Netherlands, The

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Country in Western Europe on the North Sea, bounded east by Germany and south by Belgium.

Government
The Netherlands is a hereditary monarchy. Its 1983 constitution, based on that of 1814, provides for a two-chamber legislature called the States-General, consisting of a First Chamber of 75 and a Second Chamber of 150. Members of the First Chamber are indirectly elected by representatives of 12 provincial councils for a six-year term, half retiring every three years. Members of the Second Chamber are elected by universal adult suffrage, through a system of proportional representation, also for a four-year term. Legislation is introduced and bills amended in the Second Chamber, while the First has the right to approve or reject.

The monarch appoints a prime minister as head of government, and the prime minister chooses the cabinet. Cabinet members are not permitted to be members of the legislature, but they may attend its meetings and take part in debates, and they are collectively responsible to it. There is also a council of state, the government's oldest advisory body, whose members are intended to represent a broad cross section of the country's life, and include former politicians, scholars, judges, and business people, all appointed for life. The sovereign is its formal president but appoints a vice-president to chair it.

Although not a federal state, the Netherlands gives considerable autonomy to its 11 provinces, each of which has an appointed governor and an elected council.

History
The inhabitants of the Netherlands are descendants of a Germanic people called by the Romans the Batavi, who lived on an island between the two branches of the River Rhine, and the Frisians who dwelt further north. The land south of the Rhine, occupied by Celtic peoples, was brought under Roman rule by Julius Caesar as governor of Gaul in 51 BC.

The Middle Ages
Roman rule lasted until the 4th century AD, when the Franks overran the south. The Frankish kings subdued the Frisians and Saxons north of the Rhine in the 7th–8th centuries and imposed Christianity on them. Charlemagne's dominion in the late 8th century extended to the Netherlands, and he built a palace at Nijmegen on the River Waal.

After the empire of Charlemagne broke up, and with the establishment of feudalism, the country was divided into small sovereignties. In 922 Dirk became count of Holland, and the other Netherland provinces (such as Namur, Hainaut, Limburg, and Zutphen) were divided between various barons and counts, autocratic rulers who owed allegiance to the dukes or earls of Lorraine, Brabant, and Flanders. Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Overijssel, Groningen, Drenthe, and Friesland, which were afterwards to form the United Provinces of the Netherlands, were chiefly under the rule of the counts of Holland and the Bishop of Utrecht, who in turn owed nominal allegiance to the German or Holy Roman Empire.

Between the 11th and 15th centuries, the cities of the Netherlands – notably Bruges, Ghent, and Antwerp – became important as commercial centres, usually ruled by small groups of merchants. Through the 15th century all of the Low Countries (the modern-day Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg, then collectively known as the Netherlands) were brought under the rule of the dukes of Burgundy, by purchase, inheritance, and conquest.

Habsburg rule
In 1477 Mary – following the death in battle of her father Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy – married Maximilian, the archduke of Austria, who later became Holy Roman emperor as Maximilian I. Through this, the Low Countries came into the possession of the Habsburgs. The Low Countries were passed on by Mary of Burgundy to her son, Philip, who married the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. Dying before his father, in 1506 Philip left the Low Countries to his son, Charles, who became king of Spain in 1516 and Holy Roman emperor in 1519 as Charles V. The Low Countries thus became the Spanish Netherlands.

The Dutch Revolt
The struggle for freedom and for civic and religious independence came to a head in the reign of Philip II of Spain in the middle of the 16th century. The revolt was partly due to religious reasons: some of the people of the Low Countries were Protestant or Calvinist, and objected to the ardently Catholic policies of Philip II, including the imposition of the Inquisition. More important, there was also strong objections to the increasing centralization of government, the economic demands of the Spanish crown, and the maintenance of a standing army.

