十二年停战

The Twelve Years' Truce was a ceasefire during the Eighty Years' War between Spain and the Dutch Republic, agreed in Antwerp on 9 April 1609 and ended on 9 April 1621. While European powers like France began treating the Republic as a sovereign state, the Spanish viewed it as a temporary measure forced on them by financial exhaustion and domestic issues and did not formally recognise Dutch independence until the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. The Truce allowed Philip III of Spain to focus his resources elsewhere, while Archdukes Albert and Isabella used it to consolidate Habsburg rule and implement the Counter-Reformation in the Southern Netherlands.

Context

The Dutch Republic achieved significant military gains in the 1590s. After the fall of Antwerp in 1585, Spain's Philip II ordered Alexander Farnese to direct his military actions first towards the failed campaign of the Spanish Armada, then against France to prevent the succession of Henry IV, a Protestant. In the following years the Army of Flanders was entirely on the defensive. Spain's predicament was adroitly used by Stadtholder Maurice. In a series of campaigns, the Dutch States Army surprised Breda in 1590, took Deventer, Hulst and Nijmegen the following year and captured Groningen in 1594. By that stage the Army of Flanders had lost almost all its strategic positions north of the great rivers.……

Conferences

The two opposing sides started putting out discrete overtures early in the campaign season of 1606. The contacts were intensified when Albert instructed Father Jan Neyen in March 1607 to seek out the preliminaries that would have to be met for formal negotiations. Raised a Protestant, Neyen had converted to Catholicism in the 1580s and joined the Franciscan Order. The move did not however seem to have cost him his longstanding access to Maurice of Nassau, a fact that made him a valuable intermediary. Under the guise of visiting his mother in the United Provinces, Neyen travelled between Brussels and The Hague.……

Content

The Habsburgs agreed to treat the United Provinces like an independent state for the duration of the truce. The wording of the article was ambiguous. The Dutch version of the agreement stated more or less that the independence of the Republic had been recognized, while the French text suggested that the Republic would be treated as if it were independent.

All hostilities would cease for twelve years. The two parties would exercise their sovereignty in the territories that they controlled on the date on the agreement. Their armies would no longer levy contributions in enemy territory, all hostages would be set free. Privateering would be stopped, with both parties repressing acts of piracy against the other.……

Consequences

Developments in the Dutch Republic

The immediate result for the Republic was that it was now officially recognised by other European states as a sovereign state. To mark the recognition of the independence of the United Provinces, the States-General added a closed crown with two arches to their arms. Soon after the truce commenced, the Dutch emissaries in Paris and London were accorded full ambassadorial status. The Republic established diplomatic ties with the Republic of Venice, the Sultanate of Morocco, and the Ottoman Empire. A network of consuls was set up in the main ports. On 17 June 1609 France and England signed a treaty guaranteeing the independence of the Republic.……

Remonstrants and Counter-Remonstrants

During the Truce, two factions emerged in the Dutch Republic.……

Resumption of hostilities

More than once it looked as if the truce was about to collapse. The succession crisis over the United Duchies of Jülich-Cleves-Berg resulted in severe tensions during the siege of Jülich (1610) and the confrontations that led to the Treaty of Xanten in 1614.

Petrus Peckius the Younger led a failed attempt at renewing the truce in 1621. When it expired, the Eighty Years' War resumed.