Exploiting the Urban System? The Frictions of Military Finance and Diplomacy in the Dutch Republic, 1688–1714

What is it about?

How did early modern states overcome the problems of finance and diplomacy when key financial and diplomatic centres were not in one city but scattered across several? This article argues that in the Dutch Republic between 1689 and 1713, military agents were able to organise their residence and mobility and develop ways to overcome these problems within the Dutch urban cluster of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, and other cities. Indeed, the process even offered substantial opportunities, providing acess to other sources of capital. It was all managed so efficiently that it is only on the rare occasions that it went wrong that these solutions come into focus, as this article shows.

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Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash

Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash