Willem Jan Knoop
Encyclopedia
William Siborne
William Siborne, Sibourne or Siborn was a British officer and military historian whose most notable work was a history of the Waterloo campaign.-Early life:...
's account of the Battle of Quatre Bras
Battle of Quatre Bras
The Battle of Quatre Bras, between Wellington's Anglo-Dutch army and the left wing of the Armée du Nord under Marshal Michel Ney, was fought near the strategic crossroads of Quatre Bras on 16 June 1815.- Prelude :...
and the Battle of Waterloo
Battle of Waterloo
The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815 near Waterloo in present-day Belgium, then part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands...
, published as History of the war in France and Flanders in 1815 in 1844, in which Siborne disparaged the conduct of the Dutch army at these battles. Siborne's book had caused a furore in The Netherlands as he saw fit to insult the honor of the Dutch army, and of king William II of the Netherlands
William II of the Netherlands
William II was King of the Netherlands, Grand Duke of Luxembourg, and Duke of Limburg from 7 October 1840 until his death in 1849.- Early life and education :...
, who as Prince of Orange had commanded that army at both battles, and was revered as a national hero by the Dutch. As Siborne's book is still in use as a source for Anglophone historiography of the battles, and is still the subject of controversy, Knoop's criticisms are still relevant, and play a role in this controversy.
Biography
Knoop, a lifelong bachelor, was the son of colonel Willem Hendrik Knoop and Henrica Willemina Hartkamp. He spent his early years in BrugesBruges
Bruges is the capital and largest city of the province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is located in the northwest of the country....
(his father was military governor there) where he frequented the library of the Maatschappij der Letterkunde, a Dutch benevolent society, promoting popular education, where he proved a promising autodidact.
He started his military career at age 14 in 1825 as a volunteer in the Sixth Division Infantry in Bruges. In 1829 he was commissioned as a second-lieutenant of infantry. In 1842, with the rank of captain of infantry, he was appointed as professor of strategy, tactics, and military history at the Royal Military Academy
Koninklijke Militaire Academie
The Royal Military Academy is the service academy for the Dutch Army and the Dutch Air Force. Located in Breda, the Netherlands, the KMA has trained future officers since 1828.-Description:...
of the Netherlands at Breda
Breda
Breda is a municipality and a city in the southern part of the Netherlands. The name Breda derived from brede Aa and refers to the confluence of the rivers Mark and Aa. As a fortified city, the city was of strategic military and political significance...
. (As such he was apportioned to the Dutch General Staff). As a reward for his work there he was made a knight in the Order of the Netherlands Lion in 1845.
Duel
This was remarkable, because in 1844 he had become involved in a celebrated scandal. Like many contemporary military men, Dutch officers were prone to duelling, though this was a criminal offense. A colleague of Knoop at the Academy, Professor Bolhuis, had quarrelled with a young cavalry officer, and Knoop had been one of his seconds at the ensuing duelDuel
A duel is an arranged engagement in combat between two individuals, with matched weapons in accordance with agreed-upon rules.Duels in this form were chiefly practised in Early Modern Europe, with precedents in the medieval code of chivalry, and continued into the modern period especially among...
. Unfortunately, Bolhuis had been killed at this duel on February 14, 1844, and Knoop had subsequently been arrested for his participation in this "affair of honor." He was court-martialed and acquitted, but after the prosecution appealed to the High Military Court, sentenced to three years in prison. However, he was soon pardoned by King Wiliam II, and apparently his career did not suffer.
The Siborne Controversy
Though Knoop of course had been only four at the time of the battle, so he had no personal knowledge, he could avail himself of the recollections of many Dutch veterans who had been there, and as a general-staff member he had access to the after-battle reports the Dutch units had made within two days after the battle ended. (These archived reports could have been made available to Siborne, and in one case he appears to have been in actual possession of one, but he never bothered to consult them). As a trained historian, Knoop now started to research these sources and wrote a detailed repudiation of Siborne's book based on all these sources. This book (published with the explicit consent of King William II as a semi-official rebuttal), was received with much enthusiasm in Dutch military circles. When soon thereafter there was a false rumor in the Dutch press that captain Siborne was on his way to demand satisfaction, no less than six officers of horse-artillery spontaneoulsy offered to act as Knoop's seconds, if necessary. But Siborne stayed safely in England.
Knoop's book was soon translated in French and German, and met with much interest in France and Prussia at the time. These translations were sent to the editor of the United Service Magazine, but no acknowledgement was ever received, at least directly. However, many years later Knoop received an indirect indication that his book had registered, when in the February 17, 1855 issue of the English magazine Athenaeum, in a review of another historical article by his hand (quite unrelated) he was introduced as the man "...who acquired his first reputation by an angry and dashing attack on captain Siborne.". Siborne himself, though not deigning to reply directly to Knoop, wrote an indirect reply in a later edition of his work (reprinted in the modern edition) in which he repeated his bold accusations against the Dutch-Belgian troops, and complained about the tone in Knoop's "pamphlet," which he calls "abusive." In defense of his accusations he just states that these are based on the testimony of the officers he surveyed, implying that the word of a British officer and gentleman ought to suffice.
Siborne's book nevertheless became a celebrated source in Anglophone historiography for many secondary accounts of the battles of Quatre Bras and Waterloo, that faithfully perpetuated the many egregious errors of fact and fabrications (willful or accidental) in Siborne's work. His son, Major-general Herbert Siborne, edited and republished his work and his sources in 1891 as Waterloo Letters. Of course, Siborne had his detractors in England also (the Duke of Wellington not being the least of them), but his supporters there seem to have the upper hand. Recently the controversy resurfaced with the attack by David Hamilton-Williams, who used Knoop's rebuttal as one of his sources (though not for his accusations of fraud aimed at Siborne). This apparently earned Hamilton-Williams the enmity of many Siborne-fans, and an avalanche of mostly ad hominem attacks. Of course, because Knoop was favorably mentioned by Hamilton-Williams (though he misspelled his name) he also was drawn into the modern controversy. An example is the attack by Peter Hofschröer
Peter Hofschröer
Peter Hofschröer is a historian who specialises in the Napoleonic Wars. He is a graduate of King's College London and currently lives in Austria....
, a defender of Siborne, on a minor point in Knoop's book in the article linked in the External Links.
Further career
Knoop's military career progressed apace. Though his scholarly work at the Academy did not seem to prepare him for great military advances, he was promoted to colonel in 1858, commanding a regiment at Breda. In 1861 he was promoted to major-general, commanding divisions in Limburg and Noord-Brabant until he temporarily went into politics in 1869. He was a Liberal, unlike many of his colleagues, and as such not very popular with king William III of the NetherlandsWilliam III of the Netherlands
William III was from 1849 King of the Netherlands and Grand Duke of Luxembourg until his death and the Duke of Limburg until the abolition of the Duchy in 1866.-Early life:William was born in Brussels as son of William II of the Netherlands and...
(who had succeeded his father William II in 1850). Probably because of his political leanings he had been offered the post of Minister of War in a Liberal Cabinet in 1862, but he declined. In 1869 he stood for the Second Chamber of the States-General of the Netherlands
States-General of the Netherlands
The States-General of the Netherlands is the bicameral legislature of the Netherlands, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The parliament meets in at the Binnenhof in The Hague. The archaic Dutch word "staten" originally related to the feudal classes in which medieval...
and was elected. This required that he temporarily resigned his commission. But he was recalled to duty during the mobilisation of the Dutch army at the crisis of the Franco-Prussian War
Franco-Prussian War
The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and...
of 1870, during which the Netherlands maintained an armed neutrality. For that reason he had to resign his seat in parliament, as serving officers cannot sit in Dutch parliament. He retired as a lieutenant-general of infantry in 1872.
During his entire career Knoop was a recognized authority on military history. In 1847 he became a contributor to the literary magazine De Gids that published many scholarly articles on historical subjects. As such he became a friend and colleague of the eminent Dutch historian Robert Fruin
Robert Fruin
Robert Jacobus Fruin was a Dutch historian, who as a follower of Leopold von Ranke introduced the scientific study of history in The Netherlands, when he was professor of Dutch national history at Leiden University.-Biography:Fruin, a lifelong bachelor, studied classical philology at Leiden...
, with whom he sometimes had friendly disputes. He was the editor-in-chief of the Dutch military history journal Militaire Spectator from 1849 till 1869. His renown as a historian earned him a membership of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences is an organisation dedicated to the advancement of science and literature in the Netherlands...
in 1857.
He also was president of the Vereeniging tot beoefening van de krijgswetenschap (Society for military arts and science) for many years.
In retirement he remained very active as a military scholar, writing many articles, and eventually publishing eleven volumes in a standard work on stadtholder William III. A listing of his works, and many of those articles, are available online in the Digital library for Dutch literature
Digital library for Dutch literature
The Digital Library for Dutch Literature is a website about Dutch language and Dutch literature. The website contains thousands of literary texts, secondary literature and additional information, like biographies, portrayals etcetera, and hyperlinks...
(see External Links).
Knoop died almost eighty-three years old in 1894.