Exercitiegenootschap

An exercitiegenootschap (Dutch pronunciation: [ɛksərˈsitsi.ɣəˌnoːtsxɑp], exercise company) or militia was a military organisation in the 18th century Netherlands, in the form of an armed private organization with a democratically chosen administration, aiming to train the citizens and the lower bourgeoisie in use of muskets. Exercitiegenootschappen were propagated by Joan van der Capellen tot den Pol, who translated an old book (1732) by Andrew Fletcher on arming a nation's citizens and so got the idea from Scotland. He also saw them as necessary due to the serious decline in the existing, Orangist schutterijen.

Exercitiegenootschappen were set up after the Scottish, American and Swiss examples of musket-armed citizens. The expenses of a standing army, the attracting of foreign officers into the national army and the neglect of the navy were all loudly criticised and reform was called for. The leaders of the Patriots tried to seek a solution during the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War, at the cheapest possible cost. Immediately the war (which had begun badly) developed disastrously, a wave of deprivation spreading through the country, and this result of the attempted reform was widely felt as a matter of national shame, with the harrowing contrast between the famous past and the miserable present becoming clear to everyone.

The first exercitiegenootschappen were set up in the beginning of 1783 in Deventer, Dordrecht or Utrecht. Quint Ondaatje was the leader of the exercitiegenootschap in Utrecht, and he soon spoke in deeds as well as words. He knew that the exercitiegenootschappen had to be organized firstly at provincial (and later at national) levels. In 1784 a number of nationally-organized free-corps (vrijcorpsen) signed the Acte van Verbintenis (Act of Agreement), in which they promised to come to the aid of each other as the Patriots saw necessary. This Act especially stimulated the exercitiegenootschappen and vrijcorpsen in the small cities to confidence and action. Gerrit Paape set himself the task of being a historian of these local societies.

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