Eighty Years War

"The Eighty Years War offers an insight into the military factors at play in the creation of the Dutch Republic. In 1648 the Spanish empire agreed to a peace treaty that ended decades of fighting and resulted in the division of the Low Countries and the birth of the Republic. From the outset, the conflict between the Dutch insurgents and their Spanish sovereign lord captured the imagination. As a result of eighty years of warfare, the provincial States and the Calvinists gained the upper hand in the north and the Spanish rulers and the Catholic church in the south. Against all expectations, Philip II and his successors failed to win a conclusive victory over their rebellious Dutch subjects; in the end Spain was compelled to admit military defeat at the negotiating table in Münster and recognise the breakaway Dutch provinces as a sovereign state.