An analysis from a Kafkaesque angle.
The last few months of Johan de Witt's life reads like surrealist fiction layered with irony at every turn. Two letters offer a glimpse into his mind. One was written a day after an assassination attempt. The other, on the day he resigned. Two weeks later, he was dead.
"...four men all with naked guns attacked me at once and without saying a word they first stabbed me as much as possible and then cut me in the neck…but however they only infected me with two wounds in the body, one of which is a stab in the right side between the fifth and sixth ribs and the other a stab from behind given about the junction of the sling shoulder…as well as that which has been noted above about my neck and head…
…from which I therefore respectfully request to be allowed to remain dispensed for a better opportunity and disposition."[1]
This is how Johan de Witt chose to report the incident and explain his absence. It needs no analysis—its tone alone says everything. But his other letter, just two months later, reveals a different story.
Fast-forward to the day he resigned as Grand Pensionary, just after the collapse of “True Freedom” and the triumphant rise of William III as stadtholder. De Witt wrote his final letter to Michiel de Ruyter, the Republic’s greatest naval hero and his friend:
“It endured the fall of the cities on the Rhine, the breakthrough of the enemy on the IJssel, and the total loss of the provinces of Gelderland, Utrecht, and Overijssel, almost without resistance, and through an unheard-of betrayal or deceit, not for the honor of any, it has increasingly confirmed the truth of what was once said in the Republic of Rome: "Success has many fathers; failure is an orphan."
So much so that I have experienced and witnessed that the Batavian people have not only sought to place the blame for all these disasters and calamities on my shoulders, but they have not been satisfied even after seeing me unarmed, fall into the hands of four armed men, who, having caused me so much torment, massacred me. But they have also shown me God’s miraculous deliverance from their hands.”[2]
Translation: “Everything’s gone to hell, and apparently, it’s all my fault. At least, that’s the popular consensus.”
But Johan doesn’t lash out in anger or retaliate. Instead, he quietly reflects on it all and resigns. Not out of guilt, but from necessity—there was nothing left that he could do.
This letter, though technically a recounting of experiences with personal commentary, is quite unlike the earlier one. Writing to De Ruyter served no practical purpose. He knew his time in power was over. It was a reach for connection from someone whose greatest "character flaw" was the inability to connect. And it went unanswered.
Johan de Witt wrote plenty of letters(his correspondence numbers well into the five digits). But these two? They stand out. Overshadowed by the bigger moments like his policies, the Rampjaar, the lynching—these letters hold the key to understanding him, or at least trying to. Not the devil, the martyr, or the boring bureaucrat, just him. They’re snapshots of a much larger absurdity, and the ironies that defined both Johan’s life and the Republic.
The Double-Edged Sword of Success
Under Johan's leadership, the Dutch Republic dominated trade and naval warfare. But success came at a cost: the Republic’s obsession with maritime power left its land defenses so fragile that France practically strolled in with a baguette under one arm and a map of Utrecht in the other in 1672. It was like a prototype machine—every province acted like a separate gear, turning at its own pace. This worked well in peacetime, but there was no fail-safe. When crisis hit, the gears weren’t synchronized, and the whole thing broke down like a dike riddled with too many leaks.
The World as an Unsolvable Equation
Johan was a problem-solver at heart. William II died? Time to pay off the national debt. England promoted more Navigation Acts? Build a better fleet. The House of Orange is a huge threat? Push through an edict.
But public opinion was not a control variable. Probability functions can rarely account for opportunistic enemies, broken alliances, and sensationalist propaganda. In 1672, there simply wasn't a solution. Not for him.
The Cog in The Machine
The Republic of "True Freedom" was a decentralized meritocracy in theory, but this was undercut by his reliance on connections to maintain control. The machine depended on him to function, leaving little room for error.
He became not just a cog, but the cog, simultaneously indispensable and expendable. At the time of the letter, the cog had been replaced by a prince, the heroic savior the people wanted. A machine doesn't care about the intentions of its components. So when it broke, the cog was discarded, blamed for the failure, and eaten.
But he was human.
Many thanks to the historians who made his correspondence accessible.
[1] Excerpt from Johan de Witt’s correspondence, transcribed by JohandeWitt.nl. Retrieved from: https://www.johandewitt.nl/minuten-johan-de-witt/minuten-johan-de-witt-januari-t-m-maart-1672/
[2] Johan de Witt’s final letter to Michiel de Ruyter, transcribed in Utrecht University’s Paleography Course. Retrieved from: https://watstaatdaer.nl/oefenen/complete-teksten/uucursus-paleo-de-laatste-brief-van-johan-de-witt-1#oefening-2