralized governmental structure of the Republic hindered the development of the collective strategies needed to face the challenges of a new era.
It has long been recognized that no linear progressive correlation exists between state formation and warfare, which could be either detrimental or beneficial to the process. State formation has in any case frequently resembled the Whitsun dancing procession of Echternach, with its three steps forward followed by two steps back. In recent years, historians such as John Lynn and David Parrott have shown that, as far as warfare and the military were concerned, early modern European governments usually opted for organizational pragmatism. Taxation and finance, recruitment, the construction and provisioning of fleets, and the purchase of arms and munitions were typically undertaken by the state, which was, however, prepared to accept the provision of these services by private entrepreneurs, if they were able to do so more efficiently. Brandon takes a further step by showing that, in the Republic, a federal-brokerage system could rival other models with regard to military efficiency and strategic success. His book is based on a thorough command of theory and relevant historiography and provides a coherent and overall persuasive interpretation of the relationship between the Dutch state, warfare and private enterprise. War, Capital and the Dutch State (1588–1795) has the potential to become a highly influential book.