MAPS AND DRAWINGS OF THE NETHERLANDS

PART IIC: ARCHIVES OF THE CORPS OF ENGINEERS, PLANS OF FORTS AND FORTIFIED TOWNS, 17TH CENTURY - 19TH CENTURY

National Archives of the Netherlands, The Hague

On microfiche

Historical background

From the end of the 16th century onward siege warfare was the major form of military activity in the Netherlands. During the Dutch revolt and Eighty Years war (1568-1648) against Spain, the armies of King Philip II laid siege to Dutch towns like Alkmaar and Breda and Dutch military engineers were ordered by the towns, provinces and the stadholder from the house of Orange-Nassau to plan and build fortifications for their defense. The most famous such engineer was the Dutch scientist Simon Stevin (1548-1620), who invented a new Dutch art of fortification. Later Menno Coehoorn (1641-1702) improved the defenses of the Dutch Republic against the armies of the French king Louis XIV after the invasion of 1672.

Corps of Engineers founded

For the design, construction and improvement of fortifications and flooding-systems detailed military maps and town plans were needed, which were drawn by the corps of engineers founded in 1688 as a specialized branch of the army. This corps continued to be responsible for this activity through the remaining years of the Dutch Republic (1579-1795), the Batavian/French period (1795-1813) and the United Kingdom of the Netherlands after 1814. In this period of more than three hundred years, a large number of towns were mapped in detail by engineers, showing on a large scale the topography, land use, surroundings, rivers, roads, landscape, military buildings and structures. The plans of these military buildings themselves are also available from MMF as Part IIa of this series (M408)

Menno Coehoorn, the corps' first director, based the defenses on well-fortified towns and the flooding of the surrounding area to keep the enemy at a distance. These inundations or so-called "Water-linie" formed the basis of defense of the major cities in the country. At the beginning of the 19th century this system was enlarged so that the western province of Holland could be made completely inaccessible through such artificial flooding. As late as May 1940, such inundations were still used to defend Holland against the German Blitzkrieg, which used airborne attacks to capture the Dutch towns, thus rendering the whole inundation system obsolete in a single blow.

Archive formed

In the many wars fought by the Dutch Republic against enemies such as the Spanish (later Austrian) Habsburgs and the French under Louis XIV and later Napoleon, many maps and plans were drawn forming the basis of the present collection. Because of their military importance these town maps were a coveted possession. They were confiscated by the French after the annexation of the Netherlands in 1810 and sent to Paris as war tribute, but reclaimed by the Dutch with Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo in 1815. After the Dutch defeat at the hands of the Germans in May 1940, the Wehrmacht seized the plans, but fortunately they were returned to the War Department, which then transferred them to the National Archives of the Netherlands in the 1950s.

This is the most complete collection of maps in existence concerning the art of military fortification in the Netherlands. It consists of some 6,500 maps and plans in manuscript drawn by military engineers which were never published for reasons of secrecy. The oldest maps in the collection date from the 16th century with plans of places like Willemstad (North Brabant) designed by Simon Stevin as a new town in 1583 named after the prince and Stadholder, William of Orange. Other plans were drawn on the occasion of famous sieges, like that of Maastricht by the French general Vauban in 1672-1673, or of Bergen op Zoom, besieged by the French under General Luxembourg in 1793. During the French empire other plans were drawn of the improved fortifications designed to repel an expected Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland at Den Helder and Amsterdam in 1799, which were the forerunners of the modern defense line constructed around Amsterdam after 1814 and the inundation-system conceived to protect the major towns of the western part of the country, such as Rotterdam, Utrecht and The Hague.

Importance for research

The plans were originally made for several purposes: they served as a guide for the design of fortifications to be constructed or improved or as an aid in their inspection and maintenance and, when worse came to worse, in their defense in time of war. These military town plans are not only important for the study of military history, but also for the history of cartography since they were not published at the time of their drawing. In contrast to France or Germany, the Netherlands lacked a specialized military service of cartographers for mapping the nation until 1806. For this reason we must rely on these maps drawn by engineers and kept in the War archives as a fundamental source for the history and geography of the country up to the early 19th century. In the course of that century many towns lost their strategic importance and the fortifications were transformed into urban gardens and city parks. Since many of the fortifications are still evident in the landscape, these military town plans are essential for the cultural conservation policies of town councils and to demonstrate the state of the nation's military heritage.

Also available

Part I: Dutch Domestic Maps and Drawings, 16th - 19th centuries

Part IIa: Plans of Buildings (17th - 20th centuries)

Part IIb: Situation plans of forts and fortified towns (18th - 19th centuries)

Special offer: Maps and Drawings of the Netherlands, complete set (4 parts), € 16,595
(total separately € 18,440)