Talk:Eighty Years' War

Too long?

Why all this talk on the article being to long? What are we, children? Are our attention spans that short? Come on! This is an encyclopaedia. It should be detailed. I want the details. If you can't read the whole thing, don't. Go watch your cartoons. Let the rest of us get back to improving Wikipedia with even more detailed articles. The article should, by no means, be shortened. PS: This article is not too long for dial-up users. Do the math. --Thorwald (talk) 01:21, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See WP:SIZE. Johnbod (talk) 03:06, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I know all about that guideline. I simply don't agree with it. Some articles are about complex subjects and need to be longer. Of course, they could also be broken into smaller pieces, as long as the goal is not to water down the content and make it "easier" for readers. We shouldn't spoon-feed. --Thorwald (talk) 07:58, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I apologize. I read the arguments above too quickly. I initially thought the arguments about the article being "too long" had to do with it having too much information. I know understand them to be more about the actual length and wanting to split the article into smaller pieces. As long as we keep the information (and even expound and expand upon), it is a good idea. Sorry for the fuss. --Thorwald (talk) 08:15, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A word of caution about splitting anything up: it should be done, if at all, by people who know what they are doing. There was a suggestion earlier to hive some of it off to an article about "the military aspects of the Dutch Revolt". This would amount to turning everything upside down, as the Eighty Years' War is the military aspect of the Revolt. Besides, as is explained in the article, the Dutch Revolt covers only the first thirty years or so. Far better would be to write an article that properly covers the Dutch Revolt (see Talk:Dutch Revolt). The first part of this article could then (but only then) be appropriately shortened. I also wouldn't object to first improving the articles on Twelve Years' Truce and Peace of Münster and then condensing the sections in this article. Only don't expect me to do the work :-) You could use my work here, though. It is in the public domain, after all.--Ereunetes (talk) 20:52, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That was the point: "the Dutch Revolt covers only the first thirty years or so". It would obviously be best if you do it. Johnbod (talk) 22:53, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I am not the one having a problem with the length of this article. I am just afraid of people spoiling it on spurious gronds. I do have a problem with the Dutch Revolt article, as explained on its Talk page, but I don't want to start editing that without first having a proper discussion.--Ereunetes (talk) 00:08, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah I don't get why people complain, the more knowledge, the better! TaipingRebellion1850 (talk) 09:49, 13 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Merger proposal

I propose merging Dutch Revolt and Eighty Years' War (1566–1609) into Eighty Years' War per WP:OVERLAP, and either deleting Causes of the Dutch Revolt or giving it a proper purpose, title and contents (proposed title 'Origins of the Eighty Years' War') if it is to serve as a background article to Eighty Years' War.

They are synonymous. Essentially, "Dutch Revolt" and "Eighty Years' War" are synonyms, both of which are problematic and have pros and cons for historiographical purposes. (Most notably, that saying the war lasted exactly 80 years and thus placing the beginning of the war in 1568 is arbitrary, but that 'Dutch Revolt' is too vague to be meaningful and could be said to begin as early as 1555 according to Fruin. A few people may say the 'Dutch Revolt' began in 1566 and ended in 1609, for example (and this is the reason for yet another separate WP:OVERLAP-violating article named Eighty Years' War (1566–1609)), and we should see the 1621-1648 era as part of the Thirty Years' War, but they are a minority. The "Hundred Years' War" didn't last exactly 100 years either). Whichever name one prefers, the consensus is that these are the same event. The original version of the current 'Dutch Revolt' article in fact stated this explicitly: "The Eighty Years War, or Dutch Revolt, was the secession war in which the proto-Netherlands first became an independent country. It lasted from 1568 to 1648." This fact has been brought up several times on the talk pages of both articles throughout the years, but nobody seems to have formally launched a merger proposal. (So, here I am.)

One is not 'part of' the other, nor is the 'Dutch Revolt' the prelude / early phase of the 'Eighty Years' War'. The current relationship between the articles is entirely unclear: 'Dutch Revolt' claims to be 'part of the Eighty Years' War' in the infobox, but also has a notice at the top claiming that Eighty Years' War is the 'Main article' about this subject. Meanwhile, Eighty Years' War states 'This article is about the war. For the historical context of the war, see Dutch Revolt'. So, which is 'part of' which? The contents overlap so much (one claiming to be from 1566 to 1648 and the other from 1568 to 1648) that we can reasonably conclude they are interwoven so closely as to mean the same thing.

Do not retell the same story under a different name to make a semantic point. 'Eighty Years' War (1566–1609)' adds even more confusion by claiming: 'This article is about the military history of the Dutch Revolt. For the political and diplomatic aspects, see Dutch Revolt.' So 'Dutch Revolt' doesn't just refer to the historical context/origins of the war, but coincides with it. But then, the lede of 'Eighty Years' War (1566–1609)' is essentially nothing more than a discussion of semantics and periodisation, which contradicts itself in asserting that 'Dutch Revolt' only refers to the 1566-1609 period, but the Truce and 1621-1648 period 'still form one continuous whole with the Dutch Revolt (...) and this continuous narrative, spanning the period 1566–1648, is still known as the Eighty Years' War.' That should have been a reason for titling this article 'Dutch Revolt (1566–1609)', but it continues to use the term that it seeks to oppose, before going on to tell THE EXACT SAME STORY as 'Eighty Years' War' AND 'Dutch Revolt'. At this point, I should note that the equivalent Dutch Wikipedia article on Dutch Revolt, namely nl:Nederlandse Opstand, is purely dedicated to the naming and periodisation problem of the conflict; it merely suggests 'Dutch Revolt' has some pros and cons compared to 'Eighty Years' War', but the latter name is taken to discuss the actual event in nl:Tachtigjarige Oorlog. In that sense, it has a similar function as 'Historiographic issues about the American Civil War'. Just telling essentially the same entire story (of the Eighty Years' War) under a different name ('Dutch Revolt' or 'Eighty Years' War (1566–1609)') is WP:REDUNDANT. It's an awful waste of text on a mere semantic problem. If we really want to write about it, please let's write a 'Historiographic issues of the Eighty Years' War' article instead of retelling the story under yet more titles that should just be redirects.

Split by period, not by aspect. If this subject should be split in multiple articles for navigational purposes, then it should not retell the same general story under a different name, but should be about several periods of the war (like Swedish intervention in the Thirty Years' War). In fact, the Dutch Wikipedia already has a separate article for the 1588–1598 period, namely nl:Tien jaren (Tachtigjarige Oorlog), and for the 1579–1588 period, namely nl:Parma's negen jaren. Note that this period does not have to have a specific name, as long as it is a widely used periodisation by historians. The Hundred Years' War has already received such a treatmeant, with phases and even subphases, e.g. Hundred Years' War, 1337–1360 and Hundred Years' War, 1345–1347. This seems a safe way to go.
I advise against splitting by aspect, because different aspects of any war are very hard to separate. I think it is doable for things like economics or demographics (e.g. improving and translating nl:Migratiestroom in de Nederlanden to English; we've already got multiple articles about 'Refugees of war X', e.g. Refugees of the Greek Civil War, that is something we can definitely do here, too). Military, political and diplomatic aspects are probably too closely related to be separable. Political and diplomatic decisions can start or stop military activities immediately; the very name 'Eighty Years' War' is tied up with the 1648 Münster peace treaty, and the suggestion of some to limit the term 'Dutch Revolt' to the pre-1609 phase has everything to do with the fact that the Truce was concluded in that year. If we really want to talk about diplomacy separately, then the articles about the truce and peace treaties can provide ample space for failed peace talks and negotiations throughout the whole period until they finally succeeded in 1609 and 1648, respectively.

