Dutch second golden age 2.0

Ceylon will experience an influx of European planter, due to the polocy of Immhoff, which will increase considrably the number of Burghers at Ceylon to such alevel that Dutch ( with lots of Portuguese and native words) become the lingua franca.
In indonesia not much changed, the situation will be only worse due to mis management and no Imhoof who try to improve the situation since he stays in Ceylon.

It might that Jacob Roggeveen will encounter Australia from the South after he stubled upon Eastern Island. And will write an encoraging report of this shores.
 
Denis Papin and Steam engines,

Dennis Papin was a French physicist, mathematician and inventor, worked with Robert Boyle, Gottfried Leibniz and Christian Huygens


In 1709 he was invited by Nicolaes Witsen (Dutch statesman who was mayor of Amsterdam), Only after encouragement of Leibniz he and moved from Great Brittan to Leiden were he start teaching at the university of Leiden. During his teachings he continued with experimenting with steam and pressure devices which combined with teaching of his students. Papin and Leibniz had a regular letter correspondence in which they discussed among other thing the pressure or fire engine. In 1708 he presented his second steam engine, which was a large model build for experimental purposes, nevertheless he made one experiment were a small blocked part of a canal in the city of Leiden was drained in just an afternoon by his steam engine driven pump. This made an impression on the public. He gave full credit to Gottfried Leibniz for this achievement.

However in 1713 he received news of an atmospheric steam engine used in Cornwall to drain mines. By 1714 he was able to get his own piston driven “fire engine’’ working. It was a combination of his own 2nd engine only instead of the second pressure part it was with a piston mechanics resembling the one Thomas Newcomen designed in 1712. The Papin engine had several improvements over the Newcomen engine, of course the safety valve of the boiler, which was not a haystack boiler but had a more economical complete by fire enclosed boiler were the hot air surround the boiler as in his 2nd engine, but more important the steam was cooled by a separate condenser and the cylinder was kept warm by a steam jacket.
Papin was requested to build a similar machine to provide the pressure for the fountains in the garden and waterlines of Boerhave’s house, Poelgeest Castle, near Leiden. He did this after Papin installed a central heating system in the glass greenhouses of Boerhave’s botanical garden.
Meanwhile Papin continued to improve his machine, he wanted to combine the “fire engine” with his other invention the centrifugal pump. Only a pump like this required a much faster revolution than the atmospheric engine he designed until now. In the proses of designing a better engine to power his pump he designed and build a double acting steam engine. In 1716 he and his assistants and metal worker got the first double acting steam engine working. Unfortunately it turned out to be Papin’s last machine.
Since Papin did not patented his engine and he used his engines in his lectures and made use of several tradesmen for the construction of it, several men were familiar with it.
The use of “fire engines” increased during the next decades, ever improved by unknown men who build them. The single acting atmosphere Papin engine and later the double acting engine found its way soon. A drawing and description of Papin steam engine appeared in the books of Jacob Leupold in 1720. One of the first improvement was the combination of crankshaft and large drive wheel which made it finally possible to use the Papin pump. The Papin engine saw even one of their first applications in the industry. Leiden, a textile city, experienced a concentration of, and forced by the relative high labour wages, a growing mechanisation of their textile manufacturing. Fuelled by ever larger quantities of wool coming from the sheep herds of the Cap Colony. In factories wool was spooned by large water powered spinning machines. This water was coming from large basins which were filled by the “fire engines”.
It also appeared between the industry windmills of the Zaan, North of Amsterdam, the first industrial region of the world, where it powered saw mills. But also in the Hague were the State Gun Foundry gradually increased its marked in a metal work shop producing various large metal objects in order to build the very same Papin engines .

The ever increasing demand of filtered water put a strain on the pumps driven by wind mills.
One of the first practical use of an Papin engine was at the dune water works of Haarlem and Amsterdam. And the horses of the sewer pumps inside the city walls were changed for steam engines invented by Papin. Initially Papin himself installed an up scaled versions of his 2nd steam engine, several years later there were piston versions added or replaced by, to the whole water and sewer system

Steam engines.png
 
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Simon van Slingelandt was succeed by the Willem Buys, pensioner of Amsterdam, director of the Society Suriname, fluently in French and a very skilled diplomat. He had close contact with the Whigs in Great Britain and was supporter of close ties with this nation. He prevented in 1731 and in 1733 a war between France and England which would involve the Netherlands as well.

Willem Buys needed all his diplomatic skills and connections to keep the Dutch Republic out of the War of the Austrian Succession which started in 1740, especially when France was involved in it. The Republic declared itself neutral. The declaration of neutrality was made easier since Catharina of Austria refused to pay for the Dutch garrisons of the Barrier cities, as was agreed in the Treaty of Utrecht This prompted the Dutch to with draw their troops, from this barrier cities when war loomed, except from Yper.
Since the Dutch Republic had their finance in order there was room for well maintained, improvement and even new, for Broekburg, fortifications of its border forts an cities. The Dutch already, since the previous war, reinforced their enclave of Graveline , Dunkirk, Broekburg.
Dunkirk, the enclave in the Austrian Netherlands, was by now regarded as a very valuable Naval base. Even the United Provinces were neutral, State Pensioner Buys could convince the Council of States and State General to increase funding for army and fleet and to mobilise the conscripts.

