Talk:Eighty Years' War

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Why this article?[edit]

As I wrote on the talk page of the Dutch Revolt article there is a need for an article about the military aspects of the Eighty Years' War. After all, it was a war :-) The current article about the Dutch Revolt suffers from confusion on a number of fronts, first of all the title, which does not cover the contents. I would admit that there is a need for an article that covers what the Dutch call "De Nederlandse Opstand" (which means the same thing as Dutch Revolt in Dutch). Such an article would at most cover the events between 1567 and 1609 (though a shorter period might be in order) and would treat of the political, social and religious aspect of the first part of the Eighty Years' War. This would correspond with what is usually called "the Dutch Revolt" in Anglophone historiography (viz. e.g. John Lothrop Motley). In this article, entitled Eighty Years' War, I have purposely followed a different tack, glossing over most of the political and social aspects of the Dutch Revolt, but stressing the military organizational and strategic aspects (and mentioning as many battles and sieges as possible). Also, in this article the second part of the war (after the Twelve Years' Truce), which does not fit well in the "Dutch Revolt" framework, as it was just a "conventional" war between two sovereign states, that had already recognized each other as such at the signing of the Truce, can be more rationally discussed.

The length of the article bothers me too. I would have liked to keep it shorter, but discovered during the writing that many articles that I otherwise could have referred to, were woefully lacking in the details I felt were necessary (the current article about Twelve Years' Truce is a case in point). I have still put in wikilinks to such articles and even referred to them as "main" articles, but I have felt constrained to nevertheles put in the lacking details in this article. Maybe this could be rectified in future.--Ereunetes (talk) 18:09, 22 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wow. This page is more than 60 kilobytes larger than the article on the Second World War. You should definitely consider splitting off some content from this article, because as you've mentioned, the other articles are lacking in details, which could be provided from this article. --Patar knight - chat/contributions 00:23, 23 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The Second World War took only six years :-)--Ereunetes (talk) 03:08, 23 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
But the Hundred Years' War is only 53 kilobytes. :( --Patar knight - chat/contributions 17:09, 23 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This artivle is very good, but is just too large (in the 200 largest wikipedia articles, and nearly double the recommended size) - that doesn't nessecary mean that stuff needs to be deleted. It should be split off into seperate stand-alone articles and a more brief summary listed here. There at least half a dozens sections here which would easily pass notability as seperate articles. Lord Cornwallis (talk) 00:40, 9 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I tend to agree, plus the lead does not make clear the distinction between this and the Dutch Revolt (nor does that lead). Many other articles, linked as "main article", seem in fact much shorter than the coverage here - eg Twelve Years' Truce. One could break it into two or three sections, Military history of the Dutch Revolt for Pt1 maybe, or disperse it to the "main articles", or some combination of both. Johnbod (talk) 01:33, 9 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Before you get too excited, please take a look at Talk:Dutch Revolt. That may explain to people that are evidently new to the subject that there are good historiographical reasons to prefer an article on the Eighty Years' War and another one on the Dutch revolt (I am repeating myself here; do people read the earlier entries on this page?). The fact that they right now cover much of the same ground is a matter of much debate (the Dutch Revolt article started out with the title "Eighty Years' War" which is the English translation of the title of the Dutch wikipedia article, before it was renamed to its current title). I have made a case for a complete overhaul of the Dutch Revolt article in which the political and social aspects of the Revolt (the first twenty or thirty years of the war) would get their proper place. It would then be a proper supporting article for the Eighty Years' War article. Alas, that is not the case yet and the lacuna has yet to be filled. The problem with breaking up this article is that we still need an article on the war in question. It indeed would have been ideal if the writers of a number of supporting articles (like Twelve Years' Truce) had done a better job. This article might have been a lot shorter if that had been the case. However, trifling with those articles (as with the Dutch Revolt article) will probably land one in an edit war with the proud owners.--Ereunetes (talk) 19:21, 9 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I doubt that. Anyway, as it stands this article is too long for dial-up users etc. Johnbod (talk) 19:28, 9 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Obviously the issue here is no longer the article name, but the size of the article. Splitting sections off would be good idea but personally, calling the article 'Dutch Revolt' shouldn't happen in the same way that the American Revolution and the American Revolutionary War article are seperate. Dutch revolt is just too flippant when used for the Eighty Years' War because there were, in fact many Dutch revolts against Spanish rule throughout her history. Uhlan talk 05:53, 8 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Twelve years truce (1609-1619?)[edit]

How can a twelve years' truce be fitted in the period 1609-1619, which are only eleven years all together? In the article there is a link to the main article Twelve Years' Truce, which says the truce is from 1609 to 1621; also the atricle about the Eighty Years War, which is very much like te Dutch Revolt article, also says (with sources!) 1609-1621. Where is the source that says 1609-1619?

--DrJos (talk) 09:48, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am glad you asked :-) It is true that the Twelve Years' Truce was contracted for twelve years (in advance, in other words). Formally, it lasted for twelve years and for that reason it automatically expired in April 1621, when it was not renewed. However, the fighting already started again in 1619 with the Dutch intervention on the side of the Bohemian rebels and the Elector Palatine. I used the phrase Twelve Years' Truce here as a subtitle for a subsection, covering the period referenced. However, you have a point. I'll eliminate the period designation in the title to avoid confusion.--Ereunetes (talk) 18:22, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Too long?[edit]

Why all this talk on the article being to long? What are we, children? Are our attention spans that short? Come on! This is an encyclopaedia. It should be detailed. I want the details. If you can't read the whole thing, don't. Go watch your cartoons. Let the rest of us get back to improving Wikipedia with even more detailed articles. The article should, by no means, be shortened. PS: This article is not too long for dial-up users. Do the math. --Thorwald (talk) 01:21, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See WP:SIZE. Johnbod (talk) 03:06, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I know all about that guideline. I simply don't agree with it. Some articles are about complex subjects and need to be longer. Of course, they could also be broken into smaller pieces, as long as the goal is not to water down the content and make it "easier" for readers. We shouldn't spoon-feed. --Thorwald (talk) 07:58, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I apologize. I read the arguments above too quickly. I initially thought the arguments about the article being "too long" had to do with it having too much information. I know understand them to be more about the actual length and wanting to split the article into smaller pieces. As long as we keep the information (and even expound and expand upon), it is a good idea. Sorry for the fuss. --Thorwald (talk) 08:15, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A word of caution about splitting anything up: it should be done, if at all, by people who know what they are doing. There was a suggestion earlier to hive some of it off to an article about "the military aspects of the Dutch Revolt". This would amount to turning everything upside down, as the Eighty Years' War is the military aspect of the Revolt. Besides, as is explained in the article, the Dutch Revolt covers only the first thirty years or so. Far better would be to write an article that properly covers the Dutch Revolt (see Talk:Dutch Revolt). The first part of this article could then (but only then) be appropriately shortened. I also wouldn't object to first improving the articles on Twelve Years' Truce and Peace of Münster and then condensing the sections in this article. Only don't expect me to do the work :-) You could use my work here, though. It is in the public domain, after all.--Ereunetes (talk) 20:52, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That was the point: "the Dutch Revolt covers only the first thirty years or so". It would obviously be best if you do it. Johnbod (talk) 22:53, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I am not the one having a problem with the length of this article. I am just afraid of people spoiling it on spurious gronds. I do have a problem with the Dutch Revolt article, as explained on its Talk page, but I don't want to start editing that without first having a proper discussion.--Ereunetes (talk) 00:08, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

class change[edit]

This is a nicely done article, but it no longer meets the criteria in WikiProject Military History for B class. The citations and sourcing in the article are insufficient for this rating. I am changing the rating for this reason. Auntieruth55 (talk) 20:23, 9 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

With respect, I think it is a waste of time to try and meet the rating criteria of the Military History project. There are those that write articles. And then there are those that rate them.--Ereunetes (talk) 19:39, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Various problems[edit]

I think this article has various problems.

First my opinion is that this article is long, as some people have already pointed out. I read it on a MID and got serious problems loading it.

Secondly, I think some parts do not include any form of order. If you begin reading the first five parts of the article, they don't follow any chronological order and include facts that are not part of the war itself, but of its consequences (and could be in a paragraph named it so) and others which try to be a summary of the events, but are so bad arranged that you can not understand it is supposed to be a brief version of what you are going to read latter, until you reach the fifth part which is named: 'Prelude'. Besides this, there are some issues discussed in this first four parts, which are barely touched after that, like the execution of the of the counts of Egmont and Hoorn.

I could not agree more. I wrote the original version of the article, but someone decided to "improve" on my lead section. Hence the current unsatisfactory form of the initial part of the article. I also don't agree with its sycophantic Orangist tenor, which I hope is not shared by the remainder of the article.--Ereunetes (talk) 19:33, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thirdly, I think the language in which is written is, almost completely, un-encyclopaedic, using many colloquial phrases and examples based on language which could be used to explain the war to a little child (this is an example of un-encyclopaedic language ;) ). I can point various examples, but I would use just this:

To understand the nature of Alba's campaign to reconquer the Rebel provinces a short digression on the military terrain in Holland is in order. It is well-known that Holland is one of the few inhabited areas in the world that are "below sealevel." This does not mean that Holland would fill up like a bath tub if the sea gained entry. As a matter of fact, the sea is only a serious threat during severe storms when the tides reach extraordinary heights. In normal times, the real danger comes from above: the low-lying areas have difficulty draining precipitation. In the 16th century, when the technology to efficiently drain those areas was still lacking, Holland was therefore covered with extensive shallow lakes, while the slightly-higher land in between consisted of waterlogged bogs.

Fourthly (and related to the first and third point), this article gives lengthy descriptions of the events of specific battles which occurred during the war. I don't think this is the correct approach. One person pointed, as an example, the article about the Hundred Years' War. I agree with that example: My opinion is that this article should be about the war, detailing just the big picture of the events related to it, leaving the description of the individual battles to the articles that specifically deal with those battles in particular.

Fifthly, I personally think the part in which there is a reference to the 'No taxation without representation' it's not explained and I think that part is written from a Modern POV.