After an outbreak of image-breaking in churches by Dutch Calvinists in 1567, Philip dispatched a Spanish army under the Duke of Alba to restore order. Alba's brutally repressive actions sparked off a revolt. In 1573 William the Silent, prince of Orange – who was Philip's lieutenant in Holland, Zeeland, and Utrecht – became leader of the revolt against Spanish rule. William, although ambivalent towards religious disputes, came to rely upon the Dutch Calvinists for his chief support. William was one of the earliest champions of the principle of toleration, but the revolt against Spain became identified, especially by foreigners, with the cause of Protestantism, and William was regarded as a Protestant hero. The foundation of an independent Dutch state owes more to him than to any other individual.

By the capture of Brielle in 1572 Spain received its first serious reverse. In 1579 the Union of Utrecht was formed, by which the seven northern provinces banded together as the United Provinces to resist Spain, and in 1581 they declared their freedom. However, the south (now Belgium and Luxembourg) was reconquered by Spain.

After William's assassination by a Spanish agent in 1584 the Dutch continued fighting, receiving military aid from England. This in turn provoked the Spanish to send the Armada against England in 1588. William's sons, Maurice (1567–1625) and Frederick Henry (1584–1647), took prominent parts in the war against Spain, both succeeding in their turn to their father's offices. Maurice (Count Maurice of Nassau), in a series of brilliant campaigns, drove the Spanish from the northern Netherlands. The Dutch also won many sea battles against the Spanish, and in 1609 Philip III of Spain agreed to a twelve years' truce. The war, renewed in 1621 as part of the wider European conflict of the Thirty Years' War, was continued until 1648, when, by the peace of Westphalia, Spain recognized the independence of the United Provinces (also known as the Dutch Republic).

Economic prosperity and trade rivalry
The Dutch economy thrived in the 1590s; a prosperity based on the Baltic trade and herring fishery. Amsterdam expanded enormously, and science and the arts flourished. In 1602 the Dutch East India Company was formed, and a truce with Spain 1609–21 enabled the Dutch government to consolidate its gains. Having broken the Portuguese monopoly over the spice trade in the East Indies (modern Indonesia), they also took over many of Portugal's possessions in the East Indies and Africa. The Dutch also looked to the Americas, gaining control of Brazil 1630–45 and establishing a trading centre on Curaçao in the Caribbean. Fortunes were made from the slave trade.

By the middle of the 17th century, Dutch trading success prompted England to pass a series of Navigation Acts to protect English trade. These measures prevented freedom of Dutch trade with England and its colonies, and lead to the Anglo-Dutch wars of 1652–54, 1665–67, and 1672–74). The wars were fought mostly at sea, although Admiral de Ruyter sailed up the Medway and the Thames to destroy English ships in 1667. The Dutch Republic were ultimately excluded from North America and West Africa, and Britain took over most of its overseas trade.

Internal conflicts in the 17th century
Success against Spain was followed by a struggle for power within the Dutch Republic, between the house of Orange-Nassau and the towns, in which Prince Maurice triumphed. Following the peace of Westphalia (1648) a struggle followed between the Orangist party, which favoured centralization under the Prince of Orange as chief magistrate (or stadholder), and the republican, oligarchical or states' rights party, headed by Johann de Witt.

The premature death of the stadholder William II of Orange, who died before the birth of his son, William III of Orange, allowed the republican party to seize control in 1650. De Witt became virtual prime minister, and soon found himself embroiled in the Anglo-Dutch Wars. De Witt was murdered in 1672 and William III of Orange recovered the office of stadholder. He secured British friendship by his marriage with his cousin, the future Mary II of England. This contributed to his subsequent elevation to the throne of England as King William III, when he was invited by Parliament to invade in 1688.

Wars with Louis XIV
The expansionist ambitions of the French king, Louis XIV, led to a series of wars with France. Louis attempted to annex the Spanish Netherlands (modern Belgium and Luxembourg) in 1667, alarming England and the Dutch Republic into an alliance with Sweden against France. Louis withdrew in 1668, but attacked the Dutch Republic in 1672, bringing it close to collapse. In the Peace of Nijmegen (1678), Louis made great gains in the north.

