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Authors: Barbara W. Tuchman
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Steen, Ter Borch and de Hooch, and the landscape enchanters of leafy forests and sailboats riding the canals, Ruysdael and Hobbema. If the world cannot explain the Golden Age, it can only be grateful.
In its events, the Golden Age was not peaceful but filled with the bloodshed and alarms of invasion and war. The army of Louis XIV stormed over the frontier in 1672 in a wave of brutality called the French Fury, reminiscent of the Spanish reign of terror. The French penetrated to Utrecht in the center of the country and this time, too, the Dutch fell back on the weapon of water, opening the sluices to flood the land. At the same time, England renewed naval war in an effort, promoted by her own merchants, to destroy Dutch naval and commercial competition by force. The last of three such wars ended in the Treaty of Westminster of 1674, which set rules for the conduct of neutral trade that were to be a serpent’s nest of future trouble.
Troublesome as they were to be, they could not obscure the great political initiator of the Golden Age, the winning of the Netherlands’ sovereignty and independence in 1648. In that act at Münster, the Dutch vindicated the struggle for political liberty that was to pass in the next century to the Americans.
* His prescription, like other wise counsels, was to be mocked by his fate. Tolerance was no more agreeable to the French Huguenot refugees than to the Catholics. The influence of the refugees made it necessary for him to resign his chair, though he continued to live and to publish in Holland.
IV
“The Maddest Idea in the World”—An American Navy
THE Andrew Doria
, vehicle and protagonist of the drama of the first salute, was not just any ship but already the possessor of a historic distinction. She was one of four converted merchantmen of the “singularly small” body—as one of its officers, John Paul Jones, regretfully acknowledged it—that composed the first navy of the United States, created by Act of the Second Continental Congress on October 13, 1775, and she was shortly to take part in its first belligerent action.
Named for a famed figure in the cause of liberty, the valorous Admiral of Genoa (Andrea Doria in his own country), who led the fight for the freedom of his city against the French in 1528, she was about 75 feet long and 25 feet in the beam, with a mixed or “hermaphrodite” rigging of square sails on her mainmast and a fore-and-aft rig of triangular sails on her mizzenmast. For armament she had sixteen 6-pounders, meaning guns that could fire small 6-pound cannonballs as well as a number of swivel guns mounted on deck for a wider field of fire. She carried a crew of 130.
The importance of sea power as a strategic arm was accepted as understood in the 18th century, well before Admiral Alfred ThayerMahan in 1890 formulated it as a fundamental principle, to the surprise of seagoing nations which had risen or fallen by its means through the centuries. Defeat of the Spanish Armada had determined the rise of Britain and the decline of Spain 300 years before Mahan’s discovery, and Nelson’s ships at the Battle of Trafalgar put an end to the threat of Napoleon and altered the balance between Britain and France ninety years before
The Influence of Sea Power upon History
was published. Nations, like people, are often more pragmatic than they know or can explain.
The American Colonies had no need to wait for a principle. Their need for resupply of arms and powder, and their need to disrupt the enemy’s supply lines and to defend themselves against British naval attacks on and burning of their coastal towns, was imperative. They were fortunate in a Commander-in-Chief who had formed in his own mind the fixed belief that the colonial forces could never achieve victory without sea power to use against the enemy. In August-September, 1775, to interrupt the British supply lines when he was besieging Boston, Washington had chartered and armed several small fishing
In its events, the Golden Age was not peaceful but filled with the bloodshed and alarms of invasion and war. The army of Louis XIV stormed over the frontier in 1672 in a wave of brutality called the French Fury, reminiscent of the Spanish reign of terror. The French penetrated to Utrecht in the center of the country and this time, too, the Dutch fell back on the weapon of water, opening the sluices to flood the land. At the same time, England renewed naval war in an effort, promoted by her own merchants, to destroy Dutch naval and commercial competition by force. The last of three such wars ended in the Treaty of Westminster of 1674, which set rules for the conduct of neutral trade that were to be a serpent’s nest of future trouble.
Troublesome as they were to be, they could not obscure the great political initiator of the Golden Age, the winning of the Netherlands’ sovereignty and independence in 1648. In that act at Münster, the Dutch vindicated the struggle for political liberty that was to pass in the next century to the Americans.
* His prescription, like other wise counsels, was to be mocked by his fate. Tolerance was no more agreeable to the French Huguenot refugees than to the Catholics. The influence of the refugees made it necessary for him to resign his chair, though he continued to live and to publish in Holland.
IV
“The Maddest Idea in the World”—An American Navy
THE Andrew Doria
, vehicle and protagonist of the drama of the first salute, was not just any ship but already the possessor of a historic distinction. She was one of four converted merchantmen of the “singularly small” body—as one of its officers, John Paul Jones, regretfully acknowledged it—that composed the first navy of the United States, created by Act of the Second Continental Congress on October 13, 1775, and she was shortly to take part in its first belligerent action.
Named for a famed figure in the cause of liberty, the valorous Admiral of Genoa (Andrea Doria in his own country), who led the fight for the freedom of his city against the French in 1528, she was about 75 feet long and 25 feet in the beam, with a mixed or “hermaphrodite” rigging of square sails on her mainmast and a fore-and-aft rig of triangular sails on her mizzenmast. For armament she had sixteen 6-pounders, meaning guns that could fire small 6-pound cannonballs as well as a number of swivel guns mounted on deck for a wider field of fire. She carried a crew of 130.
The importance of sea power as a strategic arm was accepted as understood in the 18th century, well before Admiral Alfred ThayerMahan in 1890 formulated it as a fundamental principle, to the surprise of seagoing nations which had risen or fallen by its means through the centuries. Defeat of the Spanish Armada had determined the rise of Britain and the decline of Spain 300 years before Mahan’s discovery, and Nelson’s ships at the Battle of Trafalgar put an end to the threat of Napoleon and altered the balance between Britain and France ninety years before
The Influence of Sea Power upon History
was published. Nations, like people, are often more pragmatic than they know or can explain.
The American Colonies had no need to wait for a principle. Their need for resupply of arms and powder, and their need to disrupt the enemy’s supply lines and to defend themselves against British naval attacks on and burning of their coastal towns, was imperative. They were fortunate in a Commander-in-Chief who had formed in his own mind the fixed belief that the colonial forces could never achieve victory without sea power to use against the enemy. In August-September, 1775, to interrupt the British supply lines when he was besieging Boston, Washington had chartered and armed several small fishing
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