--Camahuetos (talk) 01:41, 10 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree wholeheartedly on all of these points. The style is chatty and contains any number of unqualified assertions. Whilst the level of detail in terms of facts is good, it should be split down and rewritten. It is an important subject and not one which should be left in this form. JohnAndrew (talk) 00:31, 28 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Changing the name to: The Dutch revolt[edit]

Historians nowadays do not use the term Eighty Years War any more. Instead the Dutch Revolt is the normal, accepted term as the period is not actually considered a war nowadays. I would suggest changing the name of this article to “The Dutch Revolt” —Preceding unsigned comment added by Xbrouwer (talk • contribs) 13:15, 9 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

See the discussion under the first section of this discussion page.--Ereunetes (talk) 19:35, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Freedom of religion quote[edit]

Yesterday someone (probably a Dutchman) tried to exorcise a minor grammatical grievance in changing the Dutch quote in the lead section. This was immediately reverted by another guardian of the Dutch language (who was correct, incidentally: the quote in Dutch indeed is "hun" and not "hen"). But then I decided to research the matter and found that first of all the quote was not complete (it omitted that William of Orange started his remark by saying that he had decided to remain a Catholic at the time, which probably did not sit well with the person who included the quote in the article). But more importantly, Orange did not utter the quote in Dutch, but in French, as was his wont as a civilized member of the Haute Noblesse in the Habsburg Netherlands, addressing other members of the Council of State. I have therefore substituted the correct quote in the correct language (with hopefully the correct translation into English :-) But I still think that the entire quote does not have a place in this article.--Ereunetes (talk) 20:27, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ibardi has meanwhile removed the entire quote, which is fine by me. But I have to make amends in the sense that (as the article about William the Silent correctly and with documentation says) the quote should be in Latin, not in French either: "Et quamquam ipse Catholicae Religioni adhaerere constituerit, non posse tamen ei placere, velle Principes animis hominum imperare, libertatemque Fidei & Religionis ipsis adimere." C.P. Hoynck van Papendrecht, Vita Viglii ab Aytta, in Analecta belgica I, 41-42 (F. Postma, "Prefigurations of the future? The views on the boundaries of Church and State of William of Orange and Viglius van Aytta (1565-1566)", in A.A. McDonald and A.H. Huussen (eds.), Scholarly environments: centres of learning and institutional contexts, 1560-1960 (2004), 15-32, esp. 15). If people decide to restore the quote, I think it should be this Latin version and it should be referenced.--Ereunetes (talk) 21:43, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I should have been more communicative. It was I who first transferred the French quotation from this article to William the Silent, then replaced it by a footnote containing the Latin text. I am not sure where the French translation came from, but the Latin Vita reference appears to be the original source. Iblardi (talk) 21:58, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Which is not to say that Orange indeed uttered the phrase in Latin! I would still maintain that he mainly spoke French in the confines of the Council of State, as witnessed by the context of this quote in the book of McDonald and Huussen from which it is taken. At the top of the page the following quote, noted down by the Secretary of the Council a few years later, is reproduced, also from Orange's mouth: "Car veoir brusler un homme pour penser avoir bien faict, faict mal aux gens, et leur semble conscience". The Latin quote is from the autobiography (in Latin) of the president of the Council, Viglius. I presume he noted it down and translated it in Latin. But it would be difficult (as witnessed by the archaic French in the quote just given) to render it the way Orange truly uttered it. So let's stay with the Latin version--Ereunetes (talk) 22:11, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Of course, if one would absolutely insist on the true words, McDonald and Huussen offer an authoritative French version a few pages down (p. 18, fn. 8), taken from a petition to the Crown that was based on Viglius autobiography. The quote is then: "Et ores que luy (comme il disoit) avoit l'intention d'adherer a la religion catholicque, ne pouvoit toutesfoit trouver bon que les princes veuillent commander aux ames des hommes, et leur oster la liberté de la foy et religion." For whatever it is worth :-)--Ereunetes (talk) 22:28, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The matter is complicated by the fact that both the Latin and the French use indirect speech... We may want to consider adapting the English translation to reflect this. I agree that meddling with either of these quotes in an attempt to reconstruct William's original French words would be an unallowable form of OR. Iblardi (talk) 22:44, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I can reconstruct the course of events, Orange made his remarks (in direct speech) in French. This was then paraphrased (in indirect-speech Latin) by Viglius and by the petitioners in French. But when the 19th century Dutch historians got through with it, it had been rendered into direct speech again (in Dutch, and consistently using "hun" voor "leur" :-) This was possibly translated into French by Belgian 19th century historians putting a more Roman Catholic slant on the matter (also in direct speech). In my opinion the best way to approach this is to use Viglius' paraphrase in Latin and translate that correctly into indirect-speech English.--Ereunetes (talk) 22:57, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Done, but at William the Silent, where it properly belongs. :-) Iblardi (talk) 23:00, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't want to make trouble, but is "ipsis" properly translated by "them"? I believe it should be "themselves". Which opens up a whole new can of worms, because it changes the whole import of the quote :-) Still, Viglius is unlikely to have written "ipsis" if he really intended "eis" (it remains a dativus, of course). Am I on to something here?--Ereunetes (talk) 23:53, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Translating "Et quamquam ipse Catholicae Religioni adhaerere constituerit, non posse tamen ei placere, velle Principes animis hominum imperare, libertatemque Fidei & Religionis ipsis adimere" as closely as possible I get: "And though he will have decided (constituerit, 3rd person singular future perfect) to cling to the Catholic religion himself, it nevertheless cannot please him that princes want to rule the souls of men,[and] to take away the liberty of both belief and religion themselves." I admit it is not what all these translations (Dutch and French) say, but I think it is closer to what Viglius actually wrote.--Ereunetes (talk) 00:38, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think that constituerit is a subjunctive of the perfect, not future perfect (constituerim etc.). How exactly to translate placere in this context is perhaps a matter of taste. ipse frequently has the same meaning as the personal pronoun in post-classical Latin; it could be translated by "themselves" in opposition to animis, but it would still have to refer to the homines, not to fidei et religionis, which would render ipsarum. Iblardi (talk) 06:43, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I would agree that constituerit should be seen as subjunctive of the perfect, which would make for a far less awkward translation :-) However, I respectfully disagree with your other remarks about the final subsentence. First of all, the suffix -que after the noun "libertatum" is a rhetorical device: the enclitic conjunction, which unfolds as "the freedom of Faith and the freedom of Religion". "Adimere" imposes the dativ on both, and "ipsis" (which clearly refers back to both "freedoms") follows this. "Ipsarum" would be genitivus, so Viglius did not make a grammatical error here :-) I don't think he would have used "ipsis" if he intended to refer back to "hominum". To put this differently, let's assume for the sake of argument that the translation "to take away the freedom of belief from them" would be correct. If that would be the intent, Viglius would not have used "ipsis". Especially because he uses "ipse" earlier in the sentence as an intensive pronoun, and not as a stand-in for a personal pronoun. (In other words, both instances of "ipse" are intensive pronouns). I think all of this is important, because the sentence means something completely different from what the "received" translation ("them") would have us believe. But that would be something to debate on the discussion page of William of Orange, I think.--Ereunetes (talk) 19:32, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Please tell me where you think that the following reading goes wrong:
velle Principes, "that princes want", followed by first subject clause: animis hominum imperare, "to command the souls of men" (imperare requiring a dativus personae).
Followed by second subject clause: libertatemque Fidei & Religionis ipsis adimere, can be rewritten, for convenience's sake, as: et (enclitic -que indicates connection with the preceding word/sentence, not the next one) libertatem fidei et religionis ipsis (or eis) adimere = et adimere ipsis (eis) libertatem fidei et religionis = "and to take away from them" (adimere again with dativus personae, "to take away X from someone") "the liberty of faith and of religion" (=X). To me it seems quite straightforward, really. Iblardi (talk) 20:56, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is great fun :-) My objection remains that Viglius would have used "eis" if that is what he meant. I have looked at the context of this throw-away aside (because it comes at the end of a long summary of Orange's speech by Viglius, see e.g. [1]) and I think he doesn't mix his personal and intensive pronouns there either. But you may be right. If so, you could make the point that "libertatem fidei & religionis" is singular, which I would have to concede if I misapplied the enciclitic conjunction. However, that would bring me to my next objection, namely that you translated the sentence on the William the Silent page as encompassing two "freedoms": of belief and of religion, neatly with wikilinks to the relevant wikipedia articles. Now, you can't have it both ways: either the original sentence has grammatically a singular subject (and so should the translation), or a plural one :-) But I don't want to be flippant. What I think is the really important point is that later historians, using a translation similar to yours, put words in Orange's mouth, that he could not have spoken. The modern concepts of "freedom of belief" and "freedom of religion" (as witnessed by the wikipedia articles to which you linked) imply "freedom of choice" for the individual. I don't think that is what Orange intended at all. His "libertatem religionis" was a "freedom from interference by the government" as the context of his remarks clearly shows. I think he viewed "Religion" as an abstraction with the property that it possessed "freedom" that could be taken away by princes, but only with dire consequences for its other qualities. I think the translation I prefer would be commensurate with this. "Good Catholics" could legitimately object against the kind of government interference, that was exemplified by that of the English Crown under Henry VIII and the French Crown in the Gallican Church (and especially by Philip's interference in the Church in the Habsburg Netherlands). But that did not imply that they ascribed to individual churchgoers the inherent right to make their own choice of what to believe (as the modern concept implies). And neither did "good Protestants" at the time. My objection therefore is that by these interpretations of later historians Orange is pushed forward as a champion of causes they might espouse, but that he had not really thought about. An anachronism, in other words.--Ereunetes (talk) 22:12, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, so your point is about the linked articles. Well, those links were already present before I started editing the text, and I just left them there. Of course, this should not suggest that these articles represent thé correct interpretations of the Latin terms. If so, it may be wise to remove them. Iblardi (talk) 22:28, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That is exactly my point, on which I should elaborate at the proper forum on the discussion page of William the Silent. The words may be the same ("freedom of conscience/worship") but they have a completely different meaning than the modern terms, so the implicit suggestion emanating from the links would be misleading. But there is no objection to using the links in an explanatory note, of course.--Ereunetes (talk) 22:08, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In fact, contrary to what you said, ipse is used as a personal pronoun in the text you referred to: ipsis adeo vicinam, quod ipsi faciunt. That said, looking closer at the context, I am wondering whether the ipse in our citation might not refer to king Philip rather than to William. Iblardi (talk) 23:05, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
For a continuation of this discussion, see William the Silent#New Year's Eve Speech. My suggestion above was a rather careless one based on a quick reading of the context without paying attention to the Latin construction, which does not support it. Iblardi (talk) 07:28, 4 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
But why, if Viglius mixed his pronouns so freely, would he suddenly use "ei" instead of "ipse" in "non posse tamen ei placere" :-) But enough said, I may have read too much in the use of the word "ipsis", and got carried away. In any case, the choice of words is from Viglius, not Orange, so we can't be sure if they are correctly attributed. On reflection I believe that Viglius at least did not make a conscious distinction between the two freedoms, but just used a standard expression ("Fidei & Religionis"), without intending a Deeper Meaning.
However that may be, I think you are on to something with your suggestion that the very first "ipse" in the sentence refers back to Philip, especially in view of the phrase "ipse credat hanc provinciam" two sentences previously. If so, we are presented with another example of the dangers of quoting out of context, because everybody has always assumed that Orange referred to himself in this entire sentence. If he instead referred to Philip this would very well fit into the "bad advisors , good king" myth Orange maintained for such a long time, because it ascribes the benevolent state of mind to Philip, who only (like in the previous sentences) needed Orange's pragmatic advice to do the Right Thing (i.e abstain from ruling men's souls and taking away liberties :-). What makes this interpretation plausible is that it makes the sentence a natural extension of the previous argument, instead of a muttered "aside" about Orange's personal view, as I interpreted it before.--Ereunetes (talk) 22:08, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Waaaaay too long[edit]

