AHC: Dutch Empire

Sandmannius

Banned
Picture related to what the tin says. ;)

Greater Netherlands.PNG
 

archaeogeek

Banned
Nobody's going to bother giving it a shot? :(

I think the entire board just died laughing...
More simply: not a chance, Portugal was lucky and only had one angry neighbour and relative strength balanced out by the fact that said neighbour had "merely" four times its population and a much larger similarly angry neighbour to contend with in the north: the Dutch were surrounded by enemies and it would take one slip for France, Britain and maybe even Spain and Portugal to jump on it like vultures. And ITTL they just lost any chances of anyone of those being stable allies, except maybe France and that would be a stretch. Even united, the Low Countries had 20% of France's population, half of Great Britain's, the same population as Ireland, etc. and something like half of it was in Flanders and Brabant, the remaining sixth in the Walloon provinces (Hainaut, Namur, Luxemburg, Liège). Also twice that of Scotland so at least we know Scotland alone wouldn't be a danger ;)

The only way they could do it is if they elected the Draka to Stathouderdom.
 
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Nobody's going to bother giving it a shot? :(
The border in South America should be along the Andes mountains (because it's really illogical for a Peru-like state to have that much territory over the other side of the mountains), the border in North America should be farther west, maybe even south too, and the two territories in Antarctica are kind of random.


Regarding the actual challenge--first and foremost, the Dutch shouldn't lose Nieuw-Nederland. I see that they still take New Sweden. The Dutch should, instead of losing to the Portuguese, completely steamroll them, somehow. The Dutch need to focus more on India.

Then don't have the British take South Africa without giving it back as they promised to do.


I think to make this happen, Britain needs to be undermined as a power. Perhaps they come under the Netherlands' direct control, instead of just having a Dutch king on the throne. But then the Dutch need to lose all the British territory that they just gained by doing that, somehow. Or maybe instead of this, France invades Britain, not conquering it, but utterly ravaging it. But the French navy was no match for the English navy.


But really the whole thing seems pretty ASB.
 

Sandmannius

Banned
I think the entire board just died laughing...
More simply: not a chance, Portugal was lucky and only had one angry neighbour: the Dutch were surrounded by enemies and it would take one slip for France, Britain and maybe even Spain and Portugal to jump on it like vultures. And ITTL they just lost any chances of anyone of those being stable allies, except maybe France.

All of the territories that I coloured around have been territories historically related to the Dutch (apart from Antartica of course). And concerning the various territories coloured:

-The United Provinces getting the Spanish Netherlands has been done many times on this board.
-Dutch expansion around Indonesia would of been quite simple, as they virtually had no competition there.
-The Dutch holding onto Brazil has also been discussed various times on this website, and also known to have been possible.
-If it weren't for one very nasty mutiny we could of been looking at a Dutch Australia and New Zealand by the mid seventeen-hundreds.
-The Dutch getting British Guyana through trade was definitely possible, especially if a POD like this excisted, and the Dutch could have taken French Guyana in one of the numerous wars between the UP and France.
-Ceylon and South Africa were already Dutch in OTL.

I put the New Netherlands in for shits and giggles, and made India Dutch as a result of apparent massive Dutch Empire, same for Antartica. I also did not try do anything with the Dutch Gold Coast.

Anyways, seeing the trading nature of the Dutch all of this is unlikely, but certainly not impossible, historically it was more of a lack off Dutch participation rather than a lack of Dutch strength, population or resources.
 

archaeogeek

Banned
The border in South America should be along the Andes mountains (because it's really illogical for a Peru-like state to have that much territory over the other side of the mountains), the border in North America should be farther west, maybe even south too, and the two territories in Antarctica are kind of random.


Regarding the actual challenge--first and foremost, the Dutch shouldn't lose Nieuw-Nederland. I see that they still take New Sweden. The Dutch should, instead of losing to the Portuguese, completely steamroll them, somehow. The Dutch need to focus more on India.