A 'Causes of' article is fine, but it needs to be set up properly. Besides, if we want a separate article for the 'context of the war' for better navigation purposes, then surely an article like "Causes of the Dutch Revolt" covering the period up to 1568 should serve that function? Pages like 'Origins of the American Civil War' or 'Origins of the War of 1812' seem excellent examples of how to write such an article. However, the current article 'Causes of the Dutch Revolt' is awful. Half the text is unsourced, the other half almost entirely based on a single source (Tracy). Moreover, the text seems to have the purpose of equating 'Dutch Revolt' with 'American Revolution' and 'Eighty Years' War' with 'American Revolutionary War/American War of Independence'. Although the historiography of the latter has a consensus that the American Revolution started in 1765 and included the American Revolutionary War (started in 1775) up to 1783, no such consensus exists on treating the term 'Dutch Revolt' as a longer period starting several years earlier and encompassing the entire 'Eighty Years' War' up to 1648, nor is there any broad consensus for using 'Dutch Revolt' just for the prelude to, or early phase of, the 'Eighty Years' War'. Phrasing things in such a manner is essentially WP:OR and not allowed.
Besides, the only discussion there has ever been on Talk:Causes of the Dutch Revolt is to speedy-delete it, or to merge it into 'Dutch Revolt'. I don't particularly care whether we delete it (because the current form has little encyclopedic value), or completely rewrite it to 'Origins of the Eighty Years' War' (seems a much more appropriate title to me) with all pertinent background information from around 1555 to 1568.
I don't have all the answers, but I hope I have made clear that the current situation is untenable, and we should do something about it. I've given many arguments why, and examples of how to do it better. I hope we can reach an agreement. Cheers Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 20:50, 7 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose (For now) I see your points wholeheartedly but if this were to merge, then it would make the article far too long. If it were somehow condensed then I would potentially approve. Eastfarthingan (talk) 12:26, 8 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
As I pointed out, there are three options for properly splitting up this article if it became 'far too long' for navigational purposes:
  1. Split off an proper Origins of the Eighty Years' War article for the pre-1568 period.
  2. Write a Historiographical issues of the Eighty Years' War article for semantic and periodisation debates.
  3. If the main article is still too long then, split off separate articles by period following the examples I've given from the Hundred Years' War, the Thirty Years' War, and the Dutch Wikipedia's nl:Tien jaren (Tachtigjarige Oorlog) and nl:Parma's negen jaren period articles, e.g. Ten Years (Eighty Years' War), or Eighty Years' War, 1588–1598.
All three articles that I propose to merge into this one were originally simply duplicates of each other before they started to diverge by rewording, adding and removing details. It may be a tedious process to merge it all back together properly, but we're essentially dealing with the same information split across 4 articles that all had the same source.
In each case, it is demonstrated that there have been various attempts to give 'Dutch Revolt' a different meaning than 'Eighty Years' War', but because nobody agrees on what that meaning should be, it ends up being synonymous with 'Eighty Years' War' again. There is no excuse for this WP:OVERLAP and WP:REDUNDANT duplication of information, let alone for WP:OR periodisations/semantics and POV-forking articles based on these OR conclusions, even if some of them have received some level of support – but by no means a majority – from scholars. Again, such issues are to be discussed in a Historiographical issues of the Eighty Years' War article. We need to undo a series of mistakes that began in March 2009 and have not been addressed all this time. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 14:39, 8 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed for the third option there. It would totally benefit the entire period. I also agree on the articles being split such as that in the 100 years war. The Ten Year war for example definitely needs it's own article as it was crucial period of the war and won (de jure) Dutch independence. Eastfarthingan (talk) 17:37, 8 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Glad you agree! Let's see what others think. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 20:24, 8 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Shall I just make an English-language draft for "Ten Years (Eighty Years' War)" then? If we can already set up period articles before we merge it, we can save ourselves a lot of trouble and prevent the merged article from becoming too long in the process. I'll make a synthesis of all 1588–1598 material from these four articles and nl:Tien jaren (Tachtigjarige Oorlog). A heavily abridged version of "Ten Years (Eighty Years' War)" can serve as a section in the merged article. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 13:56, 9 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
 Done Ten Years (Eighty Years' War). Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 18:56, 9 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I support the proposal overall, although regardless of how you choose to divide it, the War itself should be one article. There's a lot of detail that doesn't need to be included in what is supposed to be an Overview. I've done some summarising to demonstrate.

Maybe "Creation of the Dutch Republic; 1559 to 1648" would be better than "Origins" (because it could then cover political and diplomatic developments within the republic over that period, rather than the causes). Robinvp11 (talk) 18:32, 9 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that there should be one overview article for the entire War, and it should be Eighty Years' War. Details that are superfluous for an overview article should be split off by period, the dating of which should not be controversial. The periodisation of the Ten Years (Eighty Years' War) is generally accepted, so I started with that. I suppose that, based on the example of the Hundred Years' War period articles, an article Eighty Years' War, 1621–1648 would also be pretty uncontroversial (User:Sietecolores already proposed such an split-off on this talk page back in April 2014). Scholars generally agree that the 1648 Peace of Münster essentially confirmed and expanded on the 1609–1621 Truce. Virtually everyone also agrees that it was a different kind of war, more 'regulated' and 'professional' on the borders of the Republic / Southern Netherlands instead of the rather chaotic and dramatic early decades of civil revolts and massacres. Some scholars even exclude the 1621–1648 period from their definition of 'Dutch Revolt'. Splitting this period off would give a lot of space for details not needed in this overview article, and facilitate the merger that I am proposing (and you and Eastfarthingan are tentatively supporting).
I'm afraid I have to say that "Creation of the Dutch Republic; 1559 to 1648" seems like poor choice of words and scope. 'Creation' is a conscious choice that can be attributed a specific time, place, intention and agency, but the Dutch Republic is more or less the result of a series of historical coincidences that nobody really foresaw or actively intended to bring about. Nobody in 1559 was even thinking about a republic, let alone one independent from the House of Habsburg composed of 7 provinces and some territories in the northern Netherlands, but by 1648 it had already been a reality for decades. I think 'Origins of the Eighty Years' War' is actually well-suited for the purpose you seek. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 19:39, 9 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Announcement: The article Ten Years (Eighty Years' War) has been created by merging the four articles' 1588–1598 material + some contents from nl:Tien jaren (Tachtigjarige Oorlog). This is a first step towards merging duplicated material whilst avoiding a too long general article. A lot can still be improved, especially by translating more material from Dutch to English, but this is enough for now as a demonstration how we could solve the various issues of overlap and length in one go. I'll now proceed to refer all sections pertaining to this period in the to-be-merged articles to the new article. I'll happily receive feedback. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 18:38, 9 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