Initially the Austrian Netherlands would declared neutral, by all factions. But in 1744 France declared war to Austria and invaded the Southern Netherlands. One of the first main goals of the 90000 strong army was to recapture the city of Ostend in order to execute an invasion plan to bring James Stuart on the British throne. The French advance went very swiftly at the centre and the other border cities where only occupied by very small Austrian contingent which could not with stand a siege. When the French invaded the Austrian Netherlands they had except for several short sieges almost no resistance. Since Yper was still occupied the Dutch Republic did get involved with the war. Ypres fell after a siege but the Dunkirk enclave resisted the siege the same for the Defence lines in States Flandres at the Southern bank of the river Scheldt close to Antwerp.
To prevent an atmosphere close to that of 1672 when William III made a coup against the State Pensioner, Johan de Wit, Willem Buys asked for the election ofJohan Friso as Stadholder of all provinces and was granted overall command of the State Army.
The UK, now ruled by the House of Hanover also got involved and sent troops to the continent. The Allies determined to stop the French had a bad start. Stadholder Johan Friso insisted to command the Allied troops due to his seniority, however the Duke of Cumberland and the British were insisting that the Duke was in command which he eventually become. This dispute was referred often after the debacle of the battle of Fontenoy were French army under Saxe defeated the advancing Allied army. After this defeat the Dutch declared that their army only was allowed to be commanded by the commander of their preference. Since the Dutch now delivered the bulk of the Allied army Johan Friso became commander.
He moved his army towards Maastricht were the French opened siege trenches in front of Maastricht. Johan Friso manoeuvred his army in a way that it treated the line of retreat of the French and harass their supply and positioned his army at a defensible position. In essence he copied the tactics of Saxe. Saxe trying to evade battle , but was forced to do was defeated in the battle of Raucourt near Liege
Johan Friso repeated this by forcing the French to retreat another time and with this relieving the siege of Bergen op Zoom.
After this battles Willem Buys arranged a separate ceasefire with France which took the Republic de-facto out the war except that the Enclave of Dunkirk was de-facto besieged.
Hostilities flared up when, as part of defensive manoeuvre to prevent French troops invading the Dutch Republic, the Dutch occupied Cleves which was part of the Prussia.
After negotiation Cleve could be kept by the Dutch Republic in return for an anual payment which last 50 years.

At sea various encounters between Dutch and French or Spanish vessels
During the war years the fleet grew more to nearly the same size as the British. The conscript system and army improved drastically.

The war did caused difficulties for overseas trade and plantation colonies on Tobago and Cumana on South America and Leijdzaamheid at the Delagoa bay South Africa were sacked but it over all the Republic of the United Provinces and their numerous trading companies experienced an large increase in their influence and power. The VOC in the years between 1740 and 1746 gained complete control over Ceylon, in an almost textbook example of divide and conquest. A trade consortium of merchants from Frisia, Groningen and East Frisia bought from the Xhosa land to build a trade fort at the Bay of Natal, fort Natalia. At the Gold coast, East of the Danish slave station Fort Fredensborg three more slave forts were established. While in the hinterland at Fort Elmina the first successful plantations emerged. Almost all of them owned by Vrijburghers, people of mixed descent. The trade post on the Congo river Mpinda proved to a profitable place as well. The slaves from West Africa ended on the ever increasing plantations on the rivers sides of the Berbice, Demary, Escecuibo, Suriname, Orinoco, Araya and many plantations on the Islands of Tobago, Trinidad, Curacao and other smaller Caribian islands.
The Consil of States approved even the construction of a complete new city in front of the fort Breskens in the Demary river as an administrative centre of all the colonies in the Guyana’s. Since the VOC left the Cape colony the influx of migrants increased considerable from al kind of regions. Most of them from the Netherlands or Austrian Netherlands but during the Austrian Succession war a considerable number of Germans and French men, deserters, who as contract workers tried their luck on the Cape. The Guyana colonies saw as well an increase of the European population most of them contract workers from France, Prussia, Austria or other German principalities.
 
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Actulally the Dutch Republic porved to be able to with stand the Fench on the battle field but more due to excelent diplomacy the French army retreated from the Dutch main land. The French achieved the war aim, conquering all of the Austrian Nehterlands and march on wards to Hannover.At sea, despite the rading and pillaging of several plantation colonies, which was a severe economic loss the Dutch were able to get the upperhand thanks to the combination of the British and the Dutch fleets.
The French won the war of the Austrian Succesion but returned nearly all the gains it made at the negotiating table at the order of King Louis XIV.
The Dutch republic occupied Cleve at the very last moment, when peace negotiations were ongoiing.
The war porved the advance of a central Admirality and a central Army. The conscipt system, despite the flaws and utter chaos at the start of the mobilisation, proved to be a relative reliable method of keeping an army.
 
most interesting to see us do things the RIGHT way!

Though I'd like for a Kingdom or even an Keizerrijk to be formed ;)
 
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