The Royal Netherlands Army (Koninklijke Landmacht, "KL") is the land forces element of the military of the Netherlands. The Royal Netherlands Army was raised on 9 January 1814, but its origins date back to 1572, when the so-called Staatse Leger was raised. Therefore, the Netherlands is regarded to be one of the countries that have maintained the oldest standing army, dating back to the 16th century. It fought during the Napoleonic Wars, World War II, the Indonesian War of Independence, Korean War, and served with NATO on the Cold War frontiers in Germany from the 1950s to the 1990s. Since 1990 the army has deployed to the Iraq War from 2003 and the War in Afghanistan (2001-present), as well as a number of United Nations peacekeeping deployments, notably with UNIFIL in Lebanon, and UNPROFOR in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1992–1995.
Read more about Royal Netherlands Army: Structure, Union, Rank Structure
Famous quotes containing the words royal, netherlands and/or army:
“An Englishman, methinks,—not to speak of other European nations,—habitually regards himself merely as a constituent part of the English nation; he is a member of the royal regiment of Englishmen, and is proud of his company, as he has reason to be proud of it. But an American—one who has made tolerable use of his opportunities—cares, comparatively, little about such things, and is advantageously nearer to the primitive and the ultimate condition of man in these respects.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Greece is a sort of American vassal; the Netherlands is the country of American bases that grow like tulip bulbs; Cuba is the main sugar plantation of the American monopolies; Turkey is prepared to kow-tow before any United States pro-consul and Canada is the boring second fiddle in the American symphony.”
—Andrei Andreyevich Gromyko (1909–1989)
“The army is always the same. The sun and the moon change. The army knows no seasons.”
—Frank S. Nugent (1908–1965)