The Netherlands have a battlefleet in 1914

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_1913_battleship_proposal

Suppose the discussion of building a battleship fleet instead of more in adequate and obsolete coastal defense ships starts in 1907 in stead of 1912. Let say serious questions are made in parliament right after the launch of the HNLMS Jacob Van Heemskerck in 1906. The defeat of the Rusian Navy by the Japanese Imperial navy in 1905, and the ever increase of this fleet led to cons-earn how to protect the Indonesian colony, without being dependent on foreign allies. Allies the Netherlands as a neutral nation could not have.

The battle ships finally approved an build would be based on the German Kaisers but more developed and clearly be the basis for the later German Koning class ships. Armed with 21 knots (24 mph; 39 km/h), and mounting eight 340 mm (13 in) guns, sixteen 150 mm (5.9 in), and twelve 75 mm (3.0 in) guns and with an above average armored deck and a below average armored beld, and a speed of 21 knots,more like German Battle cruisers.
Further would the fleet comprised of:
--six 1,200 long tons (1,300 ST; 1,200 t) "torpedo cruisers"—believed by Conway's to be closer to large destroyers
—eight 500 long tons (560 ST; 510 t) destroyers (a role which would be filled by the Fret class)
-- eight torpedo boats (also already completed, though they were old), eight large submarines and two large minelayers.
Four battleships were approved and a fifth found approval half a year later.
The whole project was financed by extra tariffs and taxes on certain goods. Manning the fleet was the main problem.

The fleet was stationed in the Indonesian archipel. Part of the investment would be an modernisation and extension of the Soerabaja naval base including a large floating dock to maintain and repair large ships.

For the field army secretary Colijn managed to get his 1910 proposal to further upgrade, expand and modernize the field army. Resulting in an increase number of machine guns, filed guns and purchase of heavy (mobile) artillery, to replace old fortification guns and the introduction of the Madsen machine gun. By 1914 the whole army wears filed gray. Besides machine gun troops, using dogs to tranposrt the heavy guns, the troops also uses the much lighter Madsens, a novelty.

Would this make the Netherlands an attractive partner?

Naamloos.png
 
Last edited:

Germaniac

Donor
The Netherlands has little reason to go to war. If they side with the Germans they loose their colonies, but gain Flanders and possibly a little bit of France. If the side with the Entente they get curbstomped maybe picking up a few colonies in the end (which are going to be gone within 50 years anyway)

They were more valuable as a trade partner to Germany anyway.

One way I see this happening is if the Germans take a Eastern approach and stay on the defensive in the west. The French will attempt to invade A-L and will quickly realize the superiority of defense to offense. If they can convince the Belgians and British to allow French troops to transit Belgium, they could launch an attack into the Industrial heartland of Germany.

Lets say the Germans stop this attack and are now ready for an offensive. If they can convince the Dutch that they would be greatly rewarded than they may be able to swing through the Netherlands with the modern dutch army and trap the French army. ( This would play very well into the German General Staff's warfare strategy of encirclement.

Now the British have two choices, to A) Declare war of Germany and loose public perception from the world, letting the French through Belgium but not the Germans or B) Neutrality. I'd say they will go with A and this will put the Americans out of the picture for longer. The British now have to divert a significant portion of the Fleet to the Pacific with not only the German AC Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and the Light Cruisers Nurnburg, Dresden, Liepzig, and Emden but also likely three Dutch Battleships, and an assortment of smaller ships. The East Asia Squadron will likely link up in the East Indies with the Dutch and easily becomes the most powerful fleet apart from Japan in the Pacific. This British deficiency will have to be met and they will be forced to send at least 4 battleships to the Pacific.

However these ships will not be built in a vacuum as they are being built by Germany in German Shipyards. The British will likely build more capital ships prior to the war, causing Germany to have to build more, which might force them to concede the naval race before the war even begins. BUTTERFLIES!!!
 
The Japanese get a pretty cool naval base when they seize Indonesia and maybe get to sink some obsolete battleships that should have been scrapped and sold for parts in the 20s.
 
What if the Schliefen plan was was reversed back to the almost the original plans. Compromising a sweep through the South of the Netherlands and Belgium, with a small diversion of troops who had to occupy the rest of the Netherlands.
The idea was to deny Entente troops to use the West of the Netherlands as a way to attack Germany.
German war planners realized that the Netherlands would lose their us as a neutral trading partner within a year, due to Entente blockade of trade from and to the Netherlands.
 
You might want to look at this site for some other possible designs:

http://www.netherlandsnavy.nl/battleshipplan_1912.html

I'm not exactly sure which design your very cool drawing represents, or if it is partially your own creation. I think the whole idea of the Netherlands developing a fleet of 8 or more dreadoughts is fairly unlikely, when the only real purpose is to defend the Dutch East Indies from (Japanese, I presume) threats. The Dutch have to realize that if they become embroiled in the European alliance system, they will be conquered by the Germans or French before the battleships can co anything.

I suppose a Dutch fleet of modern German-built dreadoughts would be a particularly attractive ally to Germany, but it would make the British very suspicious that there might be some secret agreements under table that would allow the ships to be used by Germany in the event of a war between Germany and Britain. I also just don't see why the Dutch would spend the massive sums to create a such a fleet that might just make their small nation a target for overland preventive invasion by one of their much bigger neighbors.

Maybe instead the British could do a 20th century version of "Copenhagening" the Dutch fleet by embarking on a joint Japanese/British naval assault on the Dutch naval base in the NEI just as WW1 begins to capture or destroy these potentially hostile ships.
 
I am aware of the designs of : http://www.netherlandsnavy.nl/battleshipplan_1912.html
I just found this line drawing ( credit to ALVAMA) and I chose this one, it resembles a bit the final 1913 design OTL.
The ships in this tread should be designed between 1910 and 1912 while the wiki designs were form 1913 to 1914.

The purpose to build a fleet are perfectly described in the WIKI page, the main threat were the Japanese. The sole purpose of the fleet was to defend the Dutch East Indies. When build and in use in 1914 they would be one of most modern units in the far East, next to the Japanese and Neutral USA.
Home waters, North Sea would be defend with mine layers, torpedo boats, and submarines. (submarines were still unproven weapons in 1914) and gunboats.

Also the state of mind in the 1900 of Dutch politicans differed a lot of the interbellum ones. The most of the politician of the 1900 were more real politicians than the latter ones. Realizing that when you want to stay neutral you need a stick and if you are forced to join a war coalition you better have a big stick if you want to have some sort of diplomatic/military influence in this war coalition you were forced to join.
The reason for the large fleet and, not forget the upgrade/modernisation of the home army was to create a stick, just to show that neutrality was taken seriously and would be defend.

Neutrality was favored but when forced to join a war coalition, strategically it would be preferred to join a side of the United Kingdom, despite a large popularity of Germany in the 1900 among a large part of the population.
Even a war against Germany was lost the worst thing could be a loss of territory in the form of the province Limburg and some border changes. When a war was lost while in the German camp, it would mean the loss of the colonies, which mean economical ruin for decades.

The problem of the battleships fleet was not to fund it, this would be met with tax and tariff constructions, but how to man the ships.
The number in the naval commission of 1912 was 9 battle ships, this number was only based on Japanese naval plans, there were no practical thoughts behind this. Most likely only four or five ships would be build.
 
Last edited:
Top