Economic Power of Netherland

  • Thread starter Deleted member 1487
  • Start date

Deleted member 1487

What if the Netherlands held on to Belgium (being then called Netherland)? What would the economic strength be of the modern nation? Having a combined nation since the 1800's may make the two stronger as a sum rather than the two parts that independently developed OTL. What would the strength have been if the two had OTLs Belgian Congo (I know, not necessarily possible ITTL) and Indonesia? Could the state be a major player on par with the Big Three (France, Britain, and Germany)?
 
It would be a reletively rich country, but a serious lightweight compared to the likes of France, Britain and Germany.
 

Germaniac

Donor
I doubt it would be a lightweight. With what will amount to a large colonial empire it will be a power in Africa and Asia. In order to retain said Empire they will need a fleet, a united Netherlands fleet will be a significant power in itself. Since the Union will be dominated by the Dutch and Flemish they will likely move closer to Prussia in terms of alliances as the French will support the Walloon s of the south.
 
The Belgian part of the Industrial Revolution happened in Wallonia; the Flemings were considered just dumb farmers at that time.
The Dutch had the East Indies, but otherwise were not much affected by industrialisation.
I doubt that the Walloons would have been easily dominated by the Dutch/Flemish.
The command language of the Belgian Army was purely French, providing a hint about the weight distribution inside Belgium at that time.

The United Netherlands could very well become an important global player, once their religious differences had been settled. That was why Britain took great care to disassemble them in the 1830ies.
 
What if the Netherlands held on to Belgium (being then called Netherland)?
Eh, I'm pretty sure it would still be called "the Netherlands". If anything it's the OTL state which is more aptly called "Netherland", because they use a singular term ("Nederland") to refer to it in Dutch.
 

HJ Tulp

Donor
Keeping the UKN together might have caused a faster industrialisation of the Northern parts, a faster and larger consolidation of the DEI and maybe a African empire. I doubt that last one would be the Congo though. Ghana would be more logical though it's always possible that the Dutch are given the same role as the Belgians were at the Congress of Berlin.
 
Eh, I'm pretty sure it would still be called "the Netherlands". If anything it's the OTL state which is more aptly called "Netherland", because they use a singular term ("Nederland") to refer to it in Dutch.

Indeed, what a strange part of the post.

Assuming butterfly nets even there's no Congo as Leopold wouldn't be king.
 
The Netherlands including Belgium (and maybe Luxemburg) would be an economic powerhouse, but it would never be as strong as the big three (or even five). Britain, France, Prussia/Germany, but also Austria-Hungary and Russia (and later the USA) would all be stronger. The Netherlands would probably be richer and stronger than the smaller powers like Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, etc. It is a missconseption that Brittain broke up the Netherlands because they feared it. A couple of years earlier they helped form the country. The British supported Belgium independence because they feared that Belgium would end up French and the Belgians already controled the southern part of the nation, so it was the easiest solution. If the Dutch had managed to subdue the revolt (like an earlier 10 day campaign) and the French hadn't gotten involved, the British probably would have supported the Dutch (or wouldn't have get involved at all).

In this united Netherlands Wallonia would become the industrial heart, but the Dutch (and I include the Flemish in that term at the moment) would outnumber the Walloons greatly. The Dutch will not be second rate citizens, like the Flemish were in Belgium, there are just too many of them and too many of them are too rich or influential, but I believe the opposite wouldn't be true either. The Walloons will probably be unproportional influential as a large part of the wealth of the country will come from their lands. A good reason for them to want to remain part of the country. A industialised south could easily kickstart an industrial revolution in the north, which was OTL lacking.

I suspect the Dutch language will do better than it did OTL. Because of the Dutch speaking majority in the country Brussels will remain a lingually Dutch city and so will the surrounding areas. The Franco-Dutch language border will lie to the south. Waterloo for example will still be Dutch speaking.

Keeping the Netherlands together is most certainly possible. If it wasn't for the clumsy reaction of the crownprince the revolt could have been prevented. If the king had been more accepting towards the Belgian grievances, the revolt would never had occurred. Without the French help to the Belgians the Dutch would have beaten them. If the Prussians and Russians had helped the Dutch (and they were planning to, but were distracted), they might even have beaten the French (certainly if the British would have helped them to prevent Belgium falling in French hands). My favorite scenario is a later Belgian revolution which coincides with a Dutch liberal revolution. Both basicly want the same goals, so they will cooperate, maybe even leading to a Dutch republic, which includes Belgium and the Netherlands or they might settle for the constitutional monarchy of OTL.


The natural ally of the Netherlands will no doubt be Prussia, although the situation in Luxemburg might sour that relationship. With Luxemburg connected to the Netherlands they might want to fully incorporate it into the Netherlands. As Britain did not "betray" the Netherlands in this timeline so relation with them will be better than OTL (although they never were that bad, with the exception of the boer wars). The traditional enemy will be France as France would still want to annex the southern parts (than again France is the traditional enemy of a lot of nations).

If we look for new colonies for the Netherlands, I think Ghana (or the Goldcoast) would be the best guess. The Netherlands already had colonial outposts there, but later sold them to Britain, because it didn't consider them useful enough. Maybe now it will kepp it, because with a larger and richer country it can invest more in its colonies. But the most important colony for the Netherlands will remain Indonesia. Colonial expansion will probably happen there. I suspect that northern Borneo might end up in Dutch hands, possibly eastern New Guinea, the Solomons or other islands near Indonesia. I don't think Congo will end up Dutch, as the Netherlands didn't have any intrest there and didn't need a prestige colony. My best guess is that it will end up Portuguese.

BTW I think this belongss in the pre 1900 part of the forum.
 
At the moment, Netherland has the 16th largest economy in the world (Belgium is 20th), between South Korea and Turkey.

By adding Belgium and Luxemburg (insignificant), this would increase to the 12th place, between Canada and India.

So a slightly different ballpark, but no real big change.
 

HJ Tulp

Donor
I'm curious, why do you think that?


For one it would already have a basis in Wallonia instead of having to start from scratch after the Belgian Independence. Then there is the fact that there wouldn't have been such a gigantic public debt.

EDIT:

Pompejus: the best POD would indeed be a more liberal UKN. Because of Willem I's near-absolutism the Liberals in the South joined hands with the Catholics. Scratch that and the UKN has a far greater chance.
 
Top