Talk:Jan van Speyk

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One might say that he would be considered a suicide bomber today. Is this a political statement?

And the sailors who blew apart KM Admiral Graf Spee were also suicide bombers? If Van Speijk had deliberately sailed his ship to port and then blown it up to cause casualties then you might have a suicide bombing. Whether his motivation was to kill Antwerpers or to prevent the capture of his ship is entirely another matter. --61.88.82.133 09:30, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, the whole idea of putting Van Speijk amongst terrorists is ludicrous. Moreover, there can hardly be any doubt, that he was not at all bent on killing innocent Antwerp civilians. He indeed only wished to prevent the capture by an armed crowd. At that time the Netherlands were at war with revolting Belgium (by the way: one of the "cleanest" war ever fought, in so far any war can be called clean.)I cannot see any indication of terror, as we understand it, in the act of a military commander, who tries to prevent the capture of his ship. Whether he had better done to capitulate in order to save the lives of his men, is quite another matter.

   Gigault@planet.nl

it is unobvious to me that it would be one of the cleanest wars ever thought, though the scale and duration were somewhat limited.24.132.171.225 (talk) 07:11, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

i'd say it was only 'clean' because it was over before it even started.

i do think there is a lot of ground for 'suicide bomber' in that the whole thing did not serve any military goal (he mostly just killed his own men and destroyed his own ship), killed a lot of innocent bystanders (including his own crew) and seems to have been inspired purely by run-away nationalism (not wanting to surrender). but it's difficult to retro-actively apply such labels: at the time he was considered a dutch national hero. nowadays, not so much (most dutch think he was crazy and a very sore loser) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.35.36.145 (talk) 21:06, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

WP:MILHIST Assessment

I feel as though I've heard of van Speyk before. If I have, then he must be quite important, and worth more than this short article here. Expansion would be wonderful. So would references. LordAmeth 14:50, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

it's nationalism, perhaps you could add that dutch boating heroism was facilitated by the marketing of his exploit, perhaps even that he represents that will of the dutch to sacrifice their lives to serve the nation, or king. but it is quite obvious, allthough he has been studied to some extent in dutch, there really is not that much more known. you might keep in mind that after decolonisation his role in the colonialist expansions is suspect to saythe least. he was quite a monster if i am not mistaken in indonesia. we have a couple of these incongruency's in netherlands, another example is a "van heutz monument" named after yet another colonialist mass murderer. 24.132.171.225 (talk) 07:11, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

final sentence of the article

'Has begun' in stead of 'has began'?

--194.151.163.166 (talk) 12:07, 5 February 2008 (UTC) (Dutch origin)

• Sounds better. I've changed it. Calamarain (talk) 20:27, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Desperate

I've removed the word 'desperate' from alleged cause of the revival of interest in Dutch history. Calamarain (talk) 20:25, 9 July 2008 (UTC) that is acceptable (there's 500k years of dutch history), although i wonder if the militairy need for a professional army that also lies beneath the propagation of those kind of example is not desperate persee.24.132.171.225 (talk) 07:15, 4 October 2009 (UTC)