The Dutch allied with the British against Louis in the War of the League of Augsburg (1688–97). By the Treaty of Ryswick (1697) Louis gave up all conquests, with few exceptions, gained since 1678. In the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–14), the Dutch and British were once more allied against France. By the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) the Dutch were allowed to keep some of their barrier fortresses in the Spanish Netherlands, which were transferred to Austria.

Decline in the 18th century
The Treaty of Utrecht marked the end of the Dutch Republic as a major world power. The wars with France had proved expensive, and the French and British now dominated the trans-Atlantic trade, as well as encroaching on Dutch trade in the Baltic. Only the East Indies route continued to prosper.

The Dutch were also faced by domestic problems, including a declining population and erosion of the dykes that kept the sea from flooding large areas of land. In 1731 they gave way, causing widespread damage and incurring costly repair. William III's death in 1702, without an heir, brought about political unrest until, in 1747, a French invasion scare during the War of the Austrian Succession enabled the princes of Orange to reassert their authority and make their position hereditary. Attempts at constitutional reform in the 1780s were discouraged when the king of Prussia, the brother-in-law of William V of Orange, sent troops to invade the country.

The Revolutionary and Napoleonic period
Many Dutch, who were anxious for reform, welcomed the arrival of French revolutionary forces in 1794–95. The United Provinces collapsed and were replaced by a French-sponsored ‘sister republic’, the Batavian Republic. Louis Bonaparte was made king of Holland in 1806, but abdicated when the country was attached to the French Empire (1810–13).

The Orange family had taken refuge in England when the French invaded the Netherlands, but on the fall of Napoleon they returned. By the Congress of Vienna the northern and southern provinces were formed into the kingdom of the Netherlands under King William I (son of Prince William V of Orange).

The 19th and early 20th centuries
In 1830 the southern provinces seceded and Belgium was formed into a separate kingdom. In 1840 William I abdicated in favour of his son William II (ruled 1840–49), who in 1848 granted a new and more liberal constitution to the people. During the reign of William III (1849–90) the question of Luxembourg was settled: since 1815 the king of the Netherlands had also been grand duke of Luxembourg, but in 1867 the grand duchy was established as an independent state.

From the middle of the 19th century, religious issues dominated Dutch domestic politics for many years, and several of the modern Dutch political parties have their basis in historical religious divisions. A beginning was made in the field of social legislation, which was considerably expanded in the 20th century. In 1890 Queen Wilhelmina, then still a child, came to the throne. The Palace of Peace, to which many nations contributed, was opened in The Hague in 1913, as the premises of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (now the UN International Court of Justice). From 1815 to 1939 the Netherlands played little part in European history, and maintained a policy of strict neutrality.

From the mid-19th century onwards there was great industrial and agricultural expansion in the Netherlands. The coalfields of south Limburg, which owed their later development to the fact that during World War I the supply of German coal became restricted, were exploited with considerable success; while the great scheme for the reclamation of the Zuider Zee (in order to add a new province to the country) was launched in 1923.

During World War I the Netherlands remained neutral, and on his abdication in November 1918, Kaiser William II of Germany went into exile there. After World War I, universal suffrage and proportional representation were introduced. At the same time the principle of equal public spending on secular and denominational schools was incorporated into the constitution.

Occupation during World War II
The Germans invaded the Netherlands on 10 May 1940. The following day, a German armoured column entered Brabant and fighting took place in The Hague. Queen Wilhelmina left on a British destroyer for England, and was followed by the Dutch cabinet. The Germans destroyed the centre of Rotterdam in an air bombardment in order to force the Dutch to surrender; within four hours 25,000 buildings were destroyed. The Dutch had little choice but to surrender.

