their system on the economic might of early-modern capitalism in the Netherlands, however. Instead of entrusting the supply of bread to government bureaucrats it was contracted out to the firm of Antonio Alvares Machado and Jacob Pereira, two Portuguese-Jewish businessmen, living in Amsterdam; these two were the leading providiteurs general, as William had them called, and the firm organised the entire process of the supply of bread to the Dutch field army from the buying of grain to the timely delivery of bread to the camps at a level sufficient to sustain the large numbers of the Dutch field armies in the subsequent wars with France through the War of Spanish Succession. This logistical support enabled William III to make his daring sortie to capture the strategic fortress of Bonn in 1673, which forced the French to evacuate the occupied Dutch provinces, because their supply lines were cut. In later years the States Army followed the French reforms in other respects also, developing its own array of supply bases in the Spanish Netherlands. This enabled the Dutch not only to match the size of the French field armies, but also to extend their own campaign season in the early Spring. These reforms, combined with the fact that at the end of the Guerre de Holland in 1678 the organisational structure of the army was left in place, while reducing the size of the army to peacetime levels, transformed the States Army to a truly professional "standing army" for the first time. Highlights of its wars and campaigns The States Army was instrumental in keeping the armed forces of far larger European powers, like Spain and France, at bay in a series of armed conflicts during the extended 17th century (1590–1715). Despite the attention that the Nassauvian tactical reforms attracted, both in their own time, and in the recent debates by historians of the Military Revolution, these were in practice less important than the less spectacular, but equally effective, siege-warfare methods that Maurice, William Louis, and their successor Frederick Henry employed to such devastating effect. Their methods in this respect were not as revolutionary as the organisational and tactical reforms, but they made the States Army a formidable offensive force nevertheless in the Eighty Years' War. The same applies in a defensive sense for the engineers who built the new trace italienne-type fortresses in strategic belts that frustrated would-be invaders for