For the first time in English history we now see, during the Elizabethan period, the relations between England, on the one hand, and the Netherlands and Belgium, on the other, clearly delineated. The Netherlands, as we know, formerly included Holland and Belgium, and belonged entirely to Spain till 1579; after this date Holland became independent, while Belgium remained in Spanish hands. From the beginning, England viewed the Spanish Netherlands as a dangerous outpost of the Spanish world-empire. She did everything she could to assist the Netherlands in their struggle for liberty, and to detach them from Spain. The London Government hoped, in this case, to have a weak state at the other side of the Channel and the North Sea—a state naturally inclined to be serviceable to England. The planned invasion of the latter by a Spanish army stationed in Holland, has become, for British statesmen, a never-to-be-forgotten nightmare. From that day on the decision was taken, never to allow Belgium and Holland to come under the influence of any Power save England. As soon as the sea power of Spain had been broken, England’s interest was absorbed by a new problem: how to prevent the Netherlands from becoming themselves a strong Sea Power.
If England came to the help of the Netherlands in their struggle against Spain, she did so, of course, under the pretext of defending the cause of Protestantism. The real reason, however, was to prevent any nation with sea power behind it from obtaining property and influence at the other side of the Channel. It is very conceivable that the English statesmen of those days did not first enunciate this principle as a theory, and put it subsequently into practice. On the contrary, they invariably acted in accordance with the requirements of practical necessity. Neither must the experiences be forgotten, that England had made in the course of many centuries during which her ambition had been to become a Continental Power. She had tried hard to obtain rights of property on the French coast, and in the whole of France. If England finally abandoned her efforts in this direction, it was because she recognised that her insular position, in regard to European nations, far from being a weak one, was very strong. As a consequence of this recognition, arose her growing dislike to the despatch of English troops to the Continent. Her fighting forces must be kept in the country, so as not to sacrifice them except on very favorable occasions. The destruction of the Spanish Armada entailed the recognition of another great truth: namely, that an invasion of England was not to be feared, as long as the English fleet retained the mastery of the sea. A corollary of this truth was, that every continental fleet must be considered to be a potential enemy of England’s prosperity and safety; and, further, that the danger must be considered to increase in proportion as the harbors serving as a basis for such a fleet are near to the English coasts.
In this way did English statesmen come to the decision to employ on the Continent, as far as possible, foreign soldiers to fight England’s battles; for the native troops, as we have said, must be kept in the country. The only possibility of applying such a decision in practical life, lay in inducing the Continental Powers to let their armies fight for England’s interests. In order to carry out this policy it was indispensable that the Powers in question should be made to believe that, in combating England’s enemies, they were at the same time defending their own interests, if not their own existence. Henceforth were the main lines to be followed by English policy in its dealings with the Continent, definitely laid down. The means adopted for pursuing that policy were made to depend entirely on two factors: the circumstances of the moment, and the adversary to be dealt with. From the very outset it was tacitly admitted that nothing could be so disadvantageous for the realisation of English aims, than harmony among the Continental States, i. e. peace in Europe. Peace must inevitably bring about increased prosperity; and the consequence will be the growth of the sea power of Continental nations, alike in the waters in the neighborhood of England, and on the ocean. Sea power is the typical expression of the inner strength and unity of a nation—of a strength which must expand abroad because it cannot find adequate employment within the limits of the mother country. But it was precisely this growing prosperity of the European Continent of which England had no need!
