Navy of the Kingdom of Holland

The navy of the Kingdom of Holland (Dutch: marine van het Koninkrijk Holland) existed from 1806 to 1810. Founded in June 1806 after Napoleon transformed the Batavian Commonwealth into a kingdom ruled by his brother Louis Bonaparte, the Dutch navy inherited its ships from the Batavian Navy, which had been severely weakened by mutinies and British naval attacks. Most of the Dutch navy was blockaded in European ports by the Royal Navy, and its ships in the Dutch East Indies were destroyed in a British campaign. The Dutch navy resisted the British Walcheren Campaign, but its poor performance led Napoleon to annex Holland to France in 1810, with the navy becoming part of the French Navy on 1 January 1811.

Navy of the Kingdom of Holland
Marine van het Koninkrijk Holland
The navy's ensign from 1807 to 1810
Active	1806–1810
Country	Kingdom of Holland
Branch	Navy
Engagements	Napoleonic Wars
Commanders
Notable commanders	Carel Hendrik Ver Huell Pieter Hartsinck Arnold Adriaan Buyskes

History

Founded in June 1806 after the Batavian Commonwealth was transformed by Napoleon into a kingdom ruled by his brother Louis Bonaparte, the Dutch navy assumed control over the ships and administrative infrastructure of the Batavian Navy, which in 1805 consisted of 15 ships of the line, 10 frigates and three corvettes.^[1] At the time of its founding, the Dutch navy had been reduced to a "third-rate force", having been weakened by a series of mutinies and losing much of its fleet to the British navy or accidents.^[2][3] The majority of the navy's sailors were recruited from Friesland, Zeeland or abroad. Like its Batavian predecessor, the Dutch navy recruited officers from the merchant marine to fill open positions.^[4]

For the duration of its existence, most of the Dutch navy, like the Batavian Navy before it, was blockaded in its European ports by the Royal Navy, and as such unable to put to sea. When Dutch warships slipped past the blockades, "their voyages often ended in disaster".^[5] As a result, there were "[no] naval operations of importance... undertaken by Holland" during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.^[6][7] As the Dutch East India Company had been liquidated in 1799 and its assets taken over by the state, the Dutch navy took over responsibility for defending the Dutch East Indies.^[7] Vice-admiral Carel Hendrik Ver Huell, one of the Dutch navy's most senior officers, was appointed by Louis as Minister of the Navy in 1806.^[8] The position, which had originated after the Dutch admiralties were abolished in 1795, "operated as the chief of naval administration".^[9]

In August 1806, sailors of the Dutch navy's Texel and Amsterdam squadrons mutinied in response to the introduction of the Batavian flag onboard their ships. Several mutineers declared their refusal to swear an oath of allegiance to Louis or obey orders issued by his officers. Dutch authorities immediately moved to suppress the mutiny, with Vice-admiral Jan Willem de Winter shooting one mutineer in the head at point-blank range. To placate the mutineers, officials ordered the Statenvlag to be hoisted aboard their ships, which brought the mutiny to an end. The Statenvlag subsequently became the Dutch navy's de facto ensign, which was made official by a royal decree Louis issued on 1 December 1807; the decree renamed the flag as the Koninklijke Hollandsche Vlag ("Royal Flag of Holland"). However, some of the navy's units, such the Zeeland squadron, disobeyed the decree and continued to sail under the Batavian flag.^[10]

To defend the Dutch East Indies, a naval squadron of ten warships crewed by over 2,000 servicemen under Vice-admiral Pieter Hartsinck had been sent to Batavia between 1802 and 1804.^[11][12] Once arriving in the East Indies, Hartsinck's squadron, which did little beyond patrolling the northern coast of Java from Surabaya, quickly deteriorated from a lack of supplies and manpower.^[11] In the Java campaign of 1806–1807, the squadron was systematically tracked down and destroyed in a series of targeted attacks by Royal Navy forces under Rear-admiral Sir Edward Pellew, who was concerned about the threat it posed to British shipping in the region.^[13] From 1808 to 1811, Herman Willem Daendels, the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies, attempted to rebuild the Dutch navy's strength in the East Indies by ordering the construction of a series of gunboats, though this failed to prevent the British from occupying Java in 1811.^[7]

In 1807, Louis dismissed Ver Huell as Minister of the Navy, suspecting he was acting more in Napoleon's interests, and appointed him as the Dutch ambassador to France. However, in 1809 Ver Huell temporarily took command of the Dutch navy and resisted the British Walcheren Campaign in concert with French forces.^[14][15] Napoleon, angered by the Dutch military's poor performance during the campaign, annexed Holland to France on 9 July 1810.^[5] The Dutch navy, then numbering 13 ships of the line, five frigates and four corvettes, was incorporated into the French Imperial Navy on 1 January 1811. In 1813, Russo-Prussian troops liberated Holland from French rule as part of the War of the Sixth Coalition, with the newly-established United Netherlands forming the Royal Netherlands Navy in the same year.^[1][5] Under the terms of the 1814 Treaty of Paris which ended the war, French warships of the Den Helder and Antwerp squadrons were transferred to the Dutch navy.^[16]