Editing Maurice, Prince of Orange (section)

==Thirty Years' and Eighty Years' War==

Historian [[Jonathan Israel]] places upon Maurice part of the responsibility for the outbreak of the [[Thirty Years' War]] in which Germany was devastated and a large part of its population killed. As noted by Israel,<ref>Israel, Jonathan I. ''The Dutch Republic''. Clarendon Press, 1995, Ch. 21, "The Republic under siege, 1621–1628".</ref> German Protestants were not eager for an all-out confrontation with the Catholics. Maurice significantly helped precipitate such a confrontation by persuading his nephew [[Frederick V, Elector Palatine]], to accept the Bohemian Crown, as well as actively encouraging the Bohemians to [[Defenestrations of Prague|confront Habsburg rule]], providing them 50,000 guilders as well as sending Dutch troops to fight in the doomed [[Battle of the White Mountain]]. This ill-considered decision proved disastrous to the Bohemians, who were thereby plunged into prolonged oppression, and to Frederick who lost his ancestral lands. It also worsened the Dutch Republic's own strategic position.

In 1621 the war with Spain resumed after a 12-year period of truces. The Spanish, led by [[Ambrogio Spinola, marqués de los Balbases|Ambrogio Spinola]], had notable successes, including the [[Siege of Breda (1624)|Siege of Breda]], the old Nassau family residence, in 1625.

Maurice died on 23 April 1625, with the siege still underway. [[Justin of Nassau]] surrendered Breda in June 1625 after a costly eleven-month siege.

[[File:Slag bij Nieuwpoort.jpg|thumb|400px|Maurice at the [[battle of Nieuwpoort]], 1600. By [[Pauwels van Hillegaert]]]]
[[File:Seven United Netherlands Janssonius 1658.jpg|thumb|right|The Seven United Provinces were known as the Netherlands, protagonists of the [[Eighty Years' War]] against Spain, from a 1658 map by [[Janssonius]]]]
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