PS: I'm now working on User:Nederlandse Leeuw/Eighty Years' War, 1621–1648. As stated above, I don't think this periodisation will be controversial, this title will be considered appropriate, it will make it easier to merge the articles, and will not make the resulting merged article too large. We can solve multiple issues in one go, just like with the new Ten Years (Eighty Years' War) for the 1588–1598 period. I'll happily receive feedback. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 01:01, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Announcement: The article Eighty Years' War, 1621–1648 has been created by merging the 1621–1648 period materials from Eighty Years' War and Dutch Revolt, plus some new material to make it coherent and support some unsourced claims. We're one step closer to facilitating the projected merger. I'll happily receive feedback. Meanwhile, I'll look into other period-articles we might want to split off, such as Eighty Years' War, 1599–1609. Even Aftermath of the Eighty Years' War may merit its own article; Eighty_Years'_War#Aftermath and especially Dutch_Revolt#Aftermath are both pretty long, while the latter has a boatload of unsourced claims. I'm not sure what we'll do with Eighty_Years'_War_(1566–1609)#Aftermath, because it sort of makes up the balance of only the 1566–1609 period, and isn't yet concerned with the post-1648 period. Perhaps merging that section into Twelve Years' Truce#Context would be most fitting? Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 14:07, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

PS: Incidentally, a major rewrite and translation of nl:Inname van Tienen seems due, as it had profound consequences on the failure of the 1635 Franco-Dutch invasion of the Southern Netherlands. The political, cultural, and religious effects of it (although not socio-economic effects, which were small by comparison) may be comparable with the 1585 Fall of Antwerp in that they marked a historical North-South break in the Low Countries that was never repaired. On the other hand, its implications may also have been exaggerated by certain authors. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 14:14, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose merger. The article was created years ago because the main article was too long. I appreciate the concern over duplicated content and overalap, but I think the solution is to create a new scheme of articles related to this topic. Nederlandse Leeuw have made an interesting proposal here. Sietecolores (talk) 17:50, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Sietecolores: Which 'article was created years ago because the main article was too long'? And what do you mean by 'main article'? If you do support my new scheme of articles, then I would think you would support my merger proposal. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 19:04, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed article scheme

For the record, my current proposed scheme is as follows:

Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 19:04, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Announcement: The article Eighty Years' War, 1599–1609 has now been written by merging existing sections in the three articles into a new period-specific article. I'll happily receive feedback. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 21:49, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Nederlandse Leeuw, I appreciate your work, but wonder if there is a reason for not having an article that details on the 1566–1588 period? It may happen that content about the 1566–1588 period in the main article may need to be trimmed to have similar detail to the other sections of the article, in that case, will there be any space for a detailed account of the 1566–1588 period? Sietecolores (talk) 00:26, 11 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Sietecolores: Thank you for your compliment on my work. Yes, the reason why I haven't yet made proposals for period-specific articles for the years 1566–1588 is because there seems to be no scholarly consensus on the periodisation of these years. There are so many options here that I do not wish to make a decision without either having found evidence of scholarly consensus, or having established Wikipedia community consensus on how to subdivide these years into periods, and thus period articles. I am open to suggestions, and will also put forward my own, but I suspect that it is exactly these years that create the most problems in historiography, and are the main reason why we have ended up with 4 overlapping articles with contradictory titles and dates. To illustrate the problem: There is a small amount of scholarly support for a "1566–1567 revolt" (start: 10 August 1556 with the Steenvoorde Iconoclastic Fury), followed by Orange's 1568 failed invasion (start: 23 April 1568 with the Battle of Dalheim/Rheindahlen, although Orangist/nationalist Dutch historiography put the 23 May 1568 Battle of Heiligerlee as the start, while the Dutch Republic in 1648 seems to have emphasised the execution of Egmont and Horne on 5 June 1568 as the start of the war due to symbolically promulgating and celebrating the Peace of Monster exactly 80 years after on 5 June 1648; then again, the Peace of Münster treaty itself twice mentions '1567' as the starting date of the war); then an interlude of 1569–1571 in which basically nothing happens except for Geuzen kapers (privateers) raiding and plundering here and there, until they seize Den Briel on 1 April 1572. These facts alone leave us with countless options. Should we subdivide the 10-08-1566 to 1-4-1572 period into 1, 2, 3, or 4 articles? Or should we extend it even further to the 1576 Pacification of Ghent, which is generally agreed to be the start of the "general revolt" in which all provinces of the Netherlands (except Luxembourg) participated? Or should we extend the opening phase until 1579, when the Unions of Arras and Utrecht broke the general revolt apart? Or should the whole 1566–1588 period be in one article? Or do the 1566–1567 years not "count" because they don't fit the "eighty years" calculation, with 1648 clearly being the end point? This is why I cannot unilaterally decide on period-specific articles for the first 22ish years of the war, and probably the main reason for the existence of these silly overlapping articles retelling the same story under different titles and periodisations. Incidentally, I suspect the 1576–1579 period to be the least controversial subdivision; historians generally agree the Pacification of Ghent and the Unions of Arras/Utrecht to mark turning points from a general ('all-Netherlands', 'bilingual', 'oecumenical') revolt to one limited to the northern, Dutch-speaking, Protestant-dominated provinces. But that leaves the other questions unanswered. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 06:57, 11 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Some notes on periodisation: Encarta Winkler Prins (2002) subdivided the War into the following four periods:
Eerste tijdperk: de algemene opstand (1566–1576) – "First period: the general revolt (1566–1576)"
Tweede tijdperk: de scheuring (1576–1588) – "Second period: the rupture (1576–1588)"
Derde tijdperk: de aanvang van het militair succes (1588–1609) – "Third period: the start of military success (1588–1609)"
Vierde tijdperk: consolidatie en overwinning (1621–1648) – "Fourth period: consolidation and victory (1588–1609)"
All years they mention are widely considered to have been turning points of the War. What is notable is that Winkler Prins counts only four phases, when most historians have more than four. They also start in 1566 in defiance of the traditional 1568 start. However, the naming of each period reveals a very Northern Netherlands-centric perspective: 'success' and 'victory' are Dutch Republic points of view. Moreover, 'general revolt' does not seem accurate at all for the years 1566–1576, because the revolt was rather limited, especially in the years 1573–1576. Other scholars consider the 'general revolt' to apply to the Nov1576–Jan1579 phase instead, when 16 of the 17 provinces sought to oust all Spanish troops from the Netherlands. Finally, it is unclear what 'the rupture' means: the rupture between Catholic and Protestant rebels, or the rupture of the Netherlands into North and South, or both? Because by 1588, most of the northeast and east had also fallen to the Spanish, this geographic juxtaposition of North versus South seems unlikely. Instead, 'the rupture' appears to be an institutional one, namely between the Spanish monarchy and the Dutch Republic: 'Having learned from these disappointments, the States-General of the rebellious regions (now based in The Hague instead of Brussels or Antwerp) did not again proceed to recognise a foreigner as sovereign. In the meantime, the development towards a 'confederation of states' of seven provinces, each sovereign in itself, the Republic of the United Netherlands, continued. In general, 1588 is taken as its tentative end point.' Although Winkler Prins doesn't explain this year, it is probably the passing of the Deductie van Vrancken by the States-General on 12 April 1588, the de facto proclamation of the republican form of government without a hereditary head of state. Winkler Prins goes on to relate at the start of the third period how the Republic was 'soon threatened by the Spanish Armada', so its July/August 1588 defeat does not count as the historic turning point.
Fruin's classic study Tien jaren in den Tachtigjarigen Oorlog, 1588–1598 (1857) does not explicitly say why he lets his story begin at the start of the year 1588. Chapter I is devoted to arguing why the cause of the Dutch revolt was all but lost at that point, without mentioning the Deductie van Vracken or other references to the formal proclamation of the Republic; nothing really 'happens', it is just a description of a state of affairs up to 1 January 1588. Then, Chapter II starts talking about the Spanish Armada, and its destruction is the narrated as the turning point; so unlike Winkler Prins, Fruin regards 1588 as a military turning point rather than an institutional one for the purposes of his periodisation.
Groenveld (2009) p.14–16 wrote: 'Sharpening of the views of both the discontented as the monarch and his government led to radicalisation in the Netherlands in the course of the years after 1560. A wave movement of violence to moderation and then back to violence again commenced and kept going until 1609. This more or less forty-year period is presently referred to as the Dutch Revolt, which constitutes the first part of what tradition has long named the Eighty Years' War. A first radical phase continued until 1575–1576, and found its violent peak in the years after 1572. (...) But in 1575, a phase of moderaton commenced, because moderates on [both] loyal and rebel sides stepped forward, who strove towards a soution through negotiations. (...) An attempted negotiation in Breda failed, however...(...) But in November 1576 – Requesens had died in the meantime, while matters got ever more chaotic – the parties in Ghent did reach an agreement. (...) What was prohibited in all of Europe, did happen here: representative bodies performed as governing bodies. (...) On 8 November, they concluded the Pacification of Ghent, which partially went back on points on which agreement had existed at Breda.'
I'll add some more notes later in case I find something relevant. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 14:22, 11 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
L. Mulder, A. Doedens & Y. Kortlever, Geschiedenis van Nederland, van prehistorie tot heden (Baarn 2008), a history textbook for academic education, provides the following periodisation:
'The Dutch Revolt, 1559–1609'
* 'Start of the Dutch Revolt 1559–1567.' It is notable that Mulder et al. take 22 November 1567 (Alba's entry into Brussels after repressing the Beeldenstorm) rather than 10 August 1566 (beginning of the Beeldenstorm) as the end of this phase. They explicitly state: 'The first phase of the Dutch Revolt had concluded.' Notably absent from the narrative are the Siege of Valenciennes (1567), the Battle of Wattrelos, the Battle of Lannoy and the Battle of Oosterweel.
* 'Oppression and resistance 1567–1573.' Here comes Mulder et al.'s justification for differentiating 'Dutch Revolt' from 'Eighty Years' War': 'In 1568, the Revolt took on the character(istics) of a war. Then began what would later be called the Eighty Years' War. In that year a princely army invaded the Northern Netherlands. Adolf, a broer of William of Orange, fell at Heiligerlee.' This is another fine example of how arbitary these historiographical periodisations and semantics are. As stated above, there had already been a siege and three pitched battles in 1567, none of which is mentioned by Mulder et al. They seem to imply that the difference is that this was a 'princely army', not just some common rabble. If so, then they had a reason to also mention the Battle of Dahlen of 23 April 1568, which was also fought by an Orangist army, but even though Heiligerlee was fought one month later, on 23 May 1568, that battle is mentioned first for its significance of Orange's brother falling in battle. Only 2 sentences later, they vaguely mention it in passing by saying 'Invasions in Gelderland and Limburg also resulted in failure.' Although they don't explicitly state Heiligerlee was the first battle of the war, by omitting the 1567 battles and anachronistically putting Heiligerlee before Rheindahlen, they follow traditional historiography by implication.
* 'The North on the way to autonomy 1573–1588'
- (Alba's resignation) December 1573 – (Sack of Antwerp) November 1576. This is a very odd periodisation that nobody else seems to accept. As we've seen above, Winkler Prins regards 1566–1576 as a period, and Groenveld has a more vague 1560s to 1576 period, with 1572 as a peak.
- "Pacification of Ghent" November 1576 – (States-General turning hostile to Don Juan's capture of Namur citadel) July 1577 and after
- "The definitive rupture" (Don Juan's succession by Parma) October 1578 – (Plakkaat van Verlatinghe) July 1581. Note that the January – September 1578 period including Gembloux is omitted entirely.
- "The origins of the Republic" July 1581 – (Triple Alliance) 1596. Funnily enough, it asserts the Republic 'originated in 1581. Remarkably, there has never been an official decision or proclamation. The Republic arose though the course of events...'. One wonders how they can then pinpoint its start in the year 1588, and use it as a cut-off point in their periodisation; they seem to know about the Deductie van Vrancken (12 April 1588), but implicitly deny its existence. They seem to want to have it both ways. They mention two more events in this chapter, namely in 1591 and 1596, that do not even match their own periodisation, but should be saved for the next chapter. Somehow, the Deductie seems to be That Which Must Not Be Named.
* The Republic takes shape 1588–1609. Just like Fruin, they start the new chapter with the Spanish Armada in May 1588. They skip 12 April 1588, without justifying why the Republic 'originated in 1588' 'without official decision'. There is no mention of the Ten Years of Fruin; the entire 20 year period is regarded as one of constant Dutch victories, misleadingly claiming 'after the Battle of Nieuwpoort not much happened on the battlefield anymore', with a misleading 1590–1604 map, before going on to talk about the Truce. Spinola's 1605–1606 campaign is entirely omitted from the text and the map.
'A half century 'Golden Age'. A new state with a new lifestyle 1609–1650'
* The Truce Conflicts
* 'The last period of the Eighty Years' War.' Here they follow the convention of labelling the 1621–1648 period as 'The last period of the Eighty Years' War', even though they label the whole 1559–1609 period 'The Dutch Revolt'. It's funny that they do not feel compelled to even mention the years of this period in the title, apparently not concerned that the reader might be confused.
It should be obvious that Mulder et al.'s periodisation and semantics are problematic for many reasons that I have mentioned and others I have not. It is also obvious that there are discrepancies between Mulder et al., Fruin, Winkler Prins, and Groenveld, and these are just 4 random sources that I happened to have on hand. This is why it is so difficult to determine period-specific articles for this War: scholars disagree with each other and everyone seems to be making stuff up as they go along, sometimes without justification or poor justification. Everyone wants to tell this story in their own way, with their own framework. This is why we end up with 4 overlapping articles with contradicting periodisations and semantics. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 16:22, 11 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Announcement: The article Eighty Years' War, 1576–1579 has now been published! This was perhaps the toughest merger yet, and I'm still not completely satisfied with the results, although that has more to do with a lack of motivation for finding sources for every unsourced claim (including ones that I added myself, although most of those rely on interwikis to articles on Dutch Wikipedia which are sourced). My priority has been to show that these materials all neatly fitted in a detailed overview of this period. The main challenge is that there are multiple simultaneous developments happening that you can't really fit into a single narrative, so I decided to subdivide the section 'Resumption of hostilities' into 4 subsections featuring four regions: Holland and Zeeland, Overijssel and northern Brabant, Flanders and southern Brabant, and Luxemburg/Namur/Hainaut/Artois/Douai on the other. These regional developments don't really merge again until 1579, when the two Unions of Atrecht/Arras and Utrecht are formed. Especially in the latter case, we can attribute this to particularism: people generally only busy with what happens inside their own province. That's why I couldn't really merge it into one narrative. By contrast, with some anachronism, we might consider Utrecht to be a sort of step in proto-nation-building, even though regional autonomy remained strong in the Dutch Republic. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 20:39, 11 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Great work, I'll be happy to add sources and citations over time. It might also be worth adding an infobox (as well as the other separate articles) at some point. Eastfarthingan (talk) 13:11, 12 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! I look forward to your contributions. I'm not sure if adding an infobox would be a good idea in this case. My current approach is having a military map in the upper right corner to allow readers to orient themselves in terms of time and geography, as well as the Template:Campaignbox Dutch Revolt for easy navigation between various battles and periods. I think that will suffice. Adding infoboxes will come with layout problems and will complicate the usage of excerpt templates, which work with the lede sections of these period articles. But I'm open to arguments in favour. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 14:01, 12 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Announcement: The article Eighty Years' War, 1579–1588 has now been published! In the section 'Historiography' I've added some of the observations I made above under 'periodisation' in my defence for choosing these years as turning points, because they are not universally supported by all scholars, although I think I can claim that there is a consensus. Virtually everyone agrees 1588 was a turning point, although they don't often say explicitly why, or their reasons may differ from political to military. 1579 is more contentious; everyone agrees that the breakup of the 16-province alliance into Atrecht and Utrecht was significant, although not everyone grants it the same weight or meaning. Incidentally, the differences between the three overlapping articles become clearer every day that I'm working to merge their contents into period-specific articles:

  • Eighty Years' War has good basic contents, but misses details; it relies heavily on Israel 1995 and other Israel books, and has the most international perspective.
  • Eighty Years' War (1566–1609) started out as a duplicate of Eighty Years' War, but has a lot more details, embellishments, and sometimes even interpolations that can probably not be found in Israel 1995 that most of the text claims to be based on. It adds various subjective judgements such as "unfortunately", "ironically", "rightly", "ably", which either favour a pro-Dutch-independence perspective, a pro-Oldenbarneveldt (who is deemed very intelligent and capable compared to "haughty" queen Elizabeth of England, although that may be the result of anti-English/Leicester sentiment rather than pro-States/republican or anti-Orangist views; Maurice is never criticised, but seen as Oldenbarneveldt's reliable ally), liberal and moderate Calvinist/secular perspective ("Calvinist hard-liners" are blamed for supporting Leicester's regime/failures), or suffer from hindsight bias.
  • Dutch Revolt, finally, is the worst of all; it is often unsourced, based on opinions or oversimplications, does not contain a lot of detail but loves generalisations, and is not as heavily dependent on Israel 1995, but more on older (and less reliable) sources. It has even more subjective statements, and tends to be traditional, nationalistic, pro-Orange/Orangist (praising William, Maurice and Frederick Henry's deeds as central and crucial; it avoids "Dutch Republic" and prefers "United Provinces" so as to not promote republicanism at the cost of the current Orange monarchy), pro-Calvinist (with lots of religious and ethnic generalisations) and pro-Greater/Pan-Netherlands-ist (which it shows by taking Geyl as a source and lamenting the separation of the "Northern" and "Southern Netherlands").
The latter two articles are clearly primarily written by Dutch people, which shows in some Dutchisms, and the choices they made in presenting their contents and perspectives. Although I am Dutch myself, I tend to have a rather international perspective, or at least strive towards it, and minimise the effects of my biases. In that regard, all works on the Eighty Years' War on English Wikipedia tend to be quite reliant on British, Dutch and a few Flemish works, where imput from Spanish, Walloon, French and German sources could also be very valuable for a more balanced discourse. Language barriers faced by the people who tend to be interested in writing about it on English Wikipedia are probably what holds this back. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 23:09, 12 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Announcement: The article Eighty Years' War, 1572–1576 has been published! I've not delved into periodisation much yet, I've assumed this period more out of pragmatism due to already being established subsection periods in all three articles to be merged. Perhaps periodisation should mostly be left to the article Historiographical issues of the Eighty Years' War that I have suggested be written. There's also still a lot of material on the importance of Holland's geography for the warfare conducted in these years that is poorly sourced, but may well be relevant for understanding why the Spanish offensive stalled there, whereas the governmental troops crushed the 1566–1568 insurrections concentrated in Artois, Tournai(sis), Hainaut, Flanders, Brabant, Guelders, Overijssel, Groningen, Friesland, Utrecht etc. with much more apparent ease, and again in 1572. Geyl has a point when arguing that Holland and Zeeland were not the hotbeds of Calvinism and insurrection in the early 1566–1568 years; their geography simply allowed them to be more defensible in the latter 1572–1576 years once the Calvinist rebellion had spread to these lands and established itself there (despite the royalism of cities like Amsterdam). I'll leave the geography section up for anyone willing to delve into this issue further. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 11:29, 15 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

PS: One could add to that Pirenne's observations (endorsed by Van der Lem) that the provinces of Flanders, Brabant, Zeeland, Holland and Tournaisis were much more urbanised, and thus prone to social change including new religious and political ideas, and insurrection to demand change, than all the other more rural provinces, where the traditionally royalist Catholic nobility had much more power and influence on society and a strong interest in maintaining the social order. They argue this is why largely rural Artois and Hainaut seceded from the general revolt to conclude a separate peace with Parma through the 1579 Union of Arras, while neighbouring urbanised Tournai remained part of the rebellion until militarily forced to surrender by siege in 1581. If Tournai had had Holland's marshy swampy geography and access to the sea for food imports, perhaps it would have held out much the same way as Holland and Zeeland. Holland and Zeeland had both the advantage of geography and the highly urbanised demographics for Calvinist rebellion to flourish, even though it didn't start there; it survived there. People who think the rebellion survived in Holland and Zeeland in 1572–1576 because they had always been 'more Calvinist' there than in those southern provinces (claims that I sometimes still see in Wikipedia articles for no good reason; one only has to look at the map where iconoclasm started and was most intense in Flanders, Artois, Hainaut, Tournai, and Brabant, and the first battle of the war was the 1566–1567 siege of Valenciennes, where the author of the Belgic Confession, Guido de Bres, commanded the earliest-known armed rebels) probably suffer from hindsight bias or confirmation bias. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 11:47, 15 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Announcement: The article Aftermath of the Eighty Years' War has been published! I've not resolved all unsourced statements yet, if anyone would like to improve the sections 'Nature of the war', 'Subsequent conflicts', 'Split of the Netherlands into North and South', or 'Effect on the Spanish Empire' in particular, be my guest! My aim has primarily been to merge articles or sections with overlapping content that is best presented together in a coherent way. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 18:54, 15 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

