Balkanized Netherlands

I wish I could have worded the title better, but oh well. As it states, how can we prevent the Netherlands from unifying and remaining in seperate states such as Holland, Frisien and Untrecht?

How would this affect developments is the colonial front? What are the effects of no Dutch-Portugese War, non-colonial Indonesia and no Dutch to open Japan to the wider world?
 
Prevent the Dukes of Burgundy from uniting the region... before that there were many independent states, but not after.
 

Susano

Banned
How would this affect developments is the colonial front? What are the effects of no Dutch-Portugese War, non-colonial Indonesia and no Dutch to open Japan to the wider world?
What? Thats N00BWI level.

If what is nowadays IOTL the Netherlands stay apart, they will most likely stay part of Germany.
 
If what is nowadays IOTL the Netherlands stay apart, they will most likely stay part of Germany.
Grrrrr. It was Burgundy! which just happened to be annexed by Germany, and actually was under the domain of the King of Spain at it's conception! ;)
(No, I don't want to star a fight, as you're probably quite right)

You'd need a serious POD for that to happen, if you want it to be post-1600. I suppose there are enough moments in Dutch history where the Northern Netherlands could've been split into two, but that 'probably wouldn't have been permanent. There might be great differences (at least, in their opinion) between a Hollander, a Zeeuw and a Brabantian (not to mention Frisians), they're all Dutch (with the possible exception of the Frisians).
 
Balkanized Netherlands is easy. The provinces that are now part of the Netherlands (and Belgium) were just a lot of small warring duchies/counties/prince-bishoprics. If the various personal unions and wars of conquests are butterflied away, the Netherlands will not be different from the rest of the HRE. If some kind of Germany forms the Netherlands will probably part of it (although it is very likely that Germany is butterflied away). The most likely thing to happen is that the southern part is conquered by France and the rest end up in a state that forms in northwest Germany, which could be anything; what was the leading strongest power in that neighbourhood? Flanders probably, maybe Brunswick of the palatinate, although both are a bit far away. Maybe something completely unexpected like the Netherlands itself was., like Cleve unifying that part of Europe.
 
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