Hitler appointed Arthur Seyss-Inquart, an Austrian Nazi, as commissioner for the occupied Netherlands. The country was soon crushed under the financial burdens imposed by the Germans and the standard of living rapidly declined. Produce was removed to Germany, and Dutch industry was geared to German war needs. Seyss-Inquart attempted to impose Nazi ‘Nordic culture’ on Dutch institutions. The fact that the Dutch proved to be immune to this cultural infiltration was partly due to the churches, which developed into strongholds of patriotism. There was active resistance too, and many Dutch people were executed for their activities against the Germans; others fled to Britain to continue the struggle from there.

The Allied liberation of the Netherlands
In 1944 the Anglo-American chiefs of staff decided to use the newly constituted British and American Airborne Divisions to assist in seizing the Rhine crossings at Nijmegen and Arnhem, after the rapid advance by the land armies following the Normandy landings in June. The first landings of airborne troops were made on 17 September and reinforcements followed on successive days. There was heavy fighting in the area between Nijmegen and Arnhem during the ensuing days, and the position of the First Airborne Division became so precarious that on 25 September orders were given for the withdrawal of all forces across the Lower Rhine (see Arnhem, Battle of).

After this the Allies turned their attention to opening up Antwerp. By 30 September 1944 the whole of South Beveland had been cleared by British and Canadian forces. By 9 November the stiff resistance had ceased and some 10,000 troops had been captured. Resistance in north Holland collapsed in the first week of April 1945 and the sea was reached on 15 April. By 21 April the whole area, apart from a small tip in the northeast, was cleared as far as Harderwijk and the eastern shore of the IJsselmeer. To the west the IJssel River line was stubbornly defended at Deventer and Zutphen, but the former town fell on 10 April. In the southern part, the Canadian First Corps attacked from Nijmegen, and Arnhem was taken on 15 April. The Germans now withdrew into ‘Fortress Holland’ behind the Grebbe and New Water lines, protected by floods, beyond which no further Allied advance was made in this sector. The complete liberation of the country soon followed on the final collapse of all German resistance in Europe, though during the last weeks of the German occupation the Dutch suffered heavily from shortages of food and other commodities.

Post-war reconstruction
The enormous task of reconstruction was begun immediately after liberation. Further Dutch industrial expansion was greatly aided by the discovery of large quantities of gas under the North Sea off the Dutch coast. Side by side with material reconstruction the post-war governments pursued a full programme of social improvements. Those who had collaborated with the Germans were put on trial. In December 1945 the leader of the Dutch Nazis, Anton Mussert, was sentenced to death by a special court at The Hague. In April 1949 minor frontier modifications in the Netherlands' favour were made on the Dutch–German frontier.

Queens Wilhelmina, Juliana, and Beatrix
On the national celebrations in honour of the fiftieth year of her reign and of her sixty-eighth birthday, Queen Wilhelmina in August 1948 resumed for a period of one week the royal authority that she had relinquished the previous May in favour of her daughter, Princess Juliana, who had since then acted as Princess Regent. In September Queen Wilhelmina formally signed an Act of Abdication.

Queen Juliana, the fifth monarch of the Netherlands and of the royal house of Orange-Nassau, was formally inaugurated in September in the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam. Queen Wilhelmina after abdication took the title of princess of the Netherlands, living in retirement until her death in 1962.

Controversy arose in 1964 when Juliana's second daughter, Irene (1939– ), became a Roman Catholic and married the Carlist claimant to the Spanish throne. She later renounced her succession right to the Dutch throne. In 1965 controversy revived when the heir to the throne, Beatrix, became engaged to a West German diplomat. Many former resistance fighters strongly protested; but the Dutch parliament eventually approved the proposed marriage, which took place in 1966. Following the birth of three sons to Beatrix, the first male heirs to the House of Orange for a hundred years, the marriage won popular favour, and Beatrix became queen in 1980 on her mother's abdication.