This article is something like four times longer than it should be. Part of writing an encyclopedia article is knowing what not to include and what belongs in articles on more-specific subjects. If no one with expertise on the subject is willing to cut this article down to size, I may just do it myself. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 03:45, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Agree, when did this happen? I haven't followed this for a while. IMHO it is not as much the structure, which seems fairly ok, but the sections within that structure (e.g. the rebellion 1572-1576 is almost the length of an article on its own)Arnoutf (talk) 08:36, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ok I started shortening it. It is a lot of work so will go in etappes; probably will need a second round to foucs even more. To preserve the texts for reference (as I boldly cut) I set up User:Arnoutf/80yrswarcutout where I just put everything I took out. Arnoutf (talk) 09:52, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ok I have cut about 40000 B (out of about 200000) so a 20% reduction. I got to 1579, so still in the early stages.... Arnoutf (talk) 11:16, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I picked up one or two of the many grammatical and spelling errors in the early part of the text while reading it, but noticed that the article doesn´t have these kinds of errors later on. It looks a bit as if the mistakes are coming in during the redrafting - the well-known wikipedia process of Verschlimmbesserung? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.11.1.29 (talk) 09:01, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well I have been shortening it, and that was indeed a bit of on the go redrafting in a language that is not my own. I had no time to carefully check it all. So thanks for picking up the mistakes. Arnoutf (talk) 10:35, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What are you going with the stuff you remove? This should not just be cut. If there is no other place to add it to, just create new articles for the full original text. Johnbod (talk) 11:47, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, but they are currently way too long and I think trimming this article to a readable size should have prioroty. Arnoutf (talk) 12:21, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well if you are doing the cutting, you should do it. Frankly your new taxt is so sloppy you should not continue doing this without a native-speaking copyeditor who has agreed to follow you. It is not acceptable to leave passages like: "With the death f Requesens the States of Brabant raised troops to protect Brussels. Philipe de Croÿ, Duke of Aerschot, stadtholder of Flanders took over governemtn and allowed the States-General soon started peace negotiations with the States of Holland and Zeeland agreeing on the demand that all Spanish troops should be withdrawn." Some of your mistakes have been corrected by others but many remain. If it stays this bad it would be better just to revert the lot. Johnbod (talk) 12:57, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You're right I have been too sloppy; I went through and got the worst out. I think I tried to do too much in one go, which stopped me from doing checks. And I should have probably used spell check in word or something to get the obvious typoes out. It is still rather telegramme style because I tried to shorten it without changing content and structure which resulted in a number of short sentences that may need fixing. Arnoutf (talk) 22:56, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. You'll see from the sections above that I have always agreed this article is much too long. But trimming it like this just brings it closer to Dutch Revolt, which I still think will be merged with this one day. From this perspective, preserving the long but good version in perhaps a series of articles is especially important. They can of course always be rescued from the history, but I hope this will not be forgotten. Johnbod (talk) 02:32, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Good point, I have created Causes of the Dutch revolt as a home for all stuff pre 1568 I removed. Of course this will need some work to become a stand alone article, but the material is copied in there. Arnoutf (talk) 17:05, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I have reduced the size of the article by about 0.4% for the time being. The article still needs much more reduction work yet. (talk) 16:30, 29 February 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arius1998 (talk • contribs) [reply]
Working on it. Mathijsvs (talk) 22:17, 13 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Merge discussion[edit]

It has been proposed that the article Eighty Years' War be merged with the article Dutch Revolt. As no discussion section has been created for this discussion, I have created one! I am agnostic on this issue and am open to persuasion as to what if anything needs to be done from no change through to one article becoming a summary article through to a complete merger. I think those who added the templates should explain what they want and why they want it. -- PBS (talk) 13:54, 28 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The template was placed on the Eighty Years' War article in May by a IP address inactive for may months. The template was placed on Dutch Revolt article by another IP address. So I'll post a request to the military history project talk page, so a informed decision can be made on what to do. -- PBS (talk) 14:07, 28 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I believe a merge is needed because of two things. First of all, the two terms are synonyms; they describe the same set of events that lead to the Dutch independence from Spain. Secondly, "The (Dutch) Revolt" is now the more common and accepted term in the Netherlands and the eighty-years war is perceived as old fashioned. Academic circles use "Revolt". For example, in Geschiedenis van de Nederlanden (Histories of the Low Countries) by J.C.H. Blom, a prominent historian on Dutch history, the term "Revolt" is used. Jippb (talk) 11:01, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
What Dutch historians call the war is not relevant to the article title. What matters is what the war is called in reliable English language sources. -- PBS (talk) 15:54, 21 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Regardless, both are the same events. Also, most Academic sources that I have seen use Dutch Revolt, and most of them were English. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.162.159.205 (talk) 19:26, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I would humbly like to draw attention to the discussion under the heading "Why this article?" on this talk page and the arguments presented there for retaining both articles separately.--Ereunetes (talk) 00:36, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I too would like to see both articles to remain separate entities, mostly for the above mentioned reasons. Mathijsvs (talk) 22:14, 13 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Lacking context[edit]

As I'm reading through this article, I notice some instances that are lacking context.

  • Orange's exile in Dillenburg became the center for plans to invade the Netherlands.

A tiny bit of motivation here would be nice.

  • Shortly thereafter, a Sea Beggars squadron defeated a royalist fleet in a naval battle on the Ems.

Who are the Sea Beggars? [I do know] It should explain quickly what they are, otherwise this makes no sense.

  • However, a Huguenot army invading Artois was pushed back into France and annihilated by the forces of Charles IX of France in June.

What Hugenots? What does France have to do with it? Neither has been mentioned at all before.

I'll add more concerns later, or possibly address these. I do understand the article is incredibly long, but some of it doesn't make sense as-is. Oreo Priest talk 04:33, 25 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Unencyclopedic[edit]

Not only is this article too long but it reads like somebody's essay instead of an encyclopedia's article. For example:

It is impossible to know whether the course of history would have been different without the overthrow of the Oldenbarnevelt regime and the judicial murder of the old statesman.

Whether it is impossible to know or not, it is none of the business of an encyclopedic article to speculate or weigh up. Sentences like this should be removed and others edited of such speculative or subjective judgements. What is needed is a careful checking of every sentence in this article from start to finish to remove this sort of inappropriate text. This will also assist to reduce the size of this oversized article. Provocateur (talk) 12:49, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

role of the Dutch navy in the defeat of the Spanish Armada[edit]

The section (subheader "The Dutch Republic resurges (1588–1609)", sixth paragraph) claims the role of the Dutch navy was "crucial" and that England was "never in any real danger". A tall claim, and one I find very close to speculation and OR (even if the single source supports it, it is still conjecture).

The section does end by conceding that the role of the Dutch was "moot". Isn't this the only truly substantive fact to take away?

The entire section is still highly troublesome. There is only a single source. Does it really support this view, and everything said in the subsection? What about other viewpoints, other historians? 213.112.134.102 (talk) 20:13, 15 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think I know the reason why this claim was made. The Spanish Armada was a fleet that was meant to facilitate an invasion of England by escorting a Spanish army across the channel. The Army was assembled in the Southern Netherlands (present-day Belgium). However, the port that held the transport ships was being blockaded by a Dutch fleet. As such, even IF England had lost the Battle of the Gravelines, the blockade would still be there and the Spanish army would still be stuck on the continent. Of course, there is no telling what would've happened if the Spanish won the Battle of the Gravelines. Perhaps they would've tried to break the blockade. Perhaps their ships were too damaged to make the attempt. Perhaps the English would've sent ships to assist the Dutch blockade. Who knows? The assertion that England was never in any real danger is nonsense, but the Dutch blockade of the Spanish transport ships is often forgotten. Omegastar (talk) 00:46, 26 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Split proposal[edit]

As the article is too long I think it is appropiate to create new article off-shots of the articles various parts while at the same time keeping a summarized account of the war in the main Eighty Years' War article. The sections I propose are:

Any comments or suggestions? –Sietecolores (talk) 14:24, 1 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Seems reasonable. That would allow the aggressive trimming that this article desperately needs. We also need to reconcile this article with Dutch Revolt; they seem to cover mostly the same material and the difference between the two is not clear, especially not to the reader. Oreo Priest talk 15:34, 1 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
In (still) not well acquainted with historiographic use of "Eighty Years' War" and "Dutch Revolt". Some research might tell what the difference actually is. Also I see this article seems to describe the history from a Dutch point of view. We should try to incorporate more information about developments in the Spain, Spanish Netherlands and in the colonial warfare. Sietecolores (talk) 15:20, 2 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not too sure that splitting up 1 long article into so many shorter articles would add a lot value. However, if you insist on splitting, you might well cut in the year 1579 (too), as from here we see the emergence of an independent state. Or is the only purpose of splitting to get articles of the same length?
At the same time I do see reason for merging the content of "Eighty Years' War" and "Dutch Revolt", since the two articles are looking at exactly the same thing just from two different angles (or worse, from 1½ angle).
Fyi, although not entirely relevant here, it might be interesting to note that the term "Dutch Revolt" isn't used that much by Dutch, and if they use it it's only meant for the first episode of the Eighty Years' War (up to e.g. 1579 or even up to 1609, not uniformly defined). See also the very short article "Nederlandse Opstand" in Dutch Wikipedia.
Marcocapelle (talk) 13:24, 11 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

