I doubt there will be many from the entente, but it’s might be a thing. On the other hand that would benefit the central powers much more as they will significantly man power constrained. It’s a bit like the British policy towards French sailors they never exchanged them as they were more valuable than their British equivalent due to manpower shortages.
A Better Rifle at Halloween
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True but a lot of Belgians (30,000ish) were interned in the Netherlands when they were driven back and if they structured it as a committee that agreed to swaps based on similar principles to prisoner swaps the benefits to the Belgians, and political benefits to the Brits for helping out their allies, outweigh the additional, and equal manpower the Germans would receive. The Belgians will also be spending a lot of money at BSA buying all the Lewis guns they can at this point to maximize their firepower which would pour lots of money into the economy and generate interest in keeping the happy.
In this timeline holding liege for longer and Antwerp never falling means that the Belgian army remains intact. Very few if any Belgians are interned. The biggest issue with the Dutch will be allowing the use of Antwerp for warlike materials. Not sure if the neutrality rules allow it? I will look into it.
IYTM the Scheldt Estuary.
As to "neutrality rules": food, coal, and motor fuel could certainly pass through; also civilians. Military equipment and personnel, possibly not. The question is whether the Netherlands would actively enforce any such restrictions. With the defeat of the Germans in Belgium - Antwerp holding out and Brussels soon to be recovered - ISTM that the Netherlands will be much more friendly to the Entente than to Germany, and will turn a blind eye to military goods coming to Antwerp via the Scheldt. Germany and Austria are also doing badly in the east. So Entente victory seems certain, if not imminent, and the Netherlands would prefer to go with the winners.
It looks like the British in otl didn’t want the Germans to invade the Netherlands and so didn’t force the issue.
Interesting article on the subject
Flushing
The Netherlands abandoned a long-standing policy of neutrality after World War II. The Dutch are engaged participants in international affairs.
That is the case at the moment but if the front line hardens along the Meuse it would be very handy to be able to bring goods in through Antwerp better rail connections towards the front line. Certainly food and the like will still travel via Antwerp by the advantages of being able to use its massive docks to handle things like 9.2” guns is not to be discounted. The question is which way will the Dutch go. A Germany which is well on the way to losing the war is less able to voice its displeasure vs a Germany rampant.
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I suspect they might struggle, but not too badly. They wouldn't pick any orders for the US Army, (which never hurts the bottom line), for their deployment to Europe, but, if they can get an agent to Europe, especially if they can get into liberated Belgium, arrange to sell, (at a small profit admittedly), their full range to the Belgian Red Cross, that could be the next bast thing. It would make Lodge a household name on this side of the Atlantic too.
That's a very odd piece. There's no attribution; its style looks like it was written in the 1920s or 1930s, and by someone with an ax to grind against the British Foreign Office.It looks like the British in otl didn’t want the Germans to invade the Netherlands and so didn’t force the issue.
Interesting article on the subject
Flushing
The Netherlands abandoned a long-standing policy of neutrality after World War II. The Dutch are engaged participants in international affairs.premium.globalsecurity.org
Yarrow plans
15th October 1914, Gosport.
Sir Alfred Yarrow was back from a meeting at Gosport, the meeting was attended by Percy Ludgate, Admiral Scott, Eustace Tennyson d’Eyencourt and Lord Rayleigh. They had been visiting the Admiralty Experimental Works at Haslar, whilst he was there, to discuss the new Ludgate devices that were to be installed. Lord Rayleigh was to chair a new committee which was to investigate the use of the Ludgate Machine to enable successive approximations of partial differential equations, this would enable both faster and better calculations for a variety of engineering problems.
The first Ludgate device was going to go into the offices at No 1 Ship Tank. This would device was to be used to speed hull design calculations, with the intention of improving the speed, seakeeping and efficiency of new hulls. The engineers and operators who would use this system were being trained in its operation and it was intended to have it fully operational by the end of November.
The second machine would be installed in the Admiralty Fuel Experimental Station, this machine would be used much like the hydrodynamics machine, in that it would be used to speed various boiler design calculations. In addition to these two machines a third machine would be used to develop better mathematical solutions for both Hydrodynamics and for thermodynamics, this machine would be controlled by the Admiralty and report to Lord Rayleigh’s committee.
