German-Japanese pressure campaign on Dutch, over DEI oil, 1941

raharris1973

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What if the Japanese asked the Germans for diplomatic support in keeping the DEI from participating in the US oils embargo and continuing to sell to Japanese buyers from July 1941 on, and the Germans were willing to make major efforts in this direction, essentially by threatening hostages?

Of course, the Dutch cannot control British or American merchants ships, so only the oil the Japanese could carry themselves and pay for in non-dollar currencies or precious metals could be purchased, but hey, that is something, and makes a leak in the embargo.

For their part, the Germans are willing to threaten and punish narrowly or broadly as they can to exert indirect influence on Dutch officialdom in the DEI.

For instance, they could first order civil and corporate officials of Dutch oil companies in occupied Netherlands to keep pumping and selling. If they meet resistance they could try selective threats or torture.

One variation might be the withholding of coal or petrol supplies from the homes of said officials, or from whole apartment blocks or communities, or the whole country.

A retaliatory fuel embargo becomes more threatening to Dutch civilian well-being the longer it goes on and and the closer it gets to fall and winter.

How might things go down from there? Would Dutch officialdom at oil facilities and ports in the DEI buckle under the pressure or hold firm (supported and pressured by the US and UK no doubt) and just rack the consequences to Dutch hostages as more atrocities to be resisted now and avenged later?

If the plan works, what do Japan and the US do in terms of war participation or not, through 1942 and beyond?
 

HJ Tulp

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Germany's at war with the Dutch in 1941 and the Dutch in DEI takes orders from the Government in Exile.

Barely actually. The DEI government tried it's very best to be as autonomous as possible. If it had been up to Them they would have tried to sell to The Japanese though The Japanese demands didn't make IT easier.
 

raharris1973

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Germany's at war with the Dutch in 1941 and the Dutch in DEI takes orders from the Government in Exile.

Well, depending on how the Germans want to deliver their threats, they could be sending torture postcards to official of the Dutch govt in exile or officials in the colonies.

Barely actually. The DEI government tried it's very best to be as autonomous as possible. If it had been up to Them they would have tried to sell to The Japanese though The Japanese demands didn't make IT easier.

Interesting. What were the specifics of their demands (before they invaded and said "surrender now") that were so difficult for the Dutch in Batavia? I had always thought the main things making the Batavia authorities participate in the embargo were orders from the Dutch exile government and the total dependence on the Allies for protection of the DEI and the prospective liberation of the homeland.
 
Well, depending on how the Germans want to deliver their threats, they could be sending torture postcards to official of the Dutch govt in exile or officials in the colonies.



Interesting. What were the specifics of their demands (before they invaded and said "surrender now") that were so difficult for the Dutch in Batavia? I had always thought the main things making the Batavia authorities participate in the embargo were orders from the Dutch exile government and the total dependence on the Allies for protection of the DEI and the prospective liberation of the homeland.
I think if the DEI collaborates with the Axis,the British are just gonna invade Batavia and depose the government there.
 
I think if the DEI collaborates with the Axis,the British are just gonna invade Batavia and depose the government there.
IDK, they did nothing when Japan invaded FIC in Sept. 1940, putting the IJA right on Malaya (via Thailand) and Burma's doorstep.
 
IDK, they did nothing when Japan invaded FIC in Sept. 1940, putting the IJA right on Malaya (via Thailand) and Burma's doorstep.
In the case of FIC,Vichy was a neutral country.Even then,Britain was perfectly willing to attack Vichy France when it's in it's interest to do so.If the DEI mutinies/rebels against the DGiE,that's a totally different story.If the Germans can blackmail DEI officials into selling Japan oil,why couldn't Germany also blackmail DEI into selling materiel to 'neutral' countries like Spain?
 
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my understanding the Japanese feared Germany was going to press claim over the Dutch (and French) colonial holdings in Asia-Pacific. would not think they really want the German blessing over Dutch actions as it would feed into narrative?

until Germany invades USSR they were nominal allies, so while Germany could not easily attack Japan, the Soviets could, or back Chinese in doing so. (convoluted enough?)

(Germany also had Northern Sea Route to Pacific while aligned with Soviets, and plans for repair base on Kamchatka Krai. so possible Stalin allows Germans to be his cat's paw against Japanese which he could disavow?)
 
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Interesting. What were the specifics of their demands (before they invaded and said "surrender now") that were so difficult for the Dutch in Batavia? I had always thought the main things making the Batavia authorities participate in the embargo were orders from the Dutch exile government and the total dependence on the Allies for protection of the DEI and the prospective liberation of the homeland.

