The Little Engine that Could - a TL about a stronger Netherlands

Hyperion

Banned
I see a few minor but glaring issues, though nothing major off the top of my head.

Sea mines where never used in any major battle. I would strongly suggest you edit that part out. Also, Nimitz would have stayed in Pearl Harbor, Halsey or Fletcher would have been the ones in charge at the time, or possibly Wilson Brown.

Something which I'm surprized you didn't take into any account at all. While the Dutch and French can't send much more than what they already have to the Pacific, the British can send a lot.

Build up a fleet in the Indian Ocean, using Sumatra and Java as a barrier to keep the Japanese away. Add Force Z to the Indian Ocean fleet. Throw in the HMS Eagle to guard the slower battlecruisers along with the HMS Hermes. OTL, Eagle was sunk escorting ships to Malta. That isn't going to happen here.

Throw in the HMS Ark Royal with the other two big carriers. OTL, Ark Royal was sunk by Italian submarines, here, I think she can be spared sooner to go to the Pacific and avoid her fate.

Really though, I think a revision of the timeline is in order.
 
Being the chauvinistic Dutchman that I am I can't but help loving this story! And it's well written too:)

Shame to see Utrecht get bombed though, it's city centre is beautiful.
 
Update. Sorry for the long wait. Had a case of writer's block :eek:.


Chapter 5: History of the Netherlands after World War II, 1945-2011.

The history of the Netherlands after World War II was marked by a continued active role in international affairs, though in the early period after 1945 the first priority was reconstruction. Fortunately, the Netherlands received aid from the United States under President Harry S. Truman in the shape of the Marshall Plan for this purpose, with the intention being to prevent a communist takeover. The trade unions, much like in the aftermath of World War I, once again agreed to longer workdays to aid in reconstruction as did demobilized soldiers. A remarkably speedy reconstruction process started with American financial aid and by 1950 the Dutch economy would be growing once again to reach a peak in the mid 50s that lasted into the 60s, leading to the building of the welfare state and growing affluence

Conflict, however, soon erupted again in the Dutch East Indies with Indonesian nationalists under Sukarno and Hatta declaring their independence as the Republic of Indonesia which the Dutch government refused to accept of course. The Dutch government was a broad one and referred to as a “royal administration” since it was appointed by Queen Wilhelmina (rather than elected; parliament wouldn’t function until late 1945) to straighten things out in the immediate post-war period and it consisted of social-democrats, anti-revolutionaries and Catholics. Despite the vast differences of opinion between these parties, none of them agreed to full-fledged independence of the East Indies and wanted to continue Dutch rule in some form, be it directly or through some kind of dominion-style deal like some British colonies had and so troops were sent.

Java was the centre of anti-Dutch activity since the anti-Japanese resistance here had been dominated by Indonesian nationalists rather than remnants of the Dutch army and the war period had led to an invigorated nationalism. Large stockpiles of weaponry and ammunition left behind by the Japanese army as they demobilized and left for Japan fell into rebel hands, strengthening their cause. Despite this and the initial successes in establishing their authority over Java and the smaller surrounding islands, the rebel government’s control outside Java was quite marginal and initial efforts against occupational forces came to naught. Borneo, the Moluccas, Sulawesi and New Guinea were all under Allied occupation and particularly the British were supportive of the Dutch cause and allowed them re-establish their rule over their colony to prevent The Dutch East Indies from becoming an example for their own unruly colonial subjects. Dutch soldiers first arrived in late 1945 and relatively smoothly they reoccupied much of the eastern islands, restoring the colonial administration there and Dutch troops landed near Batavia which forced Sukarno to move his capital to Yogyakarta on Java’s south coast.

In these “police actions”, the Dutch responded harshly to rebelliousness and inflicted some serious losses on Sukarno’s forces who retreated into the mountains to wage a guerrilla from there as the Dutch re-established control over most major cities. Sukarno quickly learned that directly attacking Dutch forces in conventional warfare was unwise considering their superiority in armour, artillery and airpower and so he launched a guerrilla war to sap Dutch strength in a war of attrition in the jungle rather than going for a big strategic victory of some kind. Besides this ongoing campaign of guerrilla raids which taxed the KNIL and led to rebel control over the countryside, there were also other forms of subversion. For example, there were illegal nationalist newspapers in widespread circulation in a number of major cities and there were also illegal radio broadcasts. This helped to spur a national awakening across the Dutch East Indies. The guerrilla war quickly spread to the rest of the Dutch East Indies, causing the Dutch some serious casualties and initially losing them control of the countryside though they formulated a response soon. Firstly, they appealed to the various ethnic groups in their colony, not all of which were contented with ethnic Javanese domination of the proclaimed independent Indonesia. Republican sentiment was weak in places like the Moluccas, West Timor and New Guinea who contributed to the war effort. Besides this, Dutch general Hein ter Poorten formulated a new strategy to counter the insurgency which was strongest outside the cities. It was an “inkblot strategy” in which KNIL troops withdrew to the major cities and slowly expanded from there in little jumps, consolidating after each short advance.