Sir Alfred was fascinated by Lugate’s design, he had been made aware of the Ludgate device in August, with several devices promised to his various businesses, Yarrow realised that faster calculations would completely revolutionise engineering allowing for designers who embraced the new methods to eschew the previous rules of thumb needed to ensure safety. He was absolutely determined that his own companies would be at the forefront of this new field. He would summon his son down from the shipyards in Glasgow tomorrow, they would plot a course to develop their own device, rather than simply depend on Ludgate for further innovation and supply.
Sir Alfred had also taken the opportunity to champion the newest Yarrow Small tube boilers, he had spoken to both Admiral Scott and the Tennyson d’Eyencourt about them. Stating that he was going to deliver a new prototype for testing that would give a higher operating pressure with the speed and efficiency improvements that would entail. He went on to discuss how these higher-pressure boilers would have a smaller footprint that the current boilers, with higher power output and higher efficiency.
The Admiralty had suspended the construction of new large vessels, with materials and personnel reallocated to other work, d’Eyencourt was taking advantage of this delay to reconsider certain design elements of ships under construction. It was rumoured and he did nothing to dispel it that the two R class battlecruisers might be scrapped on the stocks. Events at Thornton Bank having weakened the Admiralties faith in the Battlecruiser concept, even Admiral Fisher was rethinking his previous support. The crushing of the East Asia Squadron by a Japanese squadron was also sending shock waves through the Admiralty, Japan was a valued ally, but they had just defeated another European navy in an even more one-sided manner, than that suffered by the Russians.
Looking into the future it was obvious that the Royal Navy would have greater obligations in the Pacific as trade and rivalries grew. Their ships would need the range and speed to operate in those vast waters so distant from support and Yarrow would build those ships if he could. Sir Alfred was confident that his yards and factories would be busy after this war, but his company was renowned for building fast ships and he wanted to use every technological edge he could to maintain that reputation. Civilian ship building would also demand improved range and speed as markets in Asia developed further.
Other than in specialised ships engineering, the other area in which Yarrow could see a real role for these devices was in general business operations, and he would ensure that his development team consider these applications in their design work. The biggest barrier to general operation of the machines, that he could see was in entering information into them. They were equipped with a punch card system for both data recording and reading, this was a complexity which slowed down their use and would restrict the spread of the devices into the mundane non-engineering world. They would need to be easier to use if they were to gain widespread acceptance.
Sir Alfred would summon his son down from Scotland in the morning, he would need to be aware of his plans and he would have his own opinions on what could and should be done to capitalise on this opportunity.
Sir Alfred Yarrow was back from a meeting at Gosport, the meeting was attended by Percy Ludgate, Admiral Scott, Eustace Tennyson d’Eyencourt and Lord Rayleigh. They had been visiting the Admiralty Experimental Works at Haslar, whilst he was there, to discuss the new Ludgate devices that were to be installed. Lord Rayleigh was to chair a new committee which was to investigate the use of the Ludgate Machine to enable successive approximations of partial differential equations, this would enable both faster and better calculations for a variety of engineering problems.
The first Ludgate device was going to go into the offices at No 1 Ship Tank. This would device was to be used to speed hull design calculations, with the intention of improving the speed, seakeeping and efficiency of new hulls. The engineers and operators who would use this system were being trained in its operation and it was intended to have it fully operational by the end of November.
The second machine would be installed in the Admiralty Fuel Experimental Station, this machine would be used much like the hydrodynamics machine, in that it would be used to speed various boiler design calculations. In addition to these two machines a third machine would be used to develop better mathematical solutions for both Hydrodynamics and for thermodynamics, this machine would be controlled by the Admiralty and report to Lord Rayleigh’s committee.
Sir Alfred was fascinated by Lugate’s design, he had been made aware of the Ludgate device in August, with several devices promised to his various businesses, Yarrow realised that faster calculations would completely revolutionise engineering allowing for designers who embraced the new methods to eschew the previous rules of thumb needed to ensure safety. He was absolutely determined that his own companies would be at the forefront of this new field. He would summon his son down from the shipyards in Glasgow tomorrow, they would plot a course to develop their own device, rather than simply depend on Ludgate for further innovation and supply.