User:Nederlandse Leeuw/Historiographic issues about the Eighty Years' War draft has been created. Still at an early stage of development, much will have to be done from scratch. One major issue I notice is that most scholars seem to agree that 'Dutch Revolt' is a better name, but they all have different periodisations for that term, and they don't seem to notice let alone talk about the fact that they can't agree what 'Dutch Revolt' means. If one person says 'Dutch Revolt refers to 1555–1566' and another 'Dutch Revolt refers to 1559–1609' and a third 'Dutch Revolt refers to 1566–1648', then how the hell are people supposed to know what period or phase you're talking about without adding those years every time you bring up the name?! Great that you have concluded that the war didn't last exactly 80 years, but do you actually have a better alternative that doesn't mislead or confuse people? Or are you just a smartarse who makes it up as they go along without caring about consensus? /rant Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 20:54, 15 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Excellent work. Keep up the good work. Thank you Eastfarthingan (talk) 21:38, 15 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I decided to rename the draft from 'Historiographic issues about the Eighty Years' War' to 'Historiography of the Eighty Years' War'. 'Historiographic issues about' is an uncommon title. As I indicated above several times, I modelled it after Historiographic issues about the American Civil War, but that is placed in the Category:Historiography of the American Civil War, and essentially all other similar enwiki articles are titled 'Historiography of war X'. The ACW article has quite an exceptional title, which may even be inappropriate (the talk page shows disputes about the title, purpose and scope, and that it has been renamed at least twice). In any case, convention should precede deviation here. Moreover, a 'Historiography of war X' article would be pretty useless if it didn't mention, let alone widely cover, the disagreements historians have had about what happened, why it happened, and how to write about it. By framing it around the 'issues', this puts the focus of the article on the things historians have disagreed on rather than on all things they have discussed, including agreements and disagreements. For that reason, too, simply naming it 'Historiography of' is more balanced and thus appropriate. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 08:04, 28 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Announcement: The article Eighty Years' War, 1566–1572 has been published! This is probably the worst one I have made so far, because there are so many contradictions and overlapping materials, and sometimes it is difficult to check what the sources actually say to bust possible extrapolations by Wikipedians. And this article is really incomplete without the Historiographic issues article. I can foresee people going mental about the name and periodisation of this article. But we need to start somewhere, and this article had to be written to merge the fragmented information into a coherent narrative. It's still not fully coherent yet, such mentioning the execution of Egmont and Horne before the invasion of Orange. But at least I was able to work out (based on Tracy p. 77, although he doesn't provide a date) that Alba instituted the Council of Troubles before Margaret of Parma resigned; many texts claimed or implied it was the other way around. A better balance/flow needs to be established between this article and Beeldenstorm, as well as Eighty Years' War, 1572–1576#Background, and someone should translate nl:Oranjes eerste invasie to English (perhaps I will, but at present I don't feel like it). Be that as it may, we need this article first as an essential step to complete the article scheme. We can always improve its quality later. It is certainly already better than the texts of the 4 separate articles. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 15:26, 24 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Announcement: The article Origins of the Eighty Years' War has been published! It can still be improved a lot, but it's better than the sum of all the texts of the four separate articles. Now I just need to finish the Historiographic issues article to complete the article scheme. All the four overlapping articles are linked to the period-specific articles through excerpts and are thus approaching the same abbreviated content, facilitating the proposed merger. Nobody has yet opposed a merger per se, except on the grounds of size, whereas everyone has supported splitting the text into period-specific articles in order to enable a merged main article that won't be too long to navigate comfortably. We're almost at that goal now, and I appreciate the help of those who have advised or assisted me along the way. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 22:40, 24 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Announcement: The article Historiography of the Eighty Years' War has been published! The bulk of the text tries to balance the views of mostly Dutch and British historiographers from various times, places, religions and political perspectives. There's still lots of room for improvement, especially for the views of Spanish historians, which I have almost completely ignored so far, mostly because I can't read Spanish very well. I invite anyone who can to do so. That said, @Eastfarthingan: and @Sietecolores:, I presume it is alright if I proceed with merging the remaining two articles Dutch Revolt and Eighty Years' War (1566–1609) into Eighty Years' War? The contents are now about 95% identical, because the main body of all three consists of excerpts of the period-specific articles I've made. If neither of you, nor anyone else objects, I will complete the article scheme as planned. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 12:58, 29 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm very happy for you to proceed- excellent work on creating, merging, separating and condensing the articles for this period. Eastfarthingan (talk) 13:28, 29 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
 Done! Thanks for your help, feedback, imput, suggestions etc. . Now just a few things left to do. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 17:48, 29 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Now all appears to have been said and done, I would like to say that I wholeheartedly disagree with most of the above. When I first wrote this article, back in March 2009, I split it off from Dutch Revolt, because I thought Wikipedia needed an article that concentrated on the military history of the Eighty Years' War. It was a war, after all, and in Dutch Revolt the political and military aspects of the conflict were hopelessly intermingled. See the first section on this talk-page "Why this article?" But I have long since washed my hands of the whole mess (see above in the various sections). I didn't know that this discussion was going on. Maybe a good thing, because it would have been deleterious to my hypertension. I prefer to let things as they are now. Because "het moet niet in werk ontaarden" :-)--Ereunetes (talk) 21:10, 31 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Belligerents in Infobox

Please note "Belligerent" is a closely defined legal term, which requires a formal declaration of war. I realise a lot of work went into digging out the various icons etc but there's a reason why the Wikipedia template does not include "Supported by" or other variations, even though that doesn't seem to stop people adding them in.

One of the problems is the idea of national armies being largely homogenous (ie composed of people from the same country) did not arise until the 19th century. For example, most estimates suggest the overwhelming proportion of the "Swedish army" during the 30 Years War were German. So having Germans serving in the Dutch army doesn't imply anything other than sympathy.