Then don't have the British take South Africa without giving it back as they promised to do.


I think to make this happen, Britain needs to be undermined as a power. Perhaps they come under the Netherlands' direct control, instead of just having a Dutch king on the throne. But then the Dutch need to lose all the British territory that they just gained by doing that, somehow. Or maybe instead of this, France invades Britain, not conquering it, but utterly ravaging it. But the French navy was no match for the English navy.


But really the whole thing seems pretty ASB.

Actually naval supremacy after the 30 years war was basically a contest between the French, the English and the Spanish: Spain to keep their position, and France and England to dethrone the other; British naval superiority was only a mid-to-late 18th century phenomenon and only became supremacy in the 19th.


All of the territories that I coloured around have been territories historically related to the Dutch (apart from Antartica of course). And concerning the various territories coloured:

-The United Provinces getting the Spanish Netherlands has been done many times on this board.
-Dutch expansion around Indonesia would of been quite simple, as they virtually had no competition there.
-The Dutch holding onto Brazil has also been discussed various times on this website, and also known to have been possible.
-If it weren't for one very nasty mutiny we could of been looking at a Dutch Australia and New Zealand by the mid seventeen-hundreds.
-The Dutch getting British Guyana through trade was definitely possible, especially if a POD like this excisted, and the Dutch could have taken French Guyana in one of the numerous wars between the UP and France.
-Ceylon and South Africa were already Dutch in OTL.

I put the New Netherlands in for shits and giggles, and made India Dutch as a result of apparent massive Dutch Empire, same for Antartica. I also did not try do anything with the Dutch Gold Coast.

Anyways, seeing the trading nature of the Dutch all of this is unlikely, but certainly not impossible, historically it was more of a lack off Dutch participation rather than a lack of Dutch strength, population or resources.

The dutch holding onto Brazil and not losing it to the first power who thinks it's such a shame the Netherlands has so much land is pretty much asb.
Ceylon is not India; India became british thanks to an improbable set of circumstances which managed to take out the mughal empire (and by set of circumstances I mean Nadir Shah on top of the list) in the span of one generation, and it still had most of its colonial forces there.
The New Netherlands is spread over Virginia and New England, so no.
Your borders for Guyana include colonies which were solidly Spanish in the 16th century and on which the mid-18th century royal navy broke its back: the netherlands are not taking that.

And like I said: this kind of supremacy will lead to the same kind of alliance that led to American independence: one wrong step and everyone in Europe will be at war with the netherlands, exactly like they did to Britain during the American Revolution (Spain, France, the Netherlands were at war, Prussia, Austria, Russia and Sweden were cheering on the sidelines and declaring trade embargoes).
 
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Sandmannius

Banned
The border in South America should be along the Andes mountains (because it's really illogical for a Peru-like state to have that much territory over the other side of the mountains), the border in North America should be farther west, maybe even south too, and the two territories in Antarctica are kind of random.


Regarding the actual challenge--first and foremost, the Dutch shouldn't lose Nieuw-Nederland. I see that they still take New Sweden. The Dutch should, instead of losing to the Portuguese, completely steamroll them, somehow. The Dutch need to focus more on India.

Then don't have the British take South Africa without giving it back as they promised to do.


I think to make this happen, Britain needs to be undermined as a power. Perhaps they come under the Netherlands' direct control, instead of just having a Dutch king on the throne. But then the Dutch need to lose all the British territory that they just gained by doing that, somehow. Or maybe instead of this, France invades Britain, not conquering it, but utterly ravaging it. But the French navy was no match for the English navy.


But really the whole thing seems pretty ASB.

Okay Xwarq, thank you for your answering.

I don't think that we need such massive occurances for this to happen, or Britain to be taken out completely, most of the landgrabbing in this TL would have been in the early 17th century, when England was still only a middle-power. I do admit that it's on the wank side, but I certainly wouldn't say that it's impossible (unless you're talking about the borders which I did not give much thought to).
 