As a part of the European wars of religion[edit]

Should the infobox treat the Eighty Years' War as a part of the European wars of religion? 77.125.114.138 (talk) 12:25, 21 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That classification seems fairly novel and not necessarily mainstream (and probably was not used in the age of the 80 yrs wars). Also, let's make sure the European wars of religion article is properly sourced before we consider changes to other articles based on it. So I would say no, at least not for now. Arnoutf (talk) 12:31, 21 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Of course it was one of them - religion was at the heart of it - arguably far more than in the Thirty Years War and some other wars always so classified. Whether we want yet another template box is a very different matter. Johnbod (talk) 12:43, 21 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for the confusion but that was more or less my point. Is the framing "European wars of religion" sufficiently important and mainstream to add yet another template box. And I do not really see much evidence of that importance. Arnoutf (talk) 15:27, 21 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Ok. I agree re the template. Johnbod (talk) 22:25, 22 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Section First forty years (1566–1609)[edit]

I am returning after many years to this article, that I drafted in 2009 (see page history), and am appalled by what has been done to it. I understand why it was split and am at peace with that :-) But looking at the section "First Forty Years (1566-1609)" I don't understand why the people that so enthusiastically edited the article in the first few years, acquiesced in this piece of nonsense. The section refers correctly to Dutch Revolt and Eighty Years' War (1566-1609) as the main articles, but does not reflect what is in those articles. The whole thing appears to be concocted by someone who had only a nodding acquaintance with the material. The section has no references and few relevant wikilinks. I was struck by the inanity of sentences like "William of Orange decided to strike back at Spain, having organized three armies. He lost every battle and the Eighty Years' War was underway." (!) and "..the Dutch rebels formed the Wild Beggars and the Beggars of the Sea" (Wild Beggars? One would like to see a reference and if possible a wikilink, for instance to the Geuzen article). It goes on: "While Alba rested (fron what?), he sent his son Don Fadrique to fight the Beggars. Don Fadrique's troops indiscriminately sacked homes, monasteries and churches. They stole the jewels and costly robes of the religious. They trampled consecrated hosts, butchered men and violated women. etc. etc." Really? Violated women, maybe. But "consecrated hosts"? I think that would have been a burning-at-the-stake offense in the Army of Flanders. "Little Naarden surrendered to the Spaniards. They greeted the victorious soldiers with tables set with feasts. The soldiers ate, drank, then killed every person in the town." Seriously? "Don Fadrique's army later attempted to besiege Alkmaar but the rebels won by opening the dikes and routing the Spanish troops. When Don Fadrique came to Haarlem a brutal battle ensued. " Here the temporal order is reversed, but that is the least of the objections I could think up. "Each army hung captives on crosses facing the enemy. The Dutch defenders taunted the Spanish besiegers by staging parodies of Catholic rituals on the cities (city's?) ramparts." And I could go on and on. Where is @Arnoutf when we need him? He used to take a serious interest in this article in the days that he drastically shortened it. In any case I think that I have reason to complain that this WP:SPLIT was thoroughly mishandled. I think the C-class Rating should be revoked until this is remedied.--Ereunetes (talk) 22:20, 28 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Very sorry to hear this. The history shows that the section was only 2 lines, with an expansion tag since 2014, until last October, when a now-blocked isp added the current text in a series of edits (almost his only ones). Any edits you want to make will be welcome, I'm sure. The stats show that if the article ever had any "proud owners" (as you suggested some years ago, above) it doesn't have any more. User:Arnoutf hasn't edited the actual article since 2010, for one. At the least, the necessary actions after the split have not been done. Eighty Years' War (1566–1609) has a wholly inadequate 2-line lead. A proper lead there could double as the section here, I think. Johnbod (talk) 01:24, 29 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Since Arnoutf gutted my 2009 article in 2010 I have washed my hands of it (and for a number of years of wikipedia as a whole). At the time (2010) I would have appreciated it, if someone would have had the courtesy of consulting me, but as you will find on my talk-page that didn't happen. In any case, I think it would be unethical if I made any edits on the page, after having placed the "multiple issues" banner on the section. But I won't object if someone uses fragments of my original edits (that are still available in the page history). That may help make the rewrite manageable. My suggestion would be to follow the original structure of this part of the article (which I borrowed at the time from Israel), and then use "filler" sparingly (or the article will get "too long" again). It should be realized that the only really "military" parts of the entire Dutch Revolt were the military incursions of Orange and his brothers in 1568; the capture of Holland by the Sea Beggars in 1572, followed by the punitive campaigns by Alba senior and junior in 1572-74; the reconquest campaign by Parma in 1580-1585; the reforms of the Dutch States Army by the two young stadtholders, followed by the conquest of the North-East in 1590-1597; and finally Spinola's counteroffensive, followed by stalemate up to the Twelve Tears' Truce. The very important period between the Spanish bankruptcy, which caused the temporary collapse of the Spanish army, around 1575 and the Union of Utrecht in 1579 is more a matter for the Dutch Revolt article, as the developments in this period were of a diplomatic and political nature (though there was some fighting). So my advice would be to fill in this framework, and put some meat in the period 1568 and 1572-1574. But this is just a suggestion. Meanwhile I have already made a number of edits in the split-off article (mainly restored some of my deleted text from 2009, but only the most important stuff, like the role of the inundations, for which I found some references). Hope this is useful.--Ereunetes (talk) 19:23, 29 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I have rewritten the lede of the Eighty Years' War (1566-1609) article, as you suggested. But as ledes have to be kept short, I have concentrated on the historiographical aspects, and the relationships between this article, and Dutch Revolt, Twelve Years' Truce, and that article. I think a new version of the controversial section "First Forty Years" (though it may contain elements of my new lede) should contain more narrative, and so be more voluminous. See my suggestions immediately above this post.--Ereunetes (talk) 20:03, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I inserted a summary of the pre-2014 text. Summary Style should not work out as No Summary Style :o).--MWAK (talk) 08:06, 28 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks very much for your trouble. Much better now.--Ereunetes (talk) 20:04, 3 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

a section is in the article twice[edit]

This section is in the article two times. It is the third section in the chapter Secession and reconquest (1579-1588), and it is also the last section in the chapter The Dutch republic resurges (1588-1609). Is it meant to be in there twice?

At this time, on the initiative of Emperor Rudolph II a final attempt was made to attain a general peace between Philip and the States-General in the German city of Cologne. As both sides insisted on mutually exclusive demands these peace talks only served to make the irreconcilability of both parties obvious; there appeared to be no more room for the people who favoured the middle ground, like Count Rennenberg. Rennenberg, a Catholic, now made up his mind to go over to Spain. In March 1580 he called for the provinces in his remit to rise against the "tyranny" of Holland and the Protestants. However, this only served to unleash an anti-Catholic backlash in Friesland and Overijssel. The States of Overijssel were finally convinced to adhere to the Union of Utrecht. Nevertheless, Rennenberg's "treason" posed a severe strategic threat for the Union, especially after Parma sent him reinforcements in June. He managed to capture most of Groningen, Drenthe and Overijssel in the next months.[41] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Maarten Vodde (talk • contribs) 11:11, 13 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Merger proposal[edit]

I propose merging Dutch Revolt and Eighty Years' War (1566–1609) into Eighty Years' War per WP:OVERLAP, and either deleting Causes of the Dutch Revolt or giving it a proper purpose, title and contents (proposed title 'Origins of the Eighty Years' War') if it is to serve as a background article to Eighty Years' War.

They are synonymous. Essentially, "Dutch Revolt" and "Eighty Years' War" are synonyms, both of which are problematic and have pros and cons for historiographical purposes. (Most notably, that saying the war lasted exactly 80 years and thus placing the beginning of the war in 1568 is arbitrary, but that 'Dutch Revolt' is too vague to be meaningful and could be said to begin as early as 1555 according to Fruin. A few people may say the 'Dutch Revolt' began in 1566 and ended in 1609, for example (and this is the reason for yet another separate WP:OVERLAP-violating article named Eighty Years' War (1566–1609)), and we should see the 1621-1648 era as part of the Thirty Years' War, but they are a minority. The "Hundred Years' War" didn't last exactly 100 years either). Whichever name one prefers, the consensus is that these are the same event. The original version of the current 'Dutch Revolt' article in fact stated this explicitly: "The Eighty Years War, or Dutch Revolt, was the secession war in which the proto-Netherlands first became an independent country. It lasted from 1568 to 1648." This fact has been brought up several times on the talk pages of both articles throughout the years, but nobody seems to have formally launched a merger proposal. (So, here I am.)

One is not 'part of' the other, nor is the 'Dutch Revolt' the prelude / early phase of the 'Eighty Years' War'. The current relationship between the articles is entirely unclear: 'Dutch Revolt' claims to be 'part of the Eighty Years' War' in the infobox, but also has a notice at the top claiming that Eighty Years' War is the 'Main article' about this subject. Meanwhile, Eighty Years' War states 'This article is about the war. For the historical context of the war, see Dutch Revolt'. So, which is 'part of' which? The contents overlap so much (one claiming to be from 1566 to 1648 and the other from 1568 to 1648) that we can reasonably conclude they are interwoven so closely as to mean the same thing.

Do not retell the same story under a different name to make a semantic point. 'Eighty Years' War (1566–1609)' adds even more confusion by claiming: 'This article is about the military history of the Dutch Revolt. For the political and diplomatic aspects, see Dutch Revolt.' So 'Dutch Revolt' doesn't just refer to the historical context/origins of the war, but coincides with it. But then, the lede of 'Eighty Years' War (1566–1609)' is essentially nothing more than a discussion of semantics and periodisation, which contradicts itself in asserting that 'Dutch Revolt' only refers to the 1566-1609 period, but the Truce and 1621-1648 period 'still form one continuous whole with the Dutch Revolt (...) and this continuous narrative, spanning the period 1566–1648, is still known as the Eighty Years' War.' That should have been a reason for titling this article 'Dutch Revolt (1566–1609)', but it continues to use the term that it seeks to oppose, before going on to tell THE EXACT SAME STORY as 'Eighty Years' War' AND 'Dutch Revolt'. At this point, I should note that the equivalent Dutch Wikipedia article on Dutch Revolt, namely nl:Nederlandse Opstand, is purely dedicated to the naming and periodisation problem of the conflict; it merely suggests 'Dutch Revolt' has some pros and cons compared to 'Eighty Years' War', but the latter name is taken to discuss the actual event in nl:Tachtigjarige Oorlog. In that sense, it has a similar function as 'Historiographic issues about the American Civil War'. Just telling essentially the same entire story (of the Eighty Years' War) under a different name ('Dutch Revolt' or 'Eighty Years' War (1566–1609)') is WP:REDUNDANT. It's an awful waste of text on a mere semantic problem. If we really want to write about it, please let's write a 'Historiographic issues of the Eighty Years' War' article instead of retelling the story under yet more titles that should just be redirects.