This issue comes up on a regular basis. Robinvp11 (talk) 18:12, 10 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think that you take a far to precise stance on the infobox than needed. This is what the guidelines say about what can be written in the infobox:
the parties participating in the conflict. This is most commonly the countries whose forces took part in the conflict; however, larger groups (such as alliances or international organizations) or smaller ones (such as particular units, formations, or groups) may be indicated if doing so improves reader understanding. DavidDijkgraaf (talk) 19:16, 10 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
DavidDijkgraaf description of the belligerents coincides very well with several countries that intervened in this war in favor of the Dutch Republic, such as France and England, with which they made alliances and even carried out joint military operations (examples: Capture of Cádiz in 1596 or Siege of Leuven in 1635). We are not talking about mercenary troops in the service of Dutch Republic, which I am not saying there were not, but there was also participation of those states with their respective state forces. Muwatallis II (talk) 23:09, 10 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
...however, larger groups (such as alliances or international organizations) or smaller ones (such as particular units, formations, or groups) may be indicated if doing so improves reader understanding...
How does this apply to any of these? Are you seriously suggesting Anjou (who is an individual, not even a state) somehow qualifies as a Belligerent? The Infobox is supposed to be factual.
And FYI, England never agreed a formal alliance with the Dutch against Spain. The fact English volunteers served with the Dutch does not make England (the entity) a participant. In fact, in the 1630s Charles pursued a policy that was pro-Spanish - so the current Infobox is actively misleading.
Whatever; I'm clearly less interested in the Eighty Years War than you are, but these arguments are simply starting with the answer you want. Either put them as Belligerents (Wikipedia does not say "add new categories if you fancy it"), or take them out. Don't make categories up.
And as I'm here, what are your precise objections to the changes made in the Lead? Robinvp11 (talk) 18:12, 11 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Anjou was a valois whose garrison in Cambrai held the town past his death without changing allegiance. Later the Spanish only retook the town after a formal French declaration of war. English participation is very uneven. In 1578ish they composed mercenary units. 2601:140:4101:DA40:1D9C:E2FC:CBDC:A0CF (talk) 03:55, 15 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

To be frank, I find the infobox rather confusing too. It is about a war that lasted 80 years, but yet we list countries that pitched in only a fraction of that time (often without official alliance) as such - most strikingly Portugal which only allied with the Netherlands for 7 years (<10%). And when doing so, they mostly helped out with a small force (as did Elizabeth I). Therefore I also find it rather dubious that such heads of state are listed as commander and leader in the 80 years war. Elizabeth never personally lead anything other than England, and Louis XIII did do things of relevance in the larger 30 years war but not specifically in the specific 80 year war engagement (strikingly the word Dutch only appears 3 times in the Louis XIII article and the word Netherlands only once. None of those occurrences are about any lead in the 80 years war.) As is now it seems the commanders / leaders / belligerent include a more or less random selection of countries and their heads of state struggling with Spain at the same time as the Dutch (but why not the German fiefdoms that provide much more support, or Turkey, or any other country....). I would argue this list needs to be cleaned up Arnoutf (talk) 16:02, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Casualties

@2.56.206.98 You didn't adress my concerns (please answer them here) and after reading the websource it is clear the 100,000 figure also includes people killed under Charles V, which is before the Eighty Years War even started. DavidDijkgraaf (talk) 11:24, 16 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

These are also not academic sources. DavidDijkgraaf (talk) 11:28, 16 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Nederlandse Leeuw @Muwatallis II Could you guys take a look at the sources used for the casualty figures. DavidDijkgraaf (talk) 10:19, 19 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's a good question, but a very complicated one that will almost certainly never be answerable with a high degree of precision. For early modern wars such as this one, we usually don't have good estimates, much less accurate data, on how many military personnel, civilians and everyone in between was killed, wounded, missing, defected, deserted etc.
A lot also has to do with definitions and periodisations, for which the Eighty Years' War / the Dutch Revolt is notorious. (I pride myself on having done what I can to bring coverage regarding this conflict into balance on both English and Dutch Wikipedia.)
What is certainly not going help is editwarring over a tiny space in the Infobox military conflict. If there is a place for discussing it, it should be in the spin-off articles Aftermath of the Eighty Years' War and/or Historiography of the Eighty Years' War. After all, this is where we discuss the impact of the war, and what scholars have found and debated. Figures like this are very rough, not precisely calculable facts. It's a conversation about what we know and not know, and what can and cannot reasonably extrapolate. Let's dedicate a section to it, in prose full sentences, not in infoboxes, lists, tables or graphs.
In this prose text section discussing various estimates by scholars, I would suggest including the two figures mentioned in European wars of religion#Death tolls. Not as representative, or a baseline, or outer limits, but as just 2 examples to start with. "Highest and lowest estimates" here are at risk of both WP:SYNTH and WP:UNDUE.
@DavidDijkgraaf Hope this helps. Good night, NLeeuw (talk) 21:38, 20 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Nederlandse Leeuw Thank you. And I totally agree. The problem is that this user wants to insert figures that are not propogated by academic historians and that that 100,000 figure includes protestants who were killed under Charles V. I think you would agree that it doesn't belong anywhere in this article. DavidDijkgraaf (talk) 21:40, 20 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Definitely need other sources to come up with a best guesstimate figure of the losses of such a long war. The recent sources used are very problematic and confusing, so best left as is. Eastfarthingan (talk) 21:53, 20 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Alright, seems more like a conduct issue than a content issue, but I was happy to make suggestions. I might do some edits, too, but not tonight.
I'd encourage you to start with that section, gathering some scholarly estimates and discussing them, and perhaps their methodologies. E.g. including figures from during the reign of Charles V seems out of the question, since rarely anyone considers the war to have broken out before 1566. But the 1566–1567 period is more questionable. And do we include the victims of Alba's "Blood Council" or the "Martyrs of Gorcum"? Or are these executions of civilian prisoners not acts of war to be counted amongst the war-related "casualties"?
Every scholarly source we consider should probably discuss such issues, and motivate why they would include or exclude such groups from their counting. Otherwise we may be comparing Apples and Oranges (pun intended). NLeeuw (talk) 22:48, 20 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The casualties of Alba can arguably be included, but they aren't neccessarily rebel casualties. Hoorne and Egmont did not support the rebel cause for example. DavidDijkgraaf (talk) 08:23, 21 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well, a modern source was added and yet you still removed it. 2.56.206.98 (talk) 08:54, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sources for casualties

Let's gather what we can. I'll start with what is currently stated European wars of religion#Death tolls:

  • c. 600,000 to 700,000 deaths, according to "Victimario Histórico Militar". Archived from the original on 1 July 2018. Retrieved 12 February 2018..
    • With all due respect, ReMilitari.com self-identifies as a forum for military history enthusiasts. There appears to be little editorial control, other than community guidelines. It's unclear by whom and how the Victimario Histórico Militar was put together, aside from a brief introduction and a bibliography. The following line in the introduction stands out (autotranslated): The accounting of victims is open to different interpretations depending on the sources used, the statistical methodology, and the researchers' judgement. All figures are estimates , so we caution against always comparing the data presented here, even though the preparation of this table has been extensively documented. (bold in original). We don't know who the 'researchers' were, how did the 'preparation', and the degree of discretion they exercised in their 'judgement'. Therefore, I am inclined to conclude that the Victimario is a mixture of WP:SELFPUB and WP:SYNTH.
    • However, the Bibliographic Sources or Fuentes Bibliográficas (solo en lengua inglesa) at the bottom of the index are worth considering. Given our subject, based on titles alone, the following sources might contain relevant figures that could serve as WP:RS:
    • Clodfelter, Michael, Warfare and Armed Conflict: A Statistical Reference to Casualty and Other Figures, 1618-1991.
    • Dan Smith, The State of War and Peace Atlas (1997), vThe New State of War and Peace (1991), The War Atlas (1983).
    • Urlanis, Boris, Wars and Population (1971).
    • Bryan Perret, The Battle Book: Crucian conflicts in history from 1469 BC to the present (1992)