Decolonization
The dominant issue in Dutch politics in the immediate post-war years was that of the Dutch East Indies, which had been occupied by the Japanese during World War II and was demanding independence as Indonesia. After several years of abortive negotiation and intermittent fighting, the independence of Indonesia was finally established in 1949. The fighting stopped, and the transfer of sovereignty to the new state was approved by the Dutch and Indonesian parliaments. The question of Netherlands New Guinea remained unsettled, however, until 1963, when it was ceded to Indonesia.

Among the Netherlands' other colonies, Suriname became independent in 1975, while the Netherlands Antilles have full internal autonomy. The Netherlands absorbed large numbers of people from its former colonies.

Regional cooperation and prosperity
Dutch neutrality ended in 1940, and from 1945 the Netherlands became fully committed to the Western alliance. It became a member of the Western European Union, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the Benelux customs union, the European Coal and Steel Community, the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom), and the European Economic Community.

The Netherlands prospered economically in the post-war years. Its currency, the guilder, became one of the most buoyant in the economy of Western Europe. The development, outside Rotterdam, of the Europoort, one of the greatest oil-refining centres in the world, contributed greatly to this prosperity. This concentration upon oil made the Europoort especially vulnerable in the aftermath of the 1973 Arab–Israeli War. The support of the Dutch government for Israel aroused considerable hostility from the Arabs and the trade in oil to the Netherlands was temporarily boycotted by Arab countries. The Dutch government introduced a variety of emergency measures to conserve energy, which were later adopted elsewhere.

Politics and government
Politically, the development of the Netherlands has been calm. All governments since 1945 have been coalitions, with the parties differing mainly over economic policies. In the 1970s the political balance shifted towards the left.

In the September 1989 elections, fought largely on environmental issues, Ruud Lubbers's Christen-Democratisch Appèl (CDA; Christian Democratic Appeal) won the most parliamentary seats. Lubbers formed a coalition government with the Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA; Labour Party). Both parties lost support in the May 1994 elections and eventually the PvdA leader, Wim Kok, formed a three-party coalition with the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy and the Democrats 66, both centrist in orientation.

In the May 1998 general election the PvdA made strong gains.

The Dutch government resigned in May 1999 after the smallest party, Democrats 66, withdrew. A row about giving citizens the right to vote in referendums had split the ruling coalition and led to the entire cabinet tendering its resignation. However, the government retracted its resignation a month later after mediation by Queen Beatrix.

Euthanasia
On 28 November 2000, the Netherlands parliament passed a bill legalizing euthanasia, which was ratified by the senate on 10 April 2001. The Netherlands is the first country to legalize euthanasia. Approximately 2,700 patients formally request euthanasia each year. Prior to legalization, doctors were not prosecuted, provided guidelines issued by the Royal Dutch Medical Association were followed.

Homosexual marriage
The Netherlands was the first country to legalize marriages between two people of the same sex. A bill passed in January 2001 came into effect on 1 April 2001.

In August 2001, Prime Minister Wim Kok announced that he would stand down as leader of the PvdA after elections in May 2002, and named parliamentary floor leader Ad Melkert as his chosen successor. On 1 January 2002, euro notes and coins were introduced as the national currency.

Political assassination
Pim Fortuyn, a far-right populist politician, was assassinated in the town of Hilversum, seemingly by animal rights activist Volkert van der Graaf. Fortuyn's anti-immigration and anti-Muslim stance brought his followers success in local elections in Rotterdam in March 2002 and his recently-formed Pim Fortuyn List party was expected to do well in the mid-May national elections.

General elections 2002
In the elections in May, the PvdA and its centre-left allies lost power. The centre-right CDA won 43 of the 150 parliamentary seats to become the largest party. The far-right Pim Fortuyn List came second with 26 seats.

White was added to the flag to identify Bahrain as a friendly state. Red was the traditional colour of the Kharijite Sect. In 2002 the number of serrations were reduced to five, possibly representing the five pillars of Islam. Effective date: 19 August 1972. >>