The Embargo Acts in the US & the equivalent in Britain allowed for interferance with violators financial transactions in US or Brit banks. ie: freeze accounts. While this may not interfere with direct transactions with Japan it screws the Batavian government & business community in most other international trade. There were other nations that wished to continue their trade with Japan, but the position of the New York and London banks in international finance meant devastating sanctions for nations that attracted negative attention.

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Interesting. What were the specifics of their demands (before they invaded and said "surrender now") that were so difficult for the Dutch in Batavia? ...

The Dutch had the example of occupied China. Chinese trade outside the occupied region was forced through Japanese middlemen. Capitol & tax policy favored Japanese business & immigrants. The same system was being organized for FIC. Purchasing Micheilin rubber or Mekong grown rice was requiring a call to Japanese broker or discussing purchase permits with a Japanese government official. The Dutch were not ethusiastic about Japanese Army protection, the French colonial army in FIC was being methodically nuetered in 1941, or Japanese oversight of DEI administration or economic policy.
 

raharris1973

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I think if the DEI collaborates with the Axis,the British are just gonna invade Batavia and depose the government there.

How feasible an operation is that going to be for the British in the summer of 1941?

Even if feasible, what's the likelihood the Japan standing by and doing nothing, even when the British are presenting them with a reason, and a decent pretext, by having the Admiralty make the first move on the DEI territory?

my understanding the Japanese feared Germany was going to press claim over the Dutch (and French) colonial holdings in Asia-Pacific. would not think they really want the German blessing over Dutch actions as it would feed into narrative?

I had seen some talk about that. Even if it was unrealistic to think Germany could do that (they would have a lot of the British Empire to get through first), some Japanese feared it, though I don't know if anybody important in the military did.

If they can set that issue aside or decide it's not much to worry about, there would be one other thing they might worry about if they request a favor from the Nazis to put the squeeze on the Dutch. The Germans might demand the Japanese regime apply anti-Jewish laws in return for their assistance. After all, if they Germans are going to be harsh with their racially sound even if politically misguided Dutch brothers, they might feel that's the least the Japanese could do for them in return.
 
To this day I don't understand why the Japanese didn't go after the DEI right after the Dutch capitulated to the Germans. The language could have been put in the surrender document that the administrative responsibilities for all the DEI would go to Japan with a post-war determination of ownership conference. (Germany and Japan were allies) This would have given the Japanese the right to "walk in" to those areas and take the resources they wanted. If the Dutch government in exile made an issue about this it becomes a UK question as to weather the UK would defend the DEI. They weren't strong enough in late spring or early summer of 1940 to project enough power to stop the Japanese.

Then the next question is IF the Japanese gain occupation of all the DEI from say July of 1940 and have access to all the resources how does that change the relationship with the US? I don't believe that the US would go to war over the Japanese getting control of distant islands in the Pacific when they let France get overrun by Germany. That's how the public is going to see it...

I'd say no Pearl Harbor, maybe no war in the Pacific at all. Japan will have the resources they need to continue the war in China at that point.
 

bguy

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Then the next question is IF the Japanese gain occupation of all the DEI from say July of 1940 and have access to all the resources how does that change the relationship with the US? I don't believe that the US would go to war over the Japanese getting control of distant islands in the Pacific when they let France get overrun by Germany. That's how the public is going to see it...

I'd say no Pearl Harbor, maybe no war in the Pacific at all. Japan will have the resources they need to continue the war in China at that point.

Even if Japan secures the Dutch East Indies, the Pacific War is pretty much inevitable by this point. Japan has to shut down the Burma Road or else their position in China will be untenable. IOTL in May of 1941 Secretary of War Stimson approved a plan for the U.S. to provide sufficient equipment to outfit 30 Chinese infantry divisions by mid-1942. The U.S. aid package will probably come sooner and be even larger in a timeline where Japan appears more closely allied with Nazi Germany and just seized the Dutch East Indies, so Japan is going to have to close the Burma Road (and seize French Indochina) to have any chance of prevailing in China. And Japan has no way to close the Burma Road diplomatically since if Churchill has to chose between keeping the Japanese happy or keeping the Americans happy, he is going to choose the Americans. Thus the only way the Japanese can close the Burma Road is to invade Burma, and since the Japanese will assume that if they invade Burma the Americans will declare war on them anyway, they will simultaneously attack the United States.
 
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