Sir Alfred had also taken the opportunity to champion the newest Yarrow Small tube boilers, he had spoken to both Admiral Scott and the Tennyson d’Eyencourt about them. Stating that he was going to deliver a new prototype for testing that would give a higher operating pressure with the speed and efficiency improvements that would entail. He went on to discuss how these higher-pressure boilers would have a smaller footprint that the current boilers, with higher power output and higher efficiency.
The Admiralty had suspended the construction of new large vessels, with materials and personnel reallocated to other work, d’Eyencourt was taking advantage of this delay to reconsider certain design elements of ships under construction. It was rumoured and he did nothing to dispel it that the two R class battlecruisers might be scrapped on the stocks. Events at Thornton Bank having weakened the Admiralties faith in the Battlecruiser concept, even Admiral Fisher was rethinking his previous support. The crushing of the East Asia Squadron by a Japanese squadron was also sending shock waves through the Admiralty, Japan was a valued ally, but they had just defeated another European navy in an even more one-sided manner, than that suffered by the Russians.
Looking into the future it was obvious that the Royal Navy would have greater obligations in the Pacific as trade and rivalries grew. Their ships would need the range and speed to operate in those vast waters so distant from support and Yarrow would build those ships if he could. Sir Alfred was confident that his yards and factories would be busy after this war, but his company was renowned for building fast ships and he wanted to use every technological edge he could to maintain that reputation. Civilian ship building would also demand improved range and speed as markets in Asia developed further.
Other than in specialised ships engineering, the other area in which Yarrow could see a real role for these devices was in general business operations, and he would ensure that his development team consider these applications in their design work. The biggest barrier to general operation of the machines, that he could see was in entering information into them. They were equipped with a punch card system for both data recording and reading, this was a complexity which slowed down their use and would restrict the spread of the devices into the mundane non-engineering world. They would need to be easier to use if they were to gain widespread acceptance.
Sir Alfred would summon his son down from Scotland in the morning, he would need to be aware of his plans and he would have his own opinions on what could and should be done to capitalise on this opportunity.
Ummm.... be careful, really careful here.
Sure, mechanical computers will help with simple math, artillery plotting and the like, but hydrodynamics? No way.
The speed of these machines is, AFAIK, in operations per second, not thousands or millions.
Look at when such calculations became practical iOTL. Hint - it wasn't with Eniac or even IBM 360 mainframes. A lot of those calculations required supercomputers, and even then were pretty limited.
It took a long time for physical modeling in wave tanks to be superceded.
But the people looking at the shiny new tech don't (yet) appreciate this.
And even then, it only has to provide a useful improvement over existing methods - slide rule, log tables, nomographs and hand calculations.
On the subject of numerical modelling, I am not and never have suggested that we will see anything like modern numerical methods (Finite Element, Finite Difference, Discrete Element Method) modelling in 1914. I have professional experience with DEM and been have published on the subject back in the distant past, so I have some understanding of its limits and requirements.
But people including Galerkin in Moscow and Rayleigh and Ritz were all working on various methods that would evolve over time into modern numerical computing. Successive approximation methods would undoubtably be improved by access to the Ludgate device, simple models for things like modelling fluid behaviour using the Navier stokes equations would help with pump design, hull form design, fluid flow in pipes etc.
You won't see a 1919 steam turbine design which is fully modelled but a better understanding of heat flow allowing an earlier improvement in a yarrow boiler may be a thing, or looking at flow over a surface might improve the shape of a turbine blade.
When everything has to be modelled at scale and then built 12 inches to the foot, the ability to do better initial calculations is extremely valuable.
I don't really want to get into a great argument about what can and can't be calculated with a mechanical computer but we are looking at it from the wrong end. If you have a piece of paper and enough time you can do finite difference calculations by hand, I seem to remember doing them at university, so a ludgate device is going to speed the process.
Could the adoption of the Ludgate device lead to a much earlier adoption of the metric system in the British Empire? Perhaps by demonstrating how much faster the calculations can be run in metric compared to imperial. The man-hour savings alone should have led to its early adoption anyway, but a clear example of a machine beating itself, or rather a near identical machine, to the same result might help ram that home to a businessman and owner of an engineering firm like Sir Alfred Yarrow.
Sigh. So much wasted time spent crunching so many unnecessary numbers at great expense.