I will look more into this now, and it's good to know that someone in Ireland is interested in Dutch history.Maraveno said:Dutch Seamanship and Naval power however allways was a fear for the britishrokkolpo said:To be fair, from one dutchman to another.Maraveno said:you forget the dutchMastermax009 said:You are completely correct, Britain where the best when it came to naval warfare at the time, in fact the only ones who came close where the Danes, who where beaten during "Slaget på Reden" by Admiral Horatio Nelson. Who actually commented that the Danes had shown more battle spirit than any others he had ever fought in all of his sea-battles, by that a small victory was won by the Danes although we lost the battle itself.captainfluoxetine said:know why?
Cos Britaaaaniiia ruuullle the waaaaves!
Least we did till we Ebayed the Ark Royal.
The english crapped their pants when the dutch came round
Might have something to do with the time the dutch sailed in burned chatham to the ground and took the HMS royal charles with them just to scrap it
Or that time the dutch sailed in landed some few thousand men marched on london and put their I believe it was Willem 3 on the throne
Which by the way still leads to a dutch claim to the english throne somewhere if dozens of heirs suddenly died right now
My point being The dutch ruled the waves Brittain should accept that and not go be a proud bunch of nobs cause they beat the french
Neither should the french be proud because most of their naval victories were only achieved by calling in auxiliary dutch captains
Edit : Oh and we should also account that the Dutch east indian company Controlled the indies and the Dutch West Indian company was the primary player in the slave trade and buccaneering trade
You know kicking the spanish in the gut by stealing their treasure fleets and knocking off british ships before the cape left and right
In the four dutch-english wars. The British did finally annihilate use by the fourth.
Even though we gave them hell for some century's before that.
Afterwards we also got raped by the French. >_>
(Fucking French!)
To quote a captain "I'd rather sail the tide and fight battle through battle with the french than take one clean sail on the surf and face the dutch"
People gravely mistake how strong of a force the dutch have been in history
and by all acounts friend I'm Irish so that argument doesnt quite add up for me
Go down french and british naval records and you'll fight many a dutch name amongst the sailors captains and ships
The dutch fleet you are notioning here that was overpowered by the british in the 4th war
was a greatly decomissioned navy since political prowess has never been a strong feat in the dutch republic
It's a shame but it's true if the dutch would have been able to focus political power the world might have looked so much different these days
*thumbs up* for that. I hardly ever hear someone mentioning the Dutch.