William Louis of Nassau-Dillenburg ( nl, Willem Lodewijk; fry, Willem Loadewyk; 13 March 1560,

Dillenburg Dillenburg, officially Oranienstadt Dillenburg, is a town in Hesse's Gießen region in Germany. The town was formerly the seat of the old Dillkreis district, which is now part of the Lahn-Dill-Kreis. The town lies on the German- Dutch holiday road ...

Hesse Hesse (, , ) or Hessia (, ; german: Hessen ), officially the State of Hessen (german: links=no, Land Hessen), is a States of Germany, state in Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt. Two other major histor ...

– 13 July 1620,

Leeuwarden Leeuwarden (; fy, Ljouwert, longname=yes /; Town Frisian: ''Liwwadden''; Leeuwarder dialect: ''Leewarden'') is a city and municipality in Friesland, Netherlands, with a population of 123,107 (2019). It is the provincial capital and seat of the ...

, Netherlands) was Count of

Nassau-Dillenburg The County of Nassau was a German state within the Holy Roman Empire and later part of the German Confederation. Its ruling dynasty, the male line of which is now extinct, was the House of Nassau. Origins Nassau, originally a county, developed ...

from 1606 to 1620, and

stadtholder In the Low Countries, ''stadtholder'' ( nl, stadhouder ) was an office of steward, designated a medieval official and then a national leader. The ''stadtholder'' was the replacement of the duke or count of a province during the Burgundian and H ...

Friesland Friesland (, ; official fry, Fryslân ), historically and traditionally known as Frisia, is a province of the Netherlands located in the country's northern part. It is situated west of Groningen, northwest of Drenthe and Overijssel, north of ...

Groningen Groningen (; gos, Grunn or ) is the capital city and main municipality of Groningen province in the Netherlands. The ''capital of the north'', Groningen is the largest place as well as the economic and cultural centre of the northern part of t ...

, and

Drenthe Drenthe () is a province of the Netherlands located in the northeastern part of the country. It is bordered by Overijssel to the south, Friesland to the west, Groningen to the north, and the German state of Lower Saxony to the east. As of Nov ...

Life

William Louis was the eldest son of

John VI, Count of Nassau-Dillenburg Count John VI of Nassau-Dillenburg (22 November 1536 – 8 October 1606) was the second son of William the Rich and the younger brother of William the Silent. He has a special place in the history of the Netherlands because he is the male-lin ...

and his first wife,

Elisabeth of Leuchtenberg Elisabeth of Leuchtenberg (born: March 1537- died: 6 July 1579 in Dillenburg) was the daughter of Landgrave George III, Landgrave of Leuchtenberg and Margravine Barbara of Brandenburg-Ansbach (1495-1552). After her death, the German theologian C ...

. He served as a cavalry officer under

William the Silent William the Silent (24 April 153310 July 1584), also known as William the Taciturn (translated from nl, Willem de Zwijger), or, more commonly in the Netherlands, William of Orange ( nl, Willem van Oranje), was the main leader of the Dutch Re ...

. Together with his cousin (and brother-in-law)

Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange Maurice of Orange ( nl, Maurits van Oranje; 14 November 1567 – 23 April 1625) was ''stadtholder'' of all the provinces of the Dutch Republic except for Friesland from 1585 at the earliest until his death in 1625. Before he became Prince o ...

, he commanded the

Dutch States Army The Dutch States Army ( nl, Staatse leger) was the army of the Dutch Republic. It was usually called this, because it was formally the army of the States-General of the Netherlands, the sovereign power of that federal republic. This mercenary army ...

and helped plan the military strategy of the

Dutch Republic The United Provinces of the Netherlands, also known as the (Seven) United Provinces, officially as the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands (Dutch: ''Republiek der Zeven Verenigde Nederlanden''), and commonly referred to in historiography ...

against Spain from 1588 to 1609. William Louis played a significant part in the

Military Revolution The Military Revolution is the theory that a series of radical changes in military strategy and tactics during the 16th and 17th centuries resulted in major lasting changes in governments and society. The theory was introduced by Michael Roberts i ...

of the 16th–17th centuries. In a letter to his cousin

which he composed on 8 December 1594, he set out (from reading

Aelianus Tacticus Aelianus Tacticus ( grc-gre, Αἰλιανὸς ὀ Τακτικός; fl. 2nd century AD), also known as Aelian (), was a Greek military writer who lived in Rome. Work Aelian's military treatise in fifty-three chapters on the tactics of the Gree ...

) an argument based on the use of ranks by soldiers of Imperial Rome as discussed in Aelian's Tactica. Aelian was discussing the use of the counter march in the context of the Roman sword

gladius ''Gladius'' () is a Latin word meaning "sword" (of any type), but in its narrow sense it refers to the sword of ancient Roman foot soldiers. Early ancient Roman swords were similar to those of the Greeks, called '' xiphe'' (plural; singular ''xi ...

and spear

pilium The ''pilum'' (; plural ''pila'') was a javelin commonly used by the Roman army in ancient times. It was generally about long overall, consisting of an iron shank about in diameter and long with a pyramidal head, attached to a wooden shaft ...

. William Louis in a 'crucial leap' realized that the same technique could work for men with firearms. :" I have discovered evolutionibus term that would eventually be translated as "drill"a method of getting the musketeers and others with guns not only to practice firing but to keep on doing so in a very effective battle order (that is to say, they do not fire at will or from behind a Just as soon as the first rank has fired, then by the drill hey have learnedthey will march to the back. The second rank either marching forward or standing still, will then fire just like the first. After that the third and following ranks will do the same. When the last rank has fired, the first will have reloaded, as the following diagram Geoffrey Parker (2008) p 21, footnote 4 On 25 November 1587, he married his cousin, Anna of Nassau, daughter of

and

Anna of Saxony Anna of Saxony (23 December 1544 – 18 December 1577) was the heiress of Maurice, Elector of Saxony, and Agnes, eldest daughter of Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse. Maurice's only son, Albert, died in infancy. Anna was the second wife of William t ...

, and older sister of Maurice of Nassau. Anna died less than six months later on 13 June 1588, and William Louis never remarried. He was nicknamed ''"Us Heit"'' ( West Frisian for "our father"). He died in his home, the Stadhouderlijk hof in Leeuwarden, the city which honored him with a statue on the government square. His body was laid to rest in the Grote of Jacobijnerkerk.

Ancestors

References

External links

* * * , - , - , - {{Authority control 1560 births 1620 deaths People from Dillenburg Dutch stadtholders Dutch people of the Eighty Years' War (United Provinces) German Calvinist and Reformed Christians House of Nassau Counts of Nassau 17th-century Dutch military personnel