This strategy was successful and it seemed like the resistance might get in trouble or even lose which is why they appealed to foreign powers for aid. The United States, however, were wavering on whether or not to support the Indonesian rebels in spite of their sympathy for them. The Dutch had been loyal and important allies in World War II and so they only made some vague statements of concern for the situation in the Dutch East Indies. Especially after North Korea invaded South Korea in 1950 with Soviet assent, the Americans paid only lip service to their stated desire for a negotiated settlement because they wanted Dutch support in Korea and so Sukarno turned to Stalin and Mao for help instead. The Soviet Union started to smuggle in weapons and military advisors and the Indonesian revolution took on a decidedly more communist character with class struggle rhetoric mixed in with Indonesian nationalism. Thanks to Soviet support, the Indonesian rebel movement succeeded in undoing a lot of Dutch gains from the earlier part of the war. The ongoing conflict and losses led to anti-war sentiment to break out in the Netherlands and elements in the Dutch government which questioned the (in)ability of the KNIL to suppress the revolution. In 1955, the Indonesians inflicted two enormous defeats near Sindangbarang and Palembang which was the trigger for the Dutch to finally begin negotiations, especially with foreign pressure to do so.

With an end to hostilities Queen Wilhelmina saw fit to abdicate in favour of her daughter Juliana after a 65 year reign and she would die in 1962. Juliana became Queen of the Netherlands with her husband, prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, became prince-consort. Shortly hereafter, their son Willem, born in 1932, announced his engagement in 1959 to grand duchess Xenia who was the daughter of the exiled Tsar Alexei II and princess Anne d’Orléans, and brother to Tsesarevich Nicholas Alexeievich. The couple had a healthy son also named Willem in 1960 and a daughter born in 1961 named Alexandra after her aging grandmother, the now 89 year old Dowager Empress.

Dutch troops, in the meantime, commenced a withdrawal to remaining centres of Dutch loyalists on the Moluccas, West Timor and New Guinea where the Republicans had scored only few successes due to the elites’ pro-Dutch attitudes. Both the United States and the Soviet Union, now under Khrushchev, intervened in the negotiation process which resulted in it being drawn out for two years. In the end, however, the Dutch and their American backers were more in a position to enforce their designs on Indonesia due to relative Dutch military success (they still controlled much of their colony) and the proximity of American bases on the Philippines while the USSR had no way to directly support Sukarno. The Moluccas, West Timor and West New Guinea remained as autonomous parts of the Kingdom of the Netherlands with fiscal policy, defence and foreign policy remaining in Dutch hands in this first settlement while internal matters were controlled by a local government (of which the powers would gradually grow in the following decades). The rest of the Dutch East Indies became independent under what was now called the National People’s Republic of Indonesia with Sukarno as its first President. This settlement was concluded in the Treaty of Ambon in 1957 in which The Hague officially recognised the independence of its colony.

The following decade saw continued European economic growth which also applied to the Netherlands who saw powerful American investment, especially in its “dominions” of the Moluccas, West Guinea and West Timor. A US air force base was opened on Ambon and US nuclear submarines with SLBM capability were based in West Timor, giving them bases on the crossing point between the Pacific and Indian Oceans. This provided a strong economic stimulus to the region, but the growing economy meant the emergence of a larger educated elite in these “semi-colonies” and with them came political ambitions. This was coupled with the rise of youth movements in Western Europe during the 1960s under American influence, groups that saw nothing in renewed colonial conflict and preached leftist ideologies. Over the course of the 1960s and 70s, larger and larger degrees of autonomy were given until these islands were all but independent states with their own fiscal system, foreign policy and armed forces. A small Dutch garrison and American bases, however remained and West Timor, the Moluccas and West Guinea formed a currency union, customs union and military alliance with their motherland, but otherwise they were completely freed. The most lasting Dutch influences, which were a legacy of the post-war period due to an expanded educational system, was their language and also parliamentary democracy which had been imported by academically educated natives who had studied in the Netherlands. The Dutch Antilles gained a similar but more restricted autonomous status and Suriname became fully autonomous like the East Indies territories as a “dominion” within the Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1973.

Much like the rest of Western Europe, the Netherlands too were affected by the oil crisis in the 70s and a subsequent economic crisis that lingered into the 1980 which led to sharpened political divisions between left and right and therefore difficulties in forming any kind of government. The economic crisis, however, did not subvert the trend of a growing middle class and affluence which continued to grow, a phenomenon stimulated by European political and economic integration in which the Netherlands fully participated as members of the ECSC and its successors, the EEC, the EC and the EU. This process was only stimulated further by the opening up of China at the end of the 1970s after Mao Zedong’s death as the Dutch followed their East Indian allies into Chinese markets. Most notably, Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping commissioned the Dutch to build several warships for the Chinese navy.

At the end of the 1980s the economy saw tentative growth and it was in this period in 1985 that Queen Juliana abdicated after a three decade reign, and her son was crowned King Willem IV and his wife Xenia queen-consort. He would lead the Netherlands into a radically altered political landscape in the 1990s as the Soviet Union collapsed, as did its various communist puppets across Europe. Only a few communist countries like China, Vietnam, North Korea, Laos and Cuba remained and so the Cold War had decidedly been won by the West. It also meant that, after a declaration by Russian president Yeltsin, the Romanovs could return to Russia though the monarchy was not restored. What did occur was the reburial of Tsar Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra, and the late Alexei II who had died in 1964, in the Peter and Paul Fortress next to Tsar Alexander III which led to a short moment of publicity for the Romanovs and the Netherlands in Russia.

For the Netherlands this marked the beginning of a new period, a strange new world of unlimited possibilities that was waiting to be conquered.
 
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