Arms Exports and Export Control of the Dutch Republic 1585–1621

The Dutch Republic underwent a process of state formation, accelerated economic growth and military reforms during the Eighty Years War. In particular between 1585 and 1621, Dutch merchant-entrepreneurs built up a burgeoning arms industry and sector of arms exports. These exports required a system of passports, still an under-researched theme in current literature, organized by the States-General and admiralties in order to support exports to neutral and allied states, but to forestall these did not fall into enemy hands. In particular, the system of passports shows how merchants, acting as intermediaries between allies and the States-General and the admiralties, could meet the volatile demand of war materials. As a result, the supply side of the export market was oligopolistic, but the composition of the group of oligopolists varied depending on the region and the prevailing market conditions in question. From this study it can be concluded that the system of export control had only a limited effectiveness regarding the creative arms exports to Spanish Habsburg destinations, due to divergent central and local interests. However, the major part of the Dutch arms exports flowed to allies such as France, Venice, Sweden and the German protestant states. Dutch merchants provided them with batches of strategic materials and total package-deals of armaments for entire army and navy units. From 1621, the States-General supported these transactions by supplying war materials from the state arsenals fostering timely and largescale deliveries, meeting volatile demand conditions.