Split by period, not by aspect. If this subject should be split in multiple articles for navigational purposes, then it should not retell the same general story under a different name, but should be about several periods of the war (like Swedish intervention in the Thirty Years' War). In fact, the Dutch Wikipedia already has a separate article for the 1588–1598 period, namely nl:Tien jaren (Tachtigjarige Oorlog), and for the 1579–1588 period, namely nl:Parma's negen jaren. Note that this period does not have to have a specific name, as long as it is a widely used periodisation by historians. The Hundred Years' War has already received such a treatmeant, with phases and even subphases, e.g. Hundred Years' War, 1337–1360 and Hundred Years' War, 1345–1347. This seems a safe way to go.
I advise against splitting by aspect, because different aspects of any war are very hard to separate. I think it is doable for things like economics or demographics (e.g. improving and translating nl:Migratiestroom in de Nederlanden to English; we've already got multiple articles about 'Refugees of war X', e.g. Refugees of the Greek Civil War, that is something we can definitely do here, too). Military, political and diplomatic aspects are probably too closely related to be separable. Political and diplomatic decisions can start or stop military activities immediately; the very name 'Eighty Years' War' is tied up with the 1648 Münster peace treaty, and the suggestion of some to limit the term 'Dutch Revolt' to the pre-1609 phase has everything to do with the fact that the Truce was concluded in that year. If we really want to talk about diplomacy separately, then the articles about the truce and peace treaties can provide ample space for failed peace talks and negotiations throughout the whole period until they finally succeeded in 1609 and 1648, respectively.

A 'Causes of' article is fine, but it needs to be set up properly. Besides, if we want a separate article for the 'context of the war' for better navigation purposes, then surely an article like "Causes of the Dutch Revolt" covering the period up to 1568 should serve that function? Pages like 'Origins of the American Civil War' or 'Origins of the War of 1812' seem excellent examples of how to write such an article. However, the current article 'Causes of the Dutch Revolt' is awful. Half the text is unsourced, the other half almost entirely based on a single source (Tracy). Moreover, the text seems to have the purpose of equating 'Dutch Revolt' with 'American Revolution' and 'Eighty Years' War' with 'American Revolutionary War/American War of Independence'. Although the historiography of the latter has a consensus that the American Revolution started in 1765 and included the American Revolutionary War (started in 1775) up to 1783, no such consensus exists on treating the term 'Dutch Revolt' as a longer period starting several years earlier and encompassing the entire 'Eighty Years' War' up to 1648, nor is there any broad consensus for using 'Dutch Revolt' just for the prelude to, or early phase of, the 'Eighty Years' War'. Phrasing things in such a manner is essentially WP:OR and not allowed.
Besides, the only discussion there has ever been on Talk:Causes of the Dutch Revolt is to speedy-delete it, or to merge it into 'Dutch Revolt'. I don't particularly care whether we delete it (because the current form has little encyclopedic value), or completely rewrite it to 'Origins of the Eighty Years' War' (seems a much more appropriate title to me) with all pertinent background information from around 1555 to 1568.
I don't have all the answers, but I hope I have made clear that the current situation is untenable, and we should do something about it. I've given many arguments why, and examples of how to do it better. I hope we can reach an agreement. Cheers Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 20:50, 7 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose (For now) I see your points wholeheartedly but if this were to merge, then it would make the article far too long. If it were somehow condensed then I would potentially approve. Eastfarthingan (talk) 12:26, 8 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
As I pointed out, there are three options for properly splitting up this article if it became 'far too long' for navigational purposes:
  1. Split off an proper Origins of the Eighty Years' War article for the pre-1568 period.
  2. Write a Historiographical issues of the Eighty Years' War article for semantic and periodisation debates.
  3. If the main article is still too long then, split off separate articles by period following the examples I've given from the Hundred Years' War, the Thirty Years' War, and the Dutch Wikipedia's nl:Tien jaren (Tachtigjarige Oorlog) and nl:Parma's negen jaren period articles, e.g. Ten Years (Eighty Years' War), or Eighty Years' War, 1588–1598.
All three articles that I propose to merge into this one were originally simply duplicates of each other before they started to diverge by rewording, adding and removing details. It may be a tedious process to merge it all back together properly, but we're essentially dealing with the same information split across 4 articles that all had the same source.
In each case, it is demonstrated that there have been various attempts to give 'Dutch Revolt' a different meaning than 'Eighty Years' War', but because nobody agrees on what that meaning should be, it ends up being synonymous with 'Eighty Years' War' again. There is no excuse for this WP:OVERLAP and WP:REDUNDANT duplication of information, let alone for WP:OR periodisations/semantics and POV-forking articles based on these OR conclusions, even if some of them have received some level of support – but by no means a majority – from scholars. Again, such issues are to be discussed in a Historiographical issues of the Eighty Years' War article. We need to undo a series of mistakes that began in March 2009 and have not been addressed all this time. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 14:39, 8 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed for the third option there. It would totally benefit the entire period. I also agree on the articles being split such as that in the 100 years war. The Ten Year war for example definitely needs it's own article as it was crucial period of the war and won (de jure) Dutch independence. Eastfarthingan (talk) 17:37, 8 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Glad you agree! Let's see what others think. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 20:24, 8 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Shall I just make an English-language draft for "Ten Years (Eighty Years' War)" then? If we can already set up period articles before we merge it, we can save ourselves a lot of trouble and prevent the merged article from becoming too long in the process. I'll make a synthesis of all 1588–1598 material from these four articles and nl:Tien jaren (Tachtigjarige Oorlog). A heavily abridged version of "Ten Years (Eighty Years' War)" can serve as a section in the merged article. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 13:56, 9 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
 Done Ten Years (Eighty Years' War). Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 18:56, 9 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I support the proposal overall, although regardless of how you choose to divide it, the War itself should be one article. There's a lot of detail that doesn't need to be included in what is supposed to be an Overview. I've done some summarising to demonstrate.

Maybe "Creation of the Dutch Republic; 1559 to 1648" would be better than "Origins" (because it could then cover political and diplomatic developments within the republic over that period, rather than the causes). Robinvp11 (talk) 18:32, 9 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that there should be one overview article for the entire War, and it should be Eighty Years' War. Details that are superfluous for an overview article should be split off by period, the dating of which should not be controversial. The periodisation of the Ten Years (Eighty Years' War) is generally accepted, so I started with that. I suppose that, based on the example of the Hundred Years' War period articles, an article Eighty Years' War, 1621–1648 would also be pretty uncontroversial (User:Sietecolores already proposed such an split-off on this talk page back in April 2014). Scholars generally agree that the 1648 Peace of Münster essentially confirmed and expanded on the 1609–1621 Truce. Virtually everyone also agrees that it was a different kind of war, more 'regulated' and 'professional' on the borders of the Republic / Southern Netherlands instead of the rather chaotic and dramatic early decades of civil revolts and massacres. Some scholars even exclude the 1621–1648 period from their definition of 'Dutch Revolt'. Splitting this period off would give a lot of space for details not needed in this overview article, and facilitate the merger that I am proposing (and you and Eastfarthingan are tentatively supporting).
I'm afraid I have to say that "Creation of the Dutch Republic; 1559 to 1648" seems like poor choice of words and scope. 'Creation' is a conscious choice that can be attributed a specific time, place, intention and agency, but the Dutch Republic is more or less the result of a series of historical coincidences that nobody really foresaw or actively intended to bring about. Nobody in 1559 was even thinking about a republic, let alone one independent from the House of Habsburg composed of 7 provinces and some territories in the northern Netherlands, but by 1648 it had already been a reality for decades. I think 'Origins of the Eighty Years' War' is actually well-suited for the purpose you seek. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 19:39, 9 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Announcement: The article Ten Years (Eighty Years' War) has been created by merging the four articles' 1588–1598 material + some contents from nl:Tien jaren (Tachtigjarige Oorlog). This is a first step towards merging duplicated material whilst avoiding a too long general article. A lot can still be improved, especially by translating more material from Dutch to English, but this is enough for now as a demonstration how we could solve the various issues of overlap and length in one go. I'll now proceed to refer all sections pertaining to this period in the to-be-merged articles to the new article. I'll happily receive feedback. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 18:38, 9 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

PS: I'm now working on User:Nederlandse Leeuw/Eighty Years' War, 1621–1648. As stated above, I don't think this periodisation will be controversial, this title will be considered appropriate, it will make it easier to merge the articles, and will not make the resulting merged article too large. We can solve multiple issues in one go, just like with the new Ten Years (Eighty Years' War) for the 1588–1598 period. I'll happily receive feedback. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 01:01, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Announcement: The article Eighty Years' War, 1621–1648 has been created by merging the 1621–1648 period materials from Eighty Years' War and Dutch Revolt, plus some new material to make it coherent and support some unsourced claims. We're one step closer to facilitating the projected merger. I'll happily receive feedback. Meanwhile, I'll look into other period-articles we might want to split off, such as Eighty Years' War, 1599–1609. Even Aftermath of the Eighty Years' War may merit its own article; Eighty_Years'_War#Aftermath and especially Dutch_Revolt#Aftermath are both pretty long, while the latter has a boatload of unsourced claims. I'm not sure what we'll do with Eighty_Years'_War_(1566–1609)#Aftermath, because it sort of makes up the balance of only the 1566–1609 period, and isn't yet concerned with the post-1648 period. Perhaps merging that section into Twelve Years' Truce#Context would be most fitting? Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 14:07, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