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Okay Xwarq, thank you for your answering and participation.

I don't think that we need such massive occurances for this to happen, or Britain to be taken out completely, most of the landgrabbing in this TL would have been in the early 17th century, when England was still only a middle-power. I do admit that it's on the wank side, but I certainly wouldn't say that it's impossible (unless you're talking about the borders which I did not give much thought to).
Well to be fair the premise is merely implausible while the borders are impossible.

India is probably the biggest problem. If they focus on conquering India entirely, then I don't think they could get the entire East Indies. Other European nations had interests in the area too and the Dutch were really pretty lucky in OTL to get everything from Sumatra to the western half of Papua.
 

Sandmannius

Banned
The dutch holding onto Brazil and not losing it to the first power who thinks it's such a shame the Netherlands has so much land is pretty much asb.
Ceylon is not India; India became british thanks to an improbable set of circumstances which managed to take out the mughal empire (and by set of circumstances I mean Nadir Shah on top of the list) in the span of one generation, and it still had most of its colonial forces there.
The New Netherlands is spread over Virginia and New England, so no.
Your borders for Guyana include colonies which were solidly Spanish in the 16th century and on which the mid-18th century royal navy broke its back: the netherlands are not taking that.

And like I said: this kind of supremacy will lead to the same kind of alliance that led to American independence: one wrong step and everyone in Europe will be at war with the netherlands, exactly like they did to Britain during the American Revolution (Spain, France, the Netherlands were at war, Prussia, Austria, Russia and Sweden were cheering on the sidelines and declaring trade embargoes).

With ASB you mean "Alien Space Bats" right?

In this timeline the Dutch Republic would obviously have it's act together, more competent leadership, more aggresive policies, more expansionist, less trader etc. In this TL the Republic would obviously still be the foremost maritime power, otherwise it would not have an Empire of this sort. And besides, why would France or England risk going to war with a Naval Superpower just for a small slice of Brazil while they have eachother to deal with in North America?

I know why India became British, India could also be played by the Dutch in the same way.. And Regarding North and South America, I know that the borders are messed up, I just made this very quickly for fun. Besides, the Dutch would of had no problem going to war with Spain, especially not with the amount of territory, and extra wealth that they would have in this TL.

Yes, it's highly probable that all of Europe would turn on the Dutch Republic at some point, but with the increased industrial capacity that the Southern Netherlands would provide the Dutch would be a bit better off (I know it wouldn't actually help against all of the other nations combined), but in OTL the Dutch held out against the 600,000 man French army for a very long time, so in case of a direct invasion the Republic could hold out for a little while, and eventually negotiate it's way out of things. Especially since in this TL the Dutch Empire is so massive, it probably would have a very large fleet, and probably would control even more trade than it did OTL, not a enemy that you would like to have if your ports are close to theirs.
 
That map has a few common lines with An Alternate History of the Netherlands <goofy grin and a thumbs up>. AHC is suppose to be Alternate History Challenge, yes? Well, a Dutch Empire really isn't that much of a challenge.
 

Sandmannius

Banned
That map has a few common lines with An Alternate History of the Netherlands <goofy grin and a thumbs up>. AHC is suppose to be Alternate History Challenge, yes? Well, a Dutch Empire really isn't that much of a challenge.

:) I love your timeline, and I second that, haha.
 
I think you gotta go a bit like the Kiat's TL. In the 80-years war the Netherlands (in order to make it this big it must be a kingdom) all of Portugals colonies and trade posts are conquered. Indonisia happens faster than OTL, but more or less the same. India will be though, during the reign of Louis XIV the Dutch gets all of the French possesions in India, but the English don't like this one bit. France hates Britain more than the Netherlands, so the French declare war on England and Dutch soldiers flood out of New Amsterdam and conquer New England. Then keep a low profile and just colonize. You have your empire! :D
BTW if forgot the thingy in Arabia, don't give it much change. :(
 
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