Uploaded April 2018 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
In this lecture, Violent Soen (Professor of History at Leuven University, Belgium and the P.P. Rubens Visiting Professor at the UC Berkeley Department of History) argues that the Habsburg strategy for the pacification of the Dutch Revolt went beyond mere military strategy, involving diplomacy as well. Members of the Habsburg regime indeed ended up with a twin-track policy seeking to increase the potential of military and diplomatic pacification strategies. Even so, the Habsburg offer for negotiation caused constant discord amongst rebels, culminating in the negotiated reconciliation of the Union of Arras in 1579 and the refusal thereof by the Union of Utrecht with the Act of Abjuration in 1581. These acknowledgments offer new evidence to the present reinterpretation of the Dutch Revolt as a civil war, since not only the decision to rebel but also the option to negotiate and reconcile caused deep divisions in society.
In this lecture, Violent Soen (Professor of History at Leuven University, Belgium and the P.P. Rubens Visiting Professor at the UC Berkeley Department of History) argues that the Habsburg strategy for the pacification of the Dutch Revolt went beyond mere military strategy, involving diplomacy as well. Members of the Habsburg regime indeed ended up with a twin-track policy seeking to increase the potential of military and diplomatic pacification strategies. Even so, the Habsburg offer for negotiation caused constant discord amongst rebels, culminating in the negotiated reconciliation of the Union of Arras in 1579 and the refusal thereof by the Union of Utrecht with the Act of Abjuration in 1581. These acknowledgments offer new evidence to the present reinterpretation of the Dutch Revolt as a civil war, since not only the decision to rebel but also the option to negotiate and reconcile caused deep divisions in society.
