Back to the Dutch Republic

Last Friday I posted some links to sites about the Dutch Republic and later that day also about the Independence of Belgium (and how lame the fate of East-Limburg was).


Now, imagine the King leaves and the kingdom falls, the only possibility is the Dutch Republic (in this imaginary situation). The unity of the Netherlands immediately disintegrates; Friesland becomes an independent state, the provinces Utrecht and Zeeland revolve back to being a “Gewest”1 and the provinces North- and South-Holland end up in a civil war, because they can’t decide which city should become the capitol. In the end it will be the Hague, but it’ll take them about 10 years to decide that, because both Rotterdam and Amsterdam are begging for the title. Then we have some provinces who are not sure what should happen to them.

Groningen, Drenthe, Overijssel and Gelderland are not quite sure what to do. They could try to make it as an independent “Gewest”, like long ago, but it’s been very long ago and Germany is now not divided anymore and very big (and rich and powerful). Those four will start out trying to make it as an independent “Gewest”, but the cool stares of Europe are nerve racking.

Both North-Brabant and East-Limburg have proposals from the Belgian to join them, to reunite the provinces with their Belgian counterparts. Limburg also has a proposal from Germany to join them. In the end the pull from their Western counterpart is strongest and the reunited Limburg is encouraged to also split from Belgium and become an independent state, like Friesland. That’ll fling Belgium into another crisis and before long, also Belgium falls apart. They will fall apart into a Dutch speaking part and a French speaking part. Meanwhile, Europe desperately pulls at the tail of Brussels. Europe is panicking.

In the end it turns out that the low lands or states, have trouble getting buy. Holland is ravaged by the civil war and all the other former provinces find they’re too weak to get by. The first provinces needing help will probably be Groningen, Drenthe, well, etc. It turns out we forgot how to be the Dutch Republic, the golden age has long been gone, and we’ll start looking wich Orange is nearest by to take over the reigns. We don’t want a king back, but a stadholder will do. The new stadholder will very likely be called Willem the umpteenth. And before you know the Oranges are back in the sadle…or maybe even in the throne ruling over the new united Low lands.

After about 15 years the South-Netherlands will grow discontented, because it feels it’s being repressed and they will split off. After about one year they’ll give a bit of Limburg back and the Netherlands will look like it had before all over again.

Oh yeah, Flevoland is completely and utterly confounded, because they never done anything as ridiculous before.

Conclusion: We might just as well not have bothered.

I suppose my point is, we’ll always end up with some member of the Orange-Nassau family. It’s a real love/hate relationship. One that seems to endure through all the good and bad times. Since the 1500’s.

Or maybe I should do my homework propperly.



1: A “Gewest” is a “district”.