PS: Incidentally, a major rewrite and translation of nl:Inname van Tienen seems due, as it had profound consequences on the failure of the 1635 Franco-Dutch invasion of the Southern Netherlands. The political, cultural, and religious effects of it (although not socio-economic effects, which were small by comparison) may be comparable with the 1585 Fall of Antwerp in that they marked a historical North-South break in the Low Countries that was never repaired. On the other hand, its implications may also have been exaggerated by certain authors. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 14:14, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose merger. The article was created years ago because the main article was too long. I appreciate the concern over duplicated content and overalap, but I think the solution is to create a new scheme of articles related to this topic. Nederlandse Leeuw have made an interesting proposal here. Sietecolores (talk) 17:50, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Sietecolores: Which 'article was created years ago because the main article was too long'? And what do you mean by 'main article'? If you do support my new scheme of articles, then I would think you would support my merger proposal. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 19:04, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed article scheme[edit]

For the record, my current proposed scheme is as follows:

Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 19:04, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Announcement: The article Eighty Years' War, 1599–1609 has now been written by merging existing sections in the three articles into a new period-specific article. I'll happily receive feedback. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 21:49, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Nederlandse Leeuw, I appreciate your work, but wonder if there is a reason for not having an article that details on the 1566–1588 period? It may happen that content about the 1566–1588 period in the main article may need to be trimmed to have similar detail to the other sections of the article, in that case, will there be any space for a detailed account of the 1566–1588 period? Sietecolores (talk) 00:26, 11 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Sietecolores: Thank you for your compliment on my work. Yes, the reason why I haven't yet made proposals for period-specific articles for the years 1566–1588 is because there seems to be no scholarly consensus on the periodisation of these years. There are so many options here that I do not wish to make a decision without either having found evidence of scholarly consensus, or having established Wikipedia community consensus on how to subdivide these years into periods, and thus period articles. I am open to suggestions, and will also put forward my own, but I suspect that it is exactly these years that create the most problems in historiography, and are the main reason why we have ended up with 4 overlapping articles with contradictory titles and dates. To illustrate the problem: There is a small amount of scholarly support for a "1566–1567 revolt" (start: 10 August 1556 with the Steenvoorde Iconoclastic Fury), followed by Orange's 1568 failed invasion (start: 23 April 1568 with the Battle of Dalheim/Rheindahlen, although Orangist/nationalist Dutch historiography put the 23 May 1568 Battle of Heiligerlee as the start, while the Dutch Republic in 1648 seems to have emphasised the execution of Egmont and Horne on 5 June 1568 as the start of the war due to symbolically promulgating and celebrating the Peace of Monster exactly 80 years after on 5 June 1648; then again, the Peace of Münster treaty itself twice mentions '1567' as the starting date of the war); then an interlude of 1569–1571 in which basically nothing happens except for Geuzen kapers (privateers) raiding and plundering here and there, until they seize Den Briel on 1 April 1572. These facts alone leave us with countless options. Should we subdivide the 10-08-1566 to 1-4-1572 period into 1, 2, 3, or 4 articles? Or should we extend it even further to the 1576 Pacification of Ghent, which is generally agreed to be the start of the "general revolt" in which all provinces of the Netherlands (except Luxembourg) participated? Or should we extend the opening phase until 1579, when the Unions of Arras and Utrecht broke the general revolt apart? Or should the whole 1566–1588 period be in one article? Or do the 1566–1567 years not "count" because they don't fit the "eighty years" calculation, with 1648 clearly being the end point? This is why I cannot unilaterally decide on period-specific articles for the first 22ish years of the war, and probably the main reason for the existence of these silly overlapping articles retelling the same story under different titles and periodisations. Incidentally, I suspect the 1576–1579 period to be the least controversial subdivision; historians generally agree the Pacification of Ghent and the Unions of Arras/Utrecht to mark turning points from a general ('all-Netherlands', 'bilingual', 'oecumenical') revolt to one limited to the northern, Dutch-speaking, Protestant-dominated provinces. But that leaves the other questions unanswered. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 06:57, 11 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Some notes on periodisation: Encarta Winkler Prins (2002) subdivided the War into the following four periods:
Eerste tijdperk: de algemene opstand (1566–1576) – "First period: the general revolt (1566–1576)"
Tweede tijdperk: de scheuring (1576–1588) – "Second period: the rupture (1576–1588)"
Derde tijdperk: de aanvang van het militair succes (1588–1609) – "Third period: the start of military success (1588–1609)"
Vierde tijdperk: consolidatie en overwinning (1621–1648) – "Fourth period: consolidation and victory (1588–1609)"
All years they mention are widely considered to have been turning points of the War. What is notable is that Winkler Prins counts only four phases, when most historians have more than four. They also start in 1566 in defiance of the traditional 1568 start. However, the naming of each period reveals a very Northern Netherlands-centric perspective: 'success' and 'victory' are Dutch Republic points of view. Moreover, 'general revolt' does not seem accurate at all for the years 1566–1576, because the revolt was rather limited, especially in the years 1573–1576. Other scholars consider the 'general revolt' to apply to the Nov1576–Jan1579 phase instead, when 16 of the 17 provinces sought to oust all Spanish troops from the Netherlands. Finally, it is unclear what 'the rupture' means: the rupture between Catholic and Protestant rebels, or the rupture of the Netherlands into North and South, or both? Because by 1588, most of the northeast and east had also fallen to the Spanish, this geographic juxtaposition of North versus South seems unlikely. Instead, 'the rupture' appears to be an institutional one, namely between the Spanish monarchy and the Dutch Republic: 'Having learned from these disappointments, the States-General of the rebellious regions (now based in The Hague instead of Brussels or Antwerp) did not again proceed to recognise a foreigner as sovereign. In the meantime, the development towards a 'confederation of states' of seven provinces, each sovereign in itself, the Republic of the United Netherlands, continued. In general, 1588 is taken as its tentative end point.' Although Winkler Prins doesn't explain this year, it is probably the passing of the Deductie van Vrancken by the States-General on 12 April 1588, the de facto proclamation of the republican form of government without a hereditary head of state. Winkler Prins goes on to relate at the start of the third period how the Republic was 'soon threatened by the Spanish Armada', so its July/August 1588 defeat does not count as the historic turning point.
Fruin's classic study Tien jaren in den Tachtigjarigen Oorlog, 1588–1598 (1857) does not explicitly say why he lets his story begin at the start of the year 1588. Chapter I is devoted to arguing why the cause of the Dutch revolt was all but lost at that point, without mentioning the Deductie van Vracken or other references to the formal proclamation of the Republic; nothing really 'happens', it is just a description of a state of affairs up to 1 January 1588. Then, Chapter II starts talking about the Spanish Armada, and its destruction is the narrated as the turning point; so unlike Winkler Prins, Fruin regards 1588 as a military turning point rather than an institutional one for the purposes of his periodisation.
Groenveld (2009) p.14–16 wrote: 'Sharpening of the views of both the discontented as the monarch and his government led to radicalisation in the Netherlands in the course of the years after 1560. A wave movement of violence to moderation and then back to violence again commenced and kept going until 1609. This more or less forty-year period is presently referred to as the Dutch Revolt, which constitutes the first part of what tradition has long named the Eighty Years' War. A first radical phase continued until 1575–1576, and found its violent peak in the years after 1572. (...) But in 1575, a phase of moderaton commenced, because moderates on [both] loyal and rebel sides stepped forward, who strove towards a soution through negotiations. (...) An attempted negotiation in Breda failed, however...(...) But in November 1576 – Requesens had died in the meantime, while matters got ever more chaotic – the parties in Ghent did reach an agreement. (...) What was prohibited in all of Europe, did happen here: representative bodies performed as governing bodies. (...) On 8 November, they concluded the Pacification of Ghent, which partially went back on points on which agreement had existed at Breda.'
I'll add some more notes later in case I find something relevant. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 14:22, 11 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
L. Mulder, A. Doedens & Y. Kortlever, Geschiedenis van Nederland, van prehistorie tot heden (Baarn 2008), a history textbook for academic education, provides the following periodisation:
'The Dutch Revolt, 1559–1609'
* 'Start of the Dutch Revolt 1559–1567.' It is notable that Mulder et al. take 22 November 1567 (Alba's entry into Brussels after repressing the Beeldenstorm) rather than 10 August 1566 (beginning of the Beeldenstorm) as the end of this phase. They explicitly state: 'The first phase of the Dutch Revolt had concluded.' Notably absent from the narrative are the Siege of Valenciennes (1567), the Battle of Wattrelos, the Battle of Lannoy and the Battle of Oosterweel.
* 'Oppression and resistance 1567–1573.' Here comes Mulder et al.'s justification for differentiating 'Dutch Revolt' from 'Eighty Years' War': 'In 1568, the Revolt took on the character(istics) of a war. Then began what would later be called the Eighty Years' War. In that year a princely army invaded the Northern Netherlands. Adolf, a broer of William of Orange, fell at Heiligerlee.' This is another fine example of how arbitary these historiographical periodisations and semantics are. As stated above, there had already been a siege and three pitched battles in 1567, none of which is mentioned by Mulder et al. They seem to imply that the difference is that this was a 'princely army', not just some common rabble. If so, then they had a reason to also mention the Battle of Dahlen of 23 April 1568, which was also fought by an Orangist army, but even though Heiligerlee was fought one month later, on 23 May 1568, that battle is mentioned first for its significance of Orange's brother falling in battle. Only 2 sentences later, they vaguely mention it in passing by saying 'Invasions in Gelderland and Limburg also resulted in failure.' Although they don't explicitly state Heiligerlee was the first battle of the war, by omitting the 1567 battles and anachronistically putting Heiligerlee before Rheindahlen, they follow traditional historiography by implication.
* 'The North on the way to autonomy 1573–1588'
- (Alba's resignation) December 1573 – (Sack of Antwerp) November 1576. This is a very odd periodisation that nobody else seems to accept. As we've seen above, Winkler Prins regards 1566–1576 as a period, and Groenveld has a more vague 1560s to 1576 period, with 1572 as a peak.
- "Pacification of Ghent" November 1576 – (States-General turning hostile to Don Juan's capture of Namur citadel) July 1577 and after
- "The definitive rupture" (Don Juan's succession by Parma) October 1578 – (Plakkaat van Verlatinghe) July 1581. Note that the January – September 1578 period including Gembloux is omitted entirely.
- "The origins of the Republic" July 1581 – (Triple Alliance) 1596. Funnily enough, it asserts the Republic 'originated in 1581. Remarkably, there has never been an official decision or proclamation. The Republic arose though the course of events...'. One wonders how they can then pinpoint its start in the year 1588, and use it as a cut-off point in their periodisation; they seem to know about the Deductie van Vrancken (12 April 1588), but implicitly deny its existence. They seem to want to have it both ways. They mention two more events in this chapter, namely in 1591 and 1596, that do not even match their own periodisation, but should be saved for the next chapter. Somehow, the Deductie seems to be That Which Must Not Be Named.
* The Republic takes shape 1588–1609. Just like Fruin, they start the new chapter with the Spanish Armada in May 1588. They skip 12 April 1588, without justifying why the Republic 'originated in 1588' 'without official decision'. There is no mention of the Ten Years of Fruin; the entire 20 year period is regarded as one of constant Dutch victories, misleadingly claiming 'after the Battle of Nieuwpoort not much happened on the battlefield anymore', with a misleading 1590–1604 map, before going on to talk about the Truce. Spinola's 1605–1606 campaign is entirely omitted from the text and the map.
'A half century 'Golden Age'. A new state with a new lifestyle 1609–1650'
* The Truce Conflicts
* 'The last period of the Eighty Years' War.' Here they follow the convention of labelling the 1621–1648 period as 'The last period of the Eighty Years' War', even though they label the whole 1559–1609 period 'The Dutch Revolt'. It's funny that they do not feel compelled to even mention the years of this period in the title, apparently not concerned that the reader might be confused.
It should be obvious that Mulder et al.'s periodisation and semantics are problematic for many reasons that I have mentioned and others I have not. It is also obvious that there are discrepancies between Mulder et al., Fruin, Winkler Prins, and Groenveld, and these are just 4 random sources that I happened to have on hand. This is why it is so difficult to determine period-specific articles for this War: scholars disagree with each other and everyone seems to be making stuff up as they go along, sometimes without justification or poor justification. Everyone wants to tell this story in their own way, with their own framework. This is why we end up with 4 overlapping articles with contradicting periodisations and semantics. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 16:22, 11 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Announcement: The article Eighty Years' War, 1576–1579 has now been published! This was perhaps the toughest merger yet, and I'm still not completely satisfied with the results, although that has more to do with a lack of motivation for finding sources for every unsourced claim (including ones that I added myself, although most of those rely on interwikis to articles on Dutch Wikipedia which are sourced). My priority has been to show that these materials all neatly fitted in a detailed overview of this period. The main challenge is that there are multiple simultaneous developments happening that you can't really fit into a single narrative, so I decided to subdivide the section 'Resumption of hostilities' into 4 subsections featuring four regions: Holland and Zeeland, Overijssel and northern Brabant, Flanders and southern Brabant, and Luxemburg/Namur/Hainaut/Artois/Douai on the other. These regional developments don't really merge again until 1579, when the two Unions of Atrecht/Arras and Utrecht are formed. Especially in the latter case, we can attribute this to particularism: people generally only busy with what happens inside their own province. That's why I couldn't really merge it into one narrative. By contrast, with some anachronism, we might consider Utrecht to be a sort of step in proto-nation-building, even though regional autonomy remained strong in the Dutch Republic. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 20:39, 11 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Great work, I'll be happy to add sources and citations over time. It might also be worth adding an infobox (as well as the other separate articles) at some point. Eastfarthingan (talk) 13:11, 12 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! I look forward to your contributions. I'm not sure if adding an infobox would be a good idea in this case. My current approach is having a military map in the upper right corner to allow readers to orient themselves in terms of time and geography, as well as the Template:Campaignbox Dutch Revolt for easy navigation between various battles and periods. I think that will suffice. Adding infoboxes will come with layout problems and will complicate the usage of excerpt templates, which work with the lede sections of these period articles. But I'm open to arguments in favour. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 14:01, 12 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Announcement: The article Eighty Years' War, 1579–1588 has now been published! In the section 'Historiography' I've added some of the observations I made above under 'periodisation' in my defence for choosing these years as turning points, because they are not universally supported by all scholars, although I think I can claim that there is a consensus. Virtually everyone agrees 1588 was a turning point, although they don't often say explicitly why, or their reasons may differ from political to military. 1579 is more contentious; everyone agrees that the breakup of the 16-province alliance into Atrecht and Utrecht was significant, although not everyone grants it the same weight or meaning. Incidentally, the differences between the three overlapping articles become clearer every day that I'm working to merge their contents into period-specific articles:

  • Eighty Years' War has good basic contents, but misses details; it relies heavily on Israel 1995 and other Israel books, and has the most international perspective.
  • Eighty Years' War (1566–1609) started out as a duplicate of Eighty Years' War, but has a lot more details, embellishments, and sometimes even interpolations that can probably not be found in Israel 1995 that most of the text claims to be based on. It adds various subjective judgements such as "unfortunately", "ironically", "rightly", "ably", which either favour a pro-Dutch-independence perspective, a pro-Oldenbarneveldt (who is deemed very intelligent and capable compared to "haughty" queen Elizabeth of England, although that may be the result of anti-English/Leicester sentiment rather than pro-States/republican or anti-Orangist views; Maurice is never criticised, but seen as Oldenbarneveldt's reliable ally), liberal and moderate Calvinist/secular perspective ("Calvinist hard-liners" are blamed for supporting Leicester's regime/failures), or suffer from hindsight bias.
  • Dutch Revolt, finally, is the worst of all; it is often unsourced, based on opinions or oversimplications, does not contain a lot of detail but loves generalisations, and is not as heavily dependent on Israel 1995, but more on older (and less reliable) sources. It has even more subjective statements, and tends to be traditional, nationalistic, pro-Orange/Orangist (praising William, Maurice and Frederick Henry's deeds as central and crucial; it avoids "Dutch Republic" and prefers "United Provinces" so as to not promote republicanism at the cost of the current Orange monarchy), pro-Calvinist (with lots of religious and ethnic generalisations) and pro-Greater/Pan-Netherlands-ist (which it shows by taking Geyl as a source and lamenting the separation of the "Northern" and "Southern Netherlands").
The latter two articles are clearly primarily written by Dutch people, which shows in some Dutchisms, and the choices they made in presenting their contents and perspectives. Although I am Dutch myself, I tend to have a rather international perspective, or at least strive towards it, and minimise the effects of my biases. In that regard, all works on the Eighty Years' War on English Wikipedia tend to be quite reliant on British, Dutch and a few Flemish works, where imput from Spanish, Walloon, French and German sources could also be very valuable for a more balanced discourse. Language barriers faced by the people who tend to be interested in writing about it on English Wikipedia are probably what holds this back. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 23:09, 12 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Announcement: The article Eighty Years' War, 1572–1576 has been published! I've not delved into periodisation much yet, I've assumed this period more out of pragmatism due to already being established subsection periods in all three articles to be merged. Perhaps periodisation should mostly be left to the article Historiographical issues of the Eighty Years' War that I have suggested be written. There's also still a lot of material on the importance of Holland's geography for the warfare conducted in these years that is poorly sourced, but may well be relevant for understanding why the Spanish offensive stalled there, whereas the governmental troops crushed the 1566–1568 insurrections concentrated in Artois, Tournai(sis), Hainaut, Flanders, Brabant, Guelders, Overijssel, Groningen, Friesland, Utrecht etc. with much more apparent ease, and again in 1572. Geyl has a point when arguing that Holland and Zeeland were not the hotbeds of Calvinism and insurrection in the early 1566–1568 years; their geography simply allowed them to be more defensible in the latter 1572–1576 years once the Calvinist rebellion had spread to these lands and established itself there (despite the royalism of cities like Amsterdam). I'll leave the geography section up for anyone willing to delve into this issue further. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 11:29, 15 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

PS: One could add to that Pirenne's observations (endorsed by Van der Lem) that the provinces of Flanders, Brabant, Zeeland, Holland and Tournaisis were much more urbanised, and thus prone to social change including new religious and political ideas, and insurrection to demand change, than all the other more rural provinces, where the traditionally royalist Catholic nobility had much more power and influence on society and a strong interest in maintaining the social order. They argue this is why largely rural Artois and Hainaut seceded from the general revolt to conclude a separate peace with Parma through the 1579 Union of Arras, while neighbouring urbanised Tournai remained part of the rebellion until militarily forced to surrender by siege in 1581. If Tournai had had Holland's marshy swampy geography and access to the sea for food imports, perhaps it would have held out much the same way as Holland and Zeeland. Holland and Zeeland had both the advantage of geography and the highly urbanised demographics for Calvinist rebellion to flourish, even though it didn't start there; it survived there. People who think the rebellion survived in Holland and Zeeland in 1572–1576 because they had always been 'more Calvinist' there than in those southern provinces (claims that I sometimes still see in Wikipedia articles for no good reason; one only has to look at the map where iconoclasm started and was most intense in Flanders, Artois, Hainaut, Tournai, and Brabant, and the first battle of the war was the 1566–1567 siege of Valenciennes, where the author of the Belgic Confession, Guido de Bres, commanded the earliest-known armed rebels) probably suffer from hindsight bias or confirmation bias. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 11:47, 15 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Announcement: The article Aftermath of the Eighty Years' War has been published! I've not resolved all unsourced statements yet, if anyone would like to improve the sections 'Nature of the war', 'Subsequent conflicts', 'Split of the Netherlands into North and South', or 'Effect on the Spanish Empire' in particular, be my guest! My aim has primarily been to merge articles or sections with overlapping content that is best presented together in a coherent way. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 18:54, 15 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

