Dutch States Army in the context of States-General of the Netherlands

Maurice of Orange (Dutch: Maurits van Oranje; 14 November 1567 – 23 April 1625) was stadtholder of all the provinces of the Dutch Republic—except Friesland—from 1585 until his death. Prior to inheriting the title Prince of Orange from his elder half-brother, Philip William, in 1618, he was known as Maurice of Nassau.

Born in Dillenburg, Nassau, Maurice was educated at the Heidelberg University and the University of Leiden. He succeeded his father, William the Silent, as stadtholder of Holland and Zeeland in 1585, and later assumed the same position in Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel (1590), and Groningen (1620). As Captain-General and Admiral of the Union, Maurice reorganized the Dutch States Army, transforming the Dutch Revolt into a disciplined and effective military campaign.

Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne, vicomte de Turenne (11 September 1611 – 27 July 1675), commonly known as Turenne (French: [tyʁɛn]), was a French general and one of only six marshals to have been promoted Marshal General of France. The most illustrious member of the La Tour d'Auvergne family, his military exploits over his five-decade career earned him a reputation as one of the greatest military commanders in history.

Born to a Huguenot family, the son of a Marshal of France, he was introduced to the art of war at a young age. He first served as a volunteer in the Dutch States Army under the orders of his maternal uncles Maurice of Nassau and Frederick Henry before pursuing his career in the service of France, where his noble origins and proven qualities soon saw him rise to the top of the military hierarchy. He rose to prominence during the Thirty Years' War by capturing the fortress of Breisach in 1638. Promoted Marshal of France in 1643, he struck against Bavaria the following year, defeating the Bavarian army in three years of campaigning and forcing the Elector of Bavaria to make peace. The Elector soon broke the treaty and in 1648 Turenne invaded again with Swedish support, subduing the Imperial army at Zusmarshausen and pacifying Bavaria.

The Patriottentijd (Dutch pronunciation: [pɑtriˈjɔtə(n)ˌtɛit] ; lit. 'Time of the Patriots') was a period of political instability in the Dutch Republic between approximately 1780 and 1787. Its name derives from the Patriots (Patriotten) faction who opposed the rule of the stadtholder, William V, Prince of Orange, and his supporters who were known as Orangists (Orangisten). In 1781 one of the leaders of the Patriots, Joan Derk van der Capellen tot den Pol, influenced by the reformer Richard Price and the dissenter Joseph Priestley, anonymously published a pamphlet, entitled Aan het Volk van Nederland ("To the People of the Netherlands"), in which he advocated, like Andrew Fletcher, the formation of civic militias on the Scottish, Swiss and American model to help restore the republican constitution.

Such militias were subsequently organised in many localities and formed, together with Patriot political clubs, the core of the Patriot movement. From 1785 on, the Patriots managed to gain power in a number of Dutch cities, where they replaced the old system of co-option of regenten with a system of democratically elected representatives. This enabled them to replace the representatives of these cities in the States of several provinces, gaining Patriot majorities in the States of Holland, Groningen and Utrecht, and frequently also in the States General. This helped to emasculate the stadtholder's power as he was deprived of his command over a large part of the Dutch States Army. A low-key civil war ensued that resulted in a military stalemate, until in September–October 1787 the Patriots were defeated by a Prussian army and many were forced into exile.

The Royal Netherlands Army (Dutch: Koninklijke Landmacht, KL) is the land branch of the Netherlands Armed Forces. Though the Royal Netherlands Army was raised on 9 January 1814, its origins date back to 1572, when the Staatse Leger was raised making the Dutch standing army one of the oldest in the world. It fought in the Napoleonic Wars, World War II, the Indonesian War of Independence and the Korean War, as well as served with NATO on the Cold War frontiers in West Germany from the 1950s to the 1990s.

Since 1990, the army has been sent into the Iraq War (from 2003) and into the War in Afghanistan, as well as deployed in several United Nations' peacekeeping missions (notably with UNIFIL in Lebanon, UNPROFOR in Bosnia-Herzegovina and MINUSMA in Mali).

Lieutenant-General Thomas Tollemache (c. 1651 – 12 June 1694) was an English Army officer and politician. Beginning his military career in 1673, in 1686 he resigned his commission in protest at the commissioning of Catholic officers into the Army by James II of England. A supporter of military intervention by the Protestant William of Orange against James II, in early 1688 he joined a regiment of the Anglo-Scots Brigade, a mercenary unit in the Dutch States Army.

In November 1688, he accompanied William to England in the Glorious Revolution and shortly afterwards became colonel of the Coldstream Regiment of Foot Guards and MP for Malmesbury. He fought in Flanders and Ireland during the Nine Years' War, as well as being appointed Governor of Portsmouth in 1690 and elected for Chippenham in 1692. In 1694, he was badly wounded at the Battle of Camaret; he died of his injuries on 12 June and was buried in St Mary's Church, Helmingham.