Q: Netherlands interested in joining a post-Brest-Litovsk German Confederation?

And what about Denmark and Switzerland?

Do you think they would be interested in joining/associating the Mitteleuropa monster block?
 
Danish is a very different language compared to German, with no mutual understandability.

Yes, but this does not mean they could not join GC. Polish, Hungarian, Lithuanian or Estonian are not even Germanic languages and all of them were in the projected GC (which was supposed to be multiethnic, thus it was coined the term 'Mitteleuropa', avoiding ethnic references).
 

HJ Tulp

Donor
While we're at it: Why did no other power ever try to take the Indies from the Netherlands?

Because they were neutral from 1815 up until 1940.

Do not forget that it was mostly the Royal Navy that prevented the DEI to be taken over by other powers. The British didn't want the colony (which had a pretty high British economical penetration, see Shell for ex.) to fall into the hands of any of the other powers.
 
I would like to do a map for reference but I haven't found a suitable blank map with the borders of 1914 :(
 
So is Dutch

Please, no.

Danish is a Scandinavian language related to Swedish and Norwegian, a cousin branch of German.
Dutch is just a dialect of the old Plattdeutsch, so is a close language to Modern Standard (High) German. I speak German and I can understand 70-80% of Dutch, specially if written. Something similar to Spanish-Italian. Danish is more distinct as it's just a cousin language (even this, I understand many words).
 
It's slightly off-topic, but if Germany wins in Europe during WW1 then the likelihood of the Netherlands holding Indonesia far past 1950-60 is pretty slim. Neither Britain, nor America, nor Japan, nor Australia had any interest in a powerful Germany in South-East Asia, which is absolutely a possibility if the Netherlands are in a German orbit - which they will be regardless of whether or not they choose to join a European confederation. This does not mean that by the 1920's there will be Anglo-Japanese gun runners directly undermining the Dutch East Indies; there could still be decades of relative stability of Dutch rule. Long term however a rising Indonesian national consciousness is going to be a very tempting target for the various players in South East Asia for undermining Dutch control, as it would remove a very valuable colony from de facto German orbit.
 
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