Now, IP address user 2.56.206.98 tried several times [1] [2] [3] [4] to add the following, but has been reverted:

  • 100,000 Dutch Protestants killed (1568–1609). Source: Halley's Bible Handbook, 24th ed. 1965.
  • 18,025 English dead. Source: Charles Carlton, This Seat of Mars: War and the British Isles, 1485-1746, Yale University Press, November 2011. Page 54.
  • "Twentieth Century Atlas – Historical Body Count". necrometrics.com.

I haven't yet examined it. I do know that necrometrics.com has been considered unreliable before at European wars of religion, but I can't remember the details right now (to be continued). NLeeuw (talk) 13:25, 21 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

DavidDijkgraaf said about these repeated insertions by the IP: Not clear if this is about soldiers or civilians, and a lot of Dutch civilians and soldiers who died at the hands of the Spanish side weren't even protestant. This figure tells us nothing. Use the talk page if you want to include it. To be fair, it might tell us something, but it is a very incomplete picture, and calling for discussion on the talk page is always a good move when there is disagreement or uncertainty.
The IP 2.56.206.98 said: dont care what they were, multiple sources say 100,000 Dutch killed and thats enough. That's not very constructive. 'Dutch Protestants' and 'Dutch' are not the same, and reverting an edit while saying you 'don't care' about the objections of a fellow editor is commonly considered disruptive editing.
David then restored the previous version with You should care. The Dutch weren´t all catholic and didn´t all support the rebel cause. The figure is misleading and needs explaining. The English figure is also only about British troops in Dutch service in the 1586–1603 period. It doesn´t count British deaths in service of their own army and British deaths in other years. It is also misleading. I am mostly in agreement with David here, but mostly for pragmatic reasons that these are incomplete figures pulled from different sources, crammed into an infobox that doesn't have much space for nuance and explanation. That said, it doesn't mean the figures are wrong or irrelevant, and reverting the edit usually isn't conducive to solving a dispute, even if it is restoring the accepted previous version.
Finally, 2.56.206.98 wrote check the web source, several historians (Gibbon, Motley, Schaff, Eerdman) give the figure of 100,000 Dutch killed, who are you to question them? First of all, WP:AGEMATTERS. Gibbon and Motley are very old and unreliable early historians who did not have modern evidence and critical scholarly standards. Secondly, the IP just continued reverting without any edit summaries anymore. They also never tried to engage in conversation on the talk page, despite multiple attempts from other editors to do so. That is disruptive editing and indicative that they are WP:NOTHERE to build an encyclopaedia, but to push for a certain POV. Note that the IP never tried to add estimates of casualties on the Habsburg side of the conflict, equated 'Dutch Protestants' and 'Dutch', and used a Bible handbook as a source (not necessarily wrong, but a source to use with great caution). I would suggest disciplinary actions to be taken against 2.56.206.98.
Nevertheless, if any of these sources could be consulted and would prove reliable and relevant, they should be considered for inclusion in our potential future Casualties section. NLeeuw (talk) 13:44, 21 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This seems a lot more promising, especially its bibliography:
NLeeuw (talk) 13:57, 21 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Reading this one right now:
It's quite a systemic approach, but its relevance to our problem of casualty rates is unclear, and its scope from 1620 to 1699 of course only partially overlaps with our scope of 1566 to 1648.
This sentence in the introduction struck me as particularly relevant:
Indeed, the Thirty Years’ War (1618–48) is estimated to have killed about five million out of a population of roughly 15 million people, mostly through war-related disease (Eckert, 1996; Theibault, 1997; Voigtländer and Voth, 2013). Most of these casualties were civilians because the number of soldiers was simply too low to impact aggregate death figures (Outram, 2001; Landers, 2005). The presence of armies exposed civilians to unfamiliar pathogens, brought excessive demands on their food supplies, and sometimes forced civilians to flee from danger (Alfani, 2013a: 43–4).
So estimating military deaths and civilian deaths are likely on completely different levels.
Furthermore, they demonstrate that the nature of relationships between military activity / 'war events' (defined as battles, sieges and hostile occupations of towns) and excess mortality in localities is difficult to establish. In other words: we've got lots of information on civilian deaths by church burial records from 327 localities, but we're not always sure why/how they died? Were civilians living within 30 km of a battlefield killed in battle (unlikely, but perhaps passing armies conscripted them or otherwise forced them to participate, or killed them on suspicions of aiding the enemy etc.), killed by passing armies plundering the countryside for food, killed by starvation because passing armies deprived them of food / destroyed their harvest by turning their farmlands into a battlefield, killed by diseases spread by the passing armies, etc.? To my surprise, that last one actually appears to be one of the most common causes of death, caused directly or indirectly when soldiers from passing armies came into contact with local civilians. The epidemics could spread far beyond the 30 km circle around the battlefield due to non-military contacts amongst civilians in the countryside. (Knowledge and understanding of infectious diseases was of course still very limited in this period, and they usually spread far faster than any useful warning of its spread could). The question then of course becomes whether an outbreak of a deadly disease over 100 km away from the battlefield where it was carried to by soldiers can really fairly be attributed to "the war", or rather an almost complete lack of medical science and modern health care to prevent and address lethal infectious diseases. At some point, attribution may become somewhat arbitrary, but van Besouw and Curtis are at least trying. NLeeuw (talk) 14:52, 21 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
PS: I should add that in the examples I gave above, I pretty much assumed the typical civilian who risked dying due to the war was a farmer, and that a typical 'battlefield' should be located in the countryside, but that appears incorrect. Multiple researchers have found that mortality rates in the 17th-century Low Countries did not significantly differ between urban and rural localities affected by war events. Walls may protect townspeople better from enemy soldiers, and towns usually had better health care than the countryside, but diseases spread faster, the risk of famine was higher, and military activity was far more focused on besieging and conquering cities than on raiding farmers or traders in the countryside, because 17th-century armies were simply too large to 'live off the land'. This is something we should keep in mind. But this relatively equal urban/rural civilian death ratio could be different in the 1566-1619 period. NLeeuw (talk) 15:15, 21 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I honestly doubt that there are reliable Eighty Years' War casualty figures that aren't incomplete in some important way. I haven't encountered any myself. DavidDijkgraaf (talk) 11:17, 22 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
allikas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Eighty_Years%27_War