Kaya Mernitz
AP Euro B4
During the early seventeenth century, the Dutch enjoyed global power. They dominated world trade, with the wealthy city of Amsterdam at the center. Unfortunately, other powers continued to rise as well, and fought to eradicate Dutch dominance of the world economy. From 1650 to 1713, while the Dutch were challenged in security and unity, the most formidable threat came to the prosperity of the Dutch Republic, which ultimately led to the Dutch fall from global trade power.
As new countries centralized power, they came to rival Dutch supremacy and pose a security threat. England and France became the most potent. They formed an alliance and jointly declared war on the Dutch, in which the French would start a land campaign, …show more content…
This posed a large threat, especially to Amsterdam, the mercantile capital of Holland. Being the wealthiest province, the burden of protection would fall solely to Holland. The French searched for a way into the Dutch prosperity, and in doing so, they posed a threat to Amsterdam (Doc 7). If Amsterdam fell, so would the rest of the Dutch Republic, becuase the other provinces did not have the funds to sustain the empire. This became an extreme threat to security, and the English and French knew this. The English continually encourage warfare between France and the Dutch Republic, and in doing so they made the Dutch lands into a massive warground (Doc 8). Aristocrats, such as Konrad Van Beuningen were primarily concerned with the fall of Dutch commerce at the hands of the English, as a result of the fighting. Because Dutch trade was holding these aristocrats in their seats in society, Konrad Van Beuningen is inclined to lean towards an extreme view in order to save commerce, which if lost would cause the nobles to lose their status and privileges. The fall of the Dutch Republic to warfare would ruin the nobles. This is …show more content…
The provinces of the Dutch Republic were fighting, and the government was divided. The full burden of the cost fell to Holland, as the rest of the provinces were poor (Doc 4). This was the result of warfare with the English and the French. Because the English wanted to become a world power, they were more likely to represent the vision of the Dutch Republic as desolated, which would allow them to more easily attack the republic and ruin what was left of Dutch power. The Dutch provinces were so disjointed that they could not agree on a military leader, practically inviting the attacks of Louis XIV (Doc 9). With no military leader, they could not fight effectively. The provinces did not trust each other, which threatened unity and security (Doc 9). Dutch unity was in shambles from the ravages of warfare by the close of the eighteenth