Pieter Cort van der Linden


Pieter Wilhelm Adrianus Cort van der Linden was a Dutch politician who served as Prime Minister of the Netherlands from 29 August 1913 to 9 September 1918.

Biography

He was the last Prime Minister to lead a liberal cabinet and the last liberal to be Prime Minister until Mark Rutte in 2010. However, the First Rutte cabinet only held a minority in the House of Representatives. One of Cort van der Linden's major achievements was maintaining Dutch neutrality during World War I, although personally he was pro-German.
He also introduced universal suffrage in the Netherlands in what is nowadays known as the Pacification of 1917. Because of this, the Social Democratic Workers' Party and the General League of Roman Catholic Caucuses won the 1918 elections. The Catholic Charles Ruijs de Beerenbrouck took Cort van der Linden's place as Prime Minister.

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