Talk:Fourth Anglo-Dutch War

Battle of Dogger Bank
The fourth Anglo-Dutch war took place nine years BEFORE the french revolution.

What is your point? The article mentions the American Revolution. Erik Zachte

Because I removed the reference to the french one. jf

It also took place more than a hundred years before the Battle of Dogger Bank. I wanted to figure out what to do with the Battle of the Doggersbank link, but it's getting late.--Dell Adams 08:23, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Rewrite
I at first only intended to rewrite the Background section, but finally decided to edit the other sections also. My reasons were many and should be clear after comparing the old version to mine, but let me mention a few explicitly. I have extended the lead section with textual references to the American War of Independence which I think are more important than the simple fact that the war went disastrously for the Dutch (which I don't deny, but which is not the main point). I have extended the Background section extensively with a number of (referenced) highly relevant facts. I think the old assertion that the Orangists "were monarchists who in the 1770s wanted to extend the powers of the stadtholder and were opposed by the Patriots" is an anachronism: the stadtholder had already been given dictatorial powers in the Orangist revolution of 1747 and in the 1770s there were attempts by the opponents of the weakling-stadtholder William V to roll back this "accomplishment". However, these opponents were not yet organized as the Patriot party. That would only happen as a consequence of the war when the democrats/adherents of the American Revolution and the anti-Orangist Regents made common cause. I have sprinkled this version of events over the several sections of the article (so they are not in one place now). Another misunderstanding in the old article was that the Republic formed an alliance with the French. Unfortunately, that did not happen until after the war, due to opposition by the stadtholder (That brief Franco-Dutch alliance proved worthless when the French failed to come to the aid of their allies in 1787). The French and Dutch did, of course, cooperate in practical matters, like the recapture of the Dutch colonies (or the temporary occupation of the Cape Colony to safeguard it), but the French did that for their own strategic reasons. It was mighty nice of them to return those colonies after the war without demanding a large price :-) Unfortunately, that niceness did not extend to too much diplomatic support during the peace negotiations. As will become clear from the current vesion of the Background section, the main contribution of the Dutch to the American cause happened before the start of the Anglo-Dutch war (and that is why the French would have preferred them to remain neutral). However, for that very same reason the British felt constrained to declare war to put a stop to all that economic support under the cloak of neutrality. I have put in a number of references to support my claims.--Ereunetes (talk) 23:39, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Campaign box
I have a number of issues with the campaign box for this war. First of all, the commanders mentioned are those of the Battle of Doggerbank (1781) only. I think this does not apply to the war as a whole. I think these should be admiral Francis William Drake on the British side and vice-admiral Andries Hartsinck (no page yet and doesn't deserve one either) on the Dutch, though this is debatable. Nominally stadtholder William V was in charge on the Dutch side (as Admiral General) and I would be happy to give him this "honor" here. One could argue for including the French and British admirals mentioned in the article in this box. However, I think those engagements properly belong to the War of the American Revolution as the French did not recapture the Dutch colonies to please the Dutch, but for their own srtategic reasons. So I would be in favor of leaving them out. The "strength" numbers are more or less correct for the start of the war. However, they are misleading. The British did not concentrate their entire fleet of ships of the line against the Dutch (so 127 gives an indication of strength that is way too high) and the Dutch fleet had about doubled by 1784; unfortunately the new ships were not used. Finally, I wonder where the casualty figures in the box come from. They are far too high for the Battle of Doggerbank (on both sides 140 dead at the most), so I suppose somebody found an estimate for the entire war somewhere. That must be highly questionable, though. I have asked for a citation for that reason.--Ereunetes (talk) 23:42, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Edler
I suppose some 'new blood' wouldn't hurt, right? Most of the references are to this 1911 (?) author. 82.217.116.224 (talk) 13:23, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
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