AHC: Dutch-American War

Challenge: With a POD after 1870, have a 1890s war between the U.S.A. and the Netherlands analogous to OTL Spanish-American War, with two conditions.

1. The main land fighting (and preferably casus belli) are in South America or the Caribbean.

2. The United States gets all or nearly all of the Dutch East Indies in the peace treaty (as an equivalent to OTL Philippines).

Ideas?
 
I don't know. Obviously America could invent some random Casus Belli to attack the Dutch, like they did during the Spanish-American war. The thing is, the Dutch American possession were all relatively far away from the USA and pretty unimportant. They don't have a Cuba, that's basicly an American neighbour. Also, American-Dutch relations were generaly pretty good. I think it would ruin the American reputation around the world. The Netherlands was a small, unimportant, but generaly respected country and everybody knows they wouldn't do something so stupid as to anger America.

Personaly I don't see it happen, but with American imperialism it is technically possible. Unlikely though.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Yeah, this one seems fairly ASB-ish...

It's like having Canada go to war with Denmark, or something...;)

The thing is, the Dutch West Indies are pretty small, not particularly wealthy or adjacent to US territory, and I'm not aware of a Surinamese Libre movement in the 1890s...

The Dutch, like the British and French, were not in the middle of decades-long internal conflict in the West Indies, unlike the Spanish.

And even if Maine or something like her blew up in the harbor at Paramaibo, I don't see the decision-makers in the US leaping at the incident as a causus belli.

Best,
 
Last edited:
I know there's no good reason for it, but that's the whole point; the same was true of the Spanish-American War. I'm not saying the U.S. has to go to war because of some existential threat from Aruba, just that Hearst has to pick a fight with an even more random country than OTL.
 
I know there's no good reason for it, but that's the whole point; the same was true of the Spanish-American War. I'm not saying the U.S. has to go to war because of some existential threat from Aruba, just that Hearst has to pick a fight with an even more random country than OTL.

Cuba wasn't exactly irrelevant to American interests, though; there was 100 million dollars worth of trade between the US and Cuba before the revolt started, and this plummeted to less than a fifth by 1898. From what I've read, the business community tended to blame the Spanish for this, and wanted them gone. I don't see an analogous situation cropping up over Aruba.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
The other point is there was an exisiting insurgency,

Cuba wasn't exactly irrelevant to American interests, though; there was 100 million dollars worth of trade between the US and Cuba before the revolt started, and this plummeted to less than a fifth by 1898. From what I've read, the business community tended to blame the Spanish for this, and wanted them gone. I don't see an analogous situation cropping up over Aruba.

The other point is there was an exisiting insurgency, which meant the US had allies on the ground - same thing (potentially, at least) in the PI.

Beyond the economic ties between the US and Cuba, the underlying geopolitical realities were that in the Caribbean, Spanish (mis) rule over Cuba opened the door for adventurism by one or more of the European powers (cough - the kaiser - cough) ... which was not something the elites in the US wanted to open the door to, certainly not in the Americas.

There's a reason the US opposed the French and Spanish adventures in the 1860s, bought the Danish West Indies in 1917, and generally respected the British, French, and Dutch colonies in the Western Hemisphere during this era ... it was the prospect of instability in the remaining Spanish colonies in the Caribbean that provided, however slender, a strategic interest in solving Spain's problems for them, no matter the cost to the Cubans and Puerto Ricans.:rolleyes:

Best,
 
Admittedly, the Kaiser was certainly poking around int he Caribbean at that point (the Luders Affair could have led to a German-American War) but that just makes it more likely the U.S. will intervene somewhere.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Very true ... if the point of departure is a German-Dutch

Very true ... if the point of departure is a German-Dutch agreement where the Dutch, presumably under duress, agree to a German naval base in Dutch territory in the Western Hemisphere, the Americans will not be pleased.

Neither will the British or French, either.

Best,
 
While I can sort of see a war developing somehow, I miss all the conditions.

The Dutch overseas Empire is not going to engage in significant land-based fighting in the West Indies if the East Indies are even remotely threatened. Everything will be thrown into Indonesia if need be, Aruba and Surinam can rot.

Now, America might somehow still decide to do it, and maybe they'd even attack the East Indies, but the main fighting will never be in Surinam, IMO.
 
Top