the evil William of Orange

[Jeroen Pelgrom]

ok, this is way off-topic.<br>
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In the my newspaper there was an interesting article regarding the 80-years war (1568-1648 , our war of independence). If you read a dutch history book regarding this event, you will read about the ´glorious dutch freedom fighters´and their great leader William of Orange, our patris et patria fighting the evil Spanish king Phillips II and the evil Duke of Alva. The Spaish armies were nothing more then a band of murderers/ plunderers etc.<br>
This article was about a new book which has been released which looks at how the Spanish looked at the 80-years war. Needless to say that you get an entire different view. The Spanish regarded the Dutch nothing more then ´thieves, murderers, terrorists, lazy, drunkards, heretics which should burned to the stake, traitors to God which were lead by the most evil of them all William of Orange´ The king Philips II was regarded as a good and nice king and the Duke of Alva a good father.<br>
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Must say that this doesn´t surprise me. The difference between freedomfighters and terrorist is which side wins the war. If we didn´t had won the 80-years war, the Spanish view probably would have entered our historybooks.<br>
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Just imagine if Hannibal would have won, how would the second punic war have entered the historybooks?<br>
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-> Needless to say that the "real 80-years war" was somewhere in the middle. Some Dutch troops (esecially the ´watergeuzen´) were indeed more criminals/ pirates then freedomfighters). Both sides committed terrible crimes (like the slaughter of the catholic monks by dutch troops for example and the sack of Antwerp by the Spanish.<br>
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gr, jeroen<br>
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[Praefectusclassis]

One of the reasons for this Spanish attitude, easily forgotten here, is that our war of independance was at the start (cause that's what Jeroen is talking about, 1568-1584, independance declared in 1579) not much more than an irritating nuisance while the Spanish were dealing with the Turks among others.<br>
It only became a real problem when the Dutch became extraordinarily wealthy with trade and Dutch privateers started to prey on Spanish trade. Spanish dependance on the silver trade and the huge expenses for these wars nearly bankrupted Spain when the rush silver became a trickle. <p>Greets<br>
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Jasper</p><i></i>

[Anonymous]

The Dutch traded so heavily and privateered even heavier, and sold weapons to all parties that wanted to pay, even the Spanish... and later they did the same in our wars with Great Britain, hence the words Dutch treat, Double Dutch, Dutch courage and well a lot of things in the English Language!!<br>
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hehehehehehehe<br>
M.VIB.M. <p></p><i></i>

[richsc]

I believe it was our Benjamin Franklin who said:<br>
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"Treason is just an excuse for the winner to hang the loser." <p>Richard Campbell, Legio XX<br>
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