6 James Muilenburg 



Development of the Crisis 



The policy of William of Orange to maintain the balance of 

 power in Europe, to champion the cause of the great allied powers 

 whenever he saw it threatened, to preserve the honor and dignity 

 traditional to the Orangist party became the birthright of the 

 Dutch nation for the centuries to follow. 12 Hating the power of 

 France with all his intensity of nature and unyielding tenacity, 

 William made it the one aim of his life to humiliate that nation 

 which was the irreconcilable foe of his household and the enemy 

 of a terrified Europe. Incredible difficulties stood in his way, but 

 his fortunes increased as he grew older. Already at the age of 

 twenty-one, he was leading the troops of an almost united Nether- 

 lands against the disciplined and magnificently-generalled armies 

 of France. The Perpetual Edict had been abolished in his favor, 

 and he became Captain-General and Admiral of the Dutch forces, 

 — titles and offices which were a source of trepidation to the De 

 Witt party. 13 Phlegmatic and frigid in his appearance and 



12 Perhaps the most recent work dealing with the position of Holland among 

 the world powers is that of Van Hamel, Nederland tusschen den Mogendheden, 

 Amsterdam, 1918. This work shows by a review of past history that the logical 

 place for Holland in the Great War was on the side of the allies. The author con- 

 tends that Holland's position of neutrality was contrary to the characteristic con- 

 duct of his country during the past three centuries. It is emphasized that the 

 foreign policy of Holland to join with the allied powers whenever she saw the 

 balance of Europe disturbed, was the heritage from the house of Orange and particu- 

 larly William the Third. 



13 Miiller, Wilhclm mid van Waldeck, p. 1 f . 



"Doch eben weil eine von einer einzigen Triebfeder in alien ihren Handlungen 

 beherrschte politische Thatigkeit so selten ist, ist auch der grosse Oranien so oft 

 verkehrt beurtheilt worden; haben doch namentlich die franzbsichen Schriftsteller, 

 selbst die besten, wie Mignet, Henri Martin, Camile Rousset, ihn einer unermes- 

 slichen Ehr — und Herschsucht angeklagt, die ihm zu dem Streben nach dicta- 

 torischer Gewalt in der Republik, sowie nach dem Besitz der englischen Trone 

 getrieben habe. 



"Sie haben nicht eingesehen, wie er in dem Unterwerfung der Opposition der 

 stadtischen Regenten eben nur ein Mittel sah, die ganze Macht der Republik gegen 

 Frankreich ins Feld zu fiihren zu konnen, wie er England erobern miisste, da es 

 sonst unmoglich war, die Streitkrafte der englischen Land — und See Macht gegen 

 Frankreich zu wenden, die diese Eroberung fur ihn absolut nothwendig war, damit 



90 