Very early did the English Kings come to understand the value of industry for a country. As the English mind was not productive in this domain, skilled workers were, in the later Middle Ages, systematically recruited abroad. The manufacture of cloth, weaving, mining, ironwork, machinery, dyeing—all these industrial arts were brought to England by German, Dutch and French artisans. In this way was the incapacity of the English people compensated for. The narrowness of mind, quarrelsomeness, and intolerance of the Germans proved very useful in this respect; all the dissatisfied or persecuted German artisans went over to England. The stream of emigrants grew constantly larger as a result of the wars of religion. The English industry was slowly developed behind the impregnable wall of a prohibitively high tariff. As long as trade and industry and art were able to flourish in Germany, England was wholly unable to compete with them; for the German products were immeasurably superior to the English ones. But when the Empire decayed in strength as a consequence of political and religious dissensions, industrial and commercial regression likewise set in; and England did everything she could to hasten the downfall. Whilst England was undertaking, during the sixteenth century, the freebooters’ war against Spain of which we have already spoken; whilst she was thereby increasing her sea power to such an extent as to become, at times, the mistress of the ocean;—during this time the power of the German Hansa was broken, and the last emblem of the latter’s former greatness, the Hanseatic Steel Court in London, disappeared in the last years of the sixteenth century.
During one hundred and fifty years English ships continued to carry out the policy of burning, murdering, and stealing immense treasures which were taken off to England; all this was done in the name of religion, and more particularly of Protestant freedom. The Germans, meanwhile, were busy slaughtering each other, and dissolving their empire in religious strife; the Thirty Years’ War turned the once prosperous country into a desert, and annihilated the whole of that flourishing industry which had been the admiration of the world. England fanned to the utmost possible extent the flames of German religious strife. The English were pious people—especially the English Kings and Queens; they were of opinion that the Germans were perfectly justified in transforming their own country into a cesspool of human blood, for the glory of God and of the Protestant faith. In this manner was England spared the disagreeable necessity of fighting a dangerous competitor. The German wars of religion, the hopeless want of unity among the Germans, were among the important factors that contributed to the establishment, in later times, of the English monopoly of trade and industry. The stolen gold of Spain and Portugal, on the other hand, constituted the basis on which the future edifice of English capitalism was reared. English capital, in turn, admitted of goods being manufactured and delivered cheaply; and this cheapness rendered subsequently all competition with British industry impossible. Soon the home market was not sufficient, and English goods were brought to other lands under the protection of the English fleet, mistress of the seas.
At the end of the sixteenth century the East India Company was founded. Twenty years later England stole from the Portuguese the important commercial center of Ormuz, in the Persian Gulf. An English historian remarks drily that “this action marks the beginning of our supremacy in those waters.” The same historian writes: “An attempt was made to obtain possession of the Spanish colonies in Germany and Holland by means of a sudden raid. The enterprise failed owing to the unskilful leadership of the Earl of Mansfield. After this failure, the English Court applied all its resources to the fitting out of a fleet, in order that Cadiz might be sacked, and the Spanish treasure-ships captured.” Great was the grief and anger in England when the unsuccessful raiders came back empty-handed from their excursion to Holland.
In the course of her “heroic age,” England laid the foundations of her future supremacy; she did so by means of brigandage and theft, of violence and treachery, after she had perceived the strength of her insular position and had learnt how to utilise that strength. Her rulers had recognised the value of a national industry, and had understood the means best calculated to favor its growth.
The English of those days were by no means supermen. They were not more intelligent than other nations; on the contrary, during the era of discoveries they discovered nothing, and during the era of inventions they invented nothing. But they understood the art of ploughing their fields by means of stolen oxen. And that which very clearly distinguished them from every other European people was the greed of lucre as the fundamental mainspring of action.
CHAPTER II
THE PIOUS PIRATES
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
Whereas the whole of the once prosperous German industry disappeared in the course of the Thirty Years’ War, leaving a convenient vacancy for English production to fill; this was by no means the case with the Netherlands. After the separation of the latter from Spain, their industry and commerce reached an unprecedented height of development. Colonies were acquired in East India, in the Indian Ocean, in North America, and in South Africa. During the German wars of religion, the Netherlands offered a place of refuge to many of the best elements of the German population, and also convenient and profitable investments for their money. Emigrants and investments contributed very largely to the growing prosperity of the little country. If the German Empire had evolved normally, Holland would have become its “window” opening on to the North Sea and the Channel. Nature would certainly seem to have destined the Netherlands, including Belgium, to play this part. But the German Empire had been turned into a desert, and its commercial importance had ceased to exist.