User:Nederlandse Leeuw/Historiographic issues about the Eighty Years' War draft has been created. Still at an early stage of development, much will have to be done from scratch. One major issue I notice is that most scholars seem to agree that 'Dutch Revolt' is a better name, but they all have different periodisations for that term, and they don't seem to notice let alone talk about the fact that they can't agree what 'Dutch Revolt' means. If one person says 'Dutch Revolt refers to 1555–1566' and another 'Dutch Revolt refers to 1559–1609' and a third 'Dutch Revolt refers to 1566–1648', then how the hell are people supposed to know what period or phase you're talking about without adding those years every time you bring up the name?! Great that you have concluded that the war didn't last exactly 80 years, but do you actually have a better alternative that doesn't mislead or confuse people? Or are you just a smartarse who makes it up as they go along without caring about consensus? /rant Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 20:54, 15 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Excellent work. Keep up the good work. Thank you Eastfarthingan (talk) 21:38, 15 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I decided to rename the draft from 'Historiographic issues about the Eighty Years' War' to 'Historiography of the Eighty Years' War'. 'Historiographic issues about' is an uncommon title. As I indicated above several times, I modelled it after Historiographic issues about the American Civil War, but that is placed in the Category:Historiography of the American Civil War, and essentially all other similar enwiki articles are titled 'Historiography of war X'. The ACW article has quite an exceptional title, which may even be inappropriate (the talk page shows disputes about the title, purpose and scope, and that it has been renamed at least twice). In any case, convention should precede deviation here. Moreover, a 'Historiography of war X' article would be pretty useless if it didn't mention, let alone widely cover, the disagreements historians have had about what happened, why it happened, and how to write about it. By framing it around the 'issues', this puts the focus of the article on the things historians have disagreed on rather than on all things they have discussed, including agreements and disagreements. For that reason, too, simply naming it 'Historiography of' is more balanced and thus appropriate. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 08:04, 28 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Announcement: The article Eighty Years' War, 1566–1572 has been published! This is probably the worst one I have made so far, because there are so many contradictions and overlapping materials, and sometimes it is difficult to check what the sources actually say to bust possible extrapolations by Wikipedians. And this article is really incomplete without the Historiographic issues article. I can foresee people going mental about the name and periodisation of this article. But we need to start somewhere, and this article had to be written to merge the fragmented information into a coherent narrative. It's still not fully coherent yet, such mentioning the execution of Egmont and Horne before the invasion of Orange. But at least I was able to work out (based on Tracy p. 77, although he doesn't provide a date) that Alba instituted the Council of Troubles before Margaret of Parma resigned; many texts claimed or implied it was the other way around. A better balance/flow needs to be established between this article and Beeldenstorm, as well as Eighty Years' War, 1572–1576#Background, and someone should translate nl:Oranjes eerste invasie to English (perhaps I will, but at present I don't feel like it). Be that as it may, we need this article first as an essential step to complete the article scheme. We can always improve its quality later. It is certainly already better than the texts of the 4 separate articles. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 15:26, 24 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Announcement: The article Origins of the Eighty Years' War has been published! It can still be improved a lot, but it's better than the sum of all the texts of the four separate articles. Now I just need to finish the Historiographic issues article to complete the article scheme. All the four overlapping articles are linked to the period-specific articles through excerpts and are thus approaching the same abbreviated content, facilitating the proposed merger. Nobody has yet opposed a merger per se, except on the grounds of size, whereas everyone has supported splitting the text into period-specific articles in order to enable a merged main article that won't be too long to navigate comfortably. We're almost at that goal now, and I appreciate the help of those who have advised or assisted me along the way. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 22:40, 24 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Announcement: The article Historiography of the Eighty Years' War has been published! The bulk of the text tries to balance the views of mostly Dutch and British historiographers from various times, places, religions and political perspectives. There's still lots of room for improvement, especially for the views of Spanish historians, which I have almost completely ignored so far, mostly because I can't read Spanish very well. I invite anyone who can to do so. That said, @Eastfarthingan: and @Sietecolores:, I presume it is alright if I proceed with merging the remaining two articles Dutch Revolt and Eighty Years' War (1566–1609) into Eighty Years' War? The contents are now about 95% identical, because the main body of all three consists of excerpts of the period-specific articles I've made. If neither of you, nor anyone else objects, I will complete the article scheme as planned. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 12:58, 29 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm very happy for you to proceed- excellent work on creating, merging, separating and condensing the articles for this period. Eastfarthingan (talk) 13:28, 29 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
 Done! Thanks for your help, feedback, imput, suggestions etc. . Now just a few things left to do. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 17:48, 29 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Now all appears to have been said and done, I would like to say that I wholeheartedly disagree with most of the above. When I first wrote this article, back in March 2009, I split it off from Dutch Revolt, because I thought Wikipedia needed an article that concentrated on the military history of the Eighty Years' War. It was a war, after all, and in Dutch Revolt the political and military aspects of the conflict were hopelessly intermingled. See the first section on this talk-page "Why this article?" But I have long since washed my hands of the whole mess (see above in the various sections). I didn't know that this discussion was going on. Maybe a good thing, because it would have been deleterious to my hypertension. I prefer to let things as they are now. Because "het moet niet in werk ontaarden" :-)--Ereunetes (talk) 21:10, 31 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The Image in the Infobox[edit]

This is a conlict that went on for 80 Years and has a lot of battles and images of those battles. I think a collage of a few paintings would do it more justice. So which kind of combination of paintings or example would people like to see in the infobox?

  • Example 1: The Spanish Fury (1576), the Siege of Ostend (1601-1604), the Battle of the Narrow Seas (1602) and the Siege of Breda (1625)
    Example 1: The Spanish Fury (1576), the Siege of Ostend (1601-1604), the Battle of the Narrow Seas (1602) and the Siege of Breda (1625)
  • Example 2: The Siege of Alkmaar (1572), the Act of Abjuration (1581), the Capture of Breda (1590) and the Siege of Den Bosch (1629)
    Example 2: The Siege of Alkmaar (1572), the Act of Abjuration (1581), the Capture of Breda (1590) and the Siege of Den Bosch (1629)
  • Example 3: The Battle of Empel (1585), the Battle of the Narrow Seas (1602), the Battle of Gibraltar (1607) and the Siege of Breda (1625)
    Example 3: The Battle of Empel (1585), the Battle of the Narrow Seas (1602), the Battle of Gibraltar (1607) and the Siege of Breda (1625)
  • Example 4: Joyful Entry of the Duke of Anjou in Antwerp (1582), the Spanish Fury (1576), the Siege of Ostend (1601-1604) and the Siege of Den Bosch (1629)
    Example 4: Joyful Entry of the Duke of Anjou in Antwerp (1582), the Spanish Fury (1576), the Siege of Ostend (1601-1604) and the Siege of Den Bosch (1629)

DavidDijkgraaf (talk) 12:10, 1 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I always think collages are a bad idea, giving a number of images that are too small to see or caption properly. In infoboxes they make the box too long. Plus I don't like paintings to be cropped square. There are some nice images which could be properly captioned and placed around the main text, or in mini-galleries. But let's face it, many of these are standard compositions from the military art of the period, that could be anybody, anywhere. Johnbod (talk) 15:48, 1 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I see what you saying, but the first two problems you state aren't really that big of a problem. The infoboxes of War of the Spanish Succession Nine Years' War and Franco-Dutch War look fine. The infobox reflects the article and so should the image in the infobox. You can't represent conflicts of this scale with one image and especially not when the character of the war changed so much in those eighty years. DavidDijkgraaf (talk) 12:19, 2 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Belligerents in Infobox[edit]

Please note "Belligerent" is a closely defined legal term, which requires a formal declaration of war. I realise a lot of work went into digging out the various icons etc but there's a reason why the Wikipedia template does not include "Supported by" or other variations, even though that doesn't seem to stop people adding them in.

One of the problems is the idea of national armies being largely homogenous (ie composed of people from the same country) did not arise until the 19th century. For example, most estimates suggest the overwhelming proportion of the "Swedish army" during the 30 Years War were German. So having Germans serving in the Dutch army doesn't imply anything other than sympathy.

This issue comes up on a regular basis. Robinvp11 (talk) 18:12, 10 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think that you take a far to precise stance on the infobox than needed. This is what the guidelines say about what can be written in the infobox:
the parties participating in the conflict. This is most commonly the countries whose forces took part in the conflict; however, larger groups (such as alliances or international organizations) or smaller ones (such as particular units, formations, or groups) may be indicated if doing so improves reader understanding. DavidDijkgraaf (talk) 19:16, 10 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
DavidDijkgraaf description of the belligerents coincides very well with several countries that intervened in this war in favor of the Dutch Republic, such as France and England, with which they made alliances and even carried out joint military operations (examples: Capture of Cádiz in 1596 or Siege of Leuven in 1635). We are not talking about mercenary troops in the service of Dutch Republic, which I am not saying there were not, but there was also participation of those states with their respective state forces. Muwatallis II (talk) 23:09, 10 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
...however, larger groups (such as alliances or international organizations) or smaller ones (such as particular units, formations, or groups) may be indicated if doing so improves reader understanding...
How does this apply to any of these? Are you seriously suggesting Anjou (who is an individual, not even a state) somehow qualifies as a Belligerent? The Infobox is supposed to be factual.
And FYI, England never agreed a formal alliance with the Dutch against Spain. The fact English volunteers served with the Dutch does not make England (the entity) a participant. In fact, in the 1630s Charles pursued a policy that was pro-Spanish - so the current Infobox is actively misleading.
Whatever; I'm clearly less interested in the Eighty Years War than you are, but these arguments are simply starting with the answer you want. Either put them as Belligerents (Wikipedia does not say "add new categories if you fancy it"), or take them out. Don't make categories up.
And as I'm here, what are your precise objections to the changes made in the Lead? Robinvp11 (talk) 18:12, 11 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Anjou was a valois whose garrison in Cambrai held the town past his death without changing allegiance. Later the Spanish only retook the town after a formal French declaration of war. English participation is very uneven. In 1578ish they composed mercenary units. 2601:140:4101:DA40:1D9C:E2FC:CBDC:A0CF (talk) 03:55, 15 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

To be frank, I find the infobox rather confusing too. It is about a war that lasted 80 years, but yet we list countries that pitched in only a fraction of that time (often without official alliance) as such - most strikingly Portugal which only allied with the Netherlands for 7 years (<10%). And when doing so, they mostly helped out with a small force (as did Elizabeth I). Therefore I also find it rather dubious that such heads of state are listed as commander and leader in the 80 years war. Elizabeth never personally lead anything other than England, and Louis XIII did do things of relevance in the larger 30 years war but not specifically in the specific 80 year war engagement (strikingly the word Dutch only appears 3 times in the Louis XIII article and the word Netherlands only once. None of those occurrences are about any lead in the 80 years war.) As is now it seems the commanders / leaders / belligerent include a more or less random selection of countries and their heads of state struggling with Spain at the same time as the Dutch (but why not the German fiefdoms that provide much more support, or Turkey, or any other country....). I would argue this list needs to be cleaned up Arnoutf (talk) 16:02, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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