WI - Queen Wilhelmina in Jakarta?

How ASB is it for De Geer to move to the Dutch East Indies and establish another Dutch government-in-exile?

I can’t really speak with authority on naval deployments in South East Asia at the time but I will say that this premise severely overestimates the infrastructural power Europeans had in their Asian colonies. The Dutch administrators simply settled as an extra layer of authority on top of existing Javanese power structures. Dutch rule was no way as salient or intrusive as the British rule across the Straits of Malacca and it was maintained more by compromise with local elites than with military force. This is why most European garrisons in Asia were little more than colonial police, the Dutch even more so.

The idea that a European power could set up a government-in-exile in one of their Asian colonies, whether British, Dutch or French, is completely ASB because their social, political and cultural footprint was so tiny, notwithstanding their complete control over the economy. Singapore experienced one of the most long-lasting and profound European influence in South East Asia but up until 1941 none of its inhabitants, bar a tiny clique of Straits Chinese businessmen, remotely identified with the British state. If Britain had fallen to the unspeakable sea mammal, the government and royal family would evacuate to Canada or one of their several “settler colonies”, not to somewhere like India or Singapore. After the loss of South Africa, the Dutch had no settler colonies, the Dutch East Indies was very much a commercial enterprise that had minimal affiliation with the Dutch state.

I hope I’m not being presumptuous here but I find that some posters have this notion that non-white colonials would automatically acquiesce to continued or even deepened rule by our imperial masters with absolutely no social or political repercussions. I’m not exactly sure what the historical evidence for this is. Even Lee Kuan Yew, with his pragmatism regarding Western military presence in South East Asia, certainly did not want the British to stay for a minute longer than they had to.
 
I can’t really speak with authority on naval deployments in South East Asia at the time but I will say that this premise severely overestimates the infrastructural power Europeans had in their Asian colonies. The Dutch administrators simply settled as an extra layer of authority on top of existing Javanese power structures. Dutch rule was no way as salient or intrusive as the British rule across the Straits of Malacca and it was maintained more by compromise with local elites than with military force. This is why most European garrisons in Asia were little more than colonial police, the Dutch even more so.

The idea that a European power could set up a government-in-exile in one of their Asian colonies, whether British, Dutch or French, is completely ASB because their social, political and cultural footprint was so tiny, notwithstanding their complete control over the economy. Singapore experienced one of the most long-lasting and profound European influence in South East Asia but up until 1941 none of its inhabitants, bar a tiny clique of Straits Chinese businessmen, remotely identified with the British state. If Britain had fallen to the unspeakable sea mammal, the government and royal family would evacuate to Canada or one of their several “settler colonies”, not to somewhere like India or Singapore. After the loss of South Africa, the Dutch had no settler colonies, the Dutch East Indies was very much a commercial enterprise that had minimal affiliation with the Dutch state.

I hope I’m not being presumptuous here but I find that some posters have this notion that non-white colonials would automatically acquiesce to continued or even deepened rule by our imperial masters with absolutely no social or political repercussions. I’m not exactly sure what the historical evidence for this is. Even Lee Kuan Yew, with his pragmatism regarding Western military presence in South East Asia, certainly did not want the British to stay for a minute longer than they had to.
I'll admit I don't know much about Dutch colonialism but I thought it'd be interesting TL material.
 
I'll admit I don't know much about Dutch colonialism but I thought it'd be interesting TL material.

I think that a general rule of thumb is that it's pretty ASB for a European country to form a government-in-exile in a non-white colony, with the very possible exception of France fighting on from Algeria. At the end of the day, you can only form a government-in-exile in a country that somewhat identifies with that government. Algeria can do it in a pinch due to the large population of white settlers there (Pied Noirs) but I can’t really think of any other examples. While the eastern populations of modern-day Indonesia, such as the Ambonese and the Mollucans, historically supported the Dutch, their homelands were far too remote and underdeveloped to base a government-in-exile in.
 

HJ Tulp

Donor
@MildSeven : I do think that there could be some confusion about the term 'government-in-exile'. A government-in-exile is a government that has to flee it's own country and moves to another and from that place tries to influence the 'liberation' of it's homeland. What you describe seems to be a government that moves to a colony to rule that as (temporary) replacement for the homeland. Not unlike the Europeans in The Peshawar Lancers.

If the Dutch government decides to move to the East Indies they will not be replacing the NEI government. They might have a positive effect though. The NEI elite was mostly concerned with keeping the Indies Dutch and refused any discussion about souvereignity and power-sharing until the war was over. By then it was way to late ofcourse. If the central government is in Batavia there might be a possibility of change if the Europeans think they can use the natives to liberate the Netherlands. All pretty far fetched though.
 
@MildSeven : I do think that there could be some confusion about the term 'government-in-exile'. A government-in-exile is a government that has to flee it's own country and moves to another and from that place tries to influence the 'liberation' of it's homeland. What you describe seems to be a government that moves to a colony to rule that as (temporary) replacement for the homeland. Not unlike the Europeans in The Peshawar Lancers.

If the Dutch government decides to move to the East Indies they will not be replacing the NEI government. They might have a positive effect though. The NEI elite was mostly concerned with keeping the Indies Dutch and refused any discussion about souvereignity and power-sharing until the war was over. By then it was way to late ofcourse. If the central government is in Batavia there might be a possibility of change if the Europeans think they can use the natives to liberate the Netherlands. All pretty far fetched though.
This sounds like a better definition and proposal but how much more progressive would the Dutch government be if they moved to the Dutch East Indies? The Dutch government refused 500 native Surinamese volunteers from Dutch Suriname in the fear that their conscripts and volunteers from South Africa would be offended - would this change if the Dutch government moved to the DEI?
 
@MildSeven : I do think that there could be some confusion about the term 'government-in-exile'. A government-in-exile is a government that has to flee it's own country and moves to another and from that place tries to influence the 'liberation' of it's homeland. What you describe seems to be a government that moves to a colony to rule that as (temporary) replacement for the homeland. Not unlike the Europeans in The Peshawar Lancers.

If the Dutch government decides to move to the East Indies they will not be replacing the NEI government. They might have a positive effect though. The NEI elite was mostly concerned with keeping the Indies Dutch and refused any discussion about souvereignity and power-sharing until the war was over. By then it was way to late ofcourse. If the central government is in Batavia there might be a possibility of change if the Europeans think they can use the natives to liberate the Netherlands. All pretty far fetched though.


This still begs the question of why they would go all the way to Batavia instead of London. Surely they would be more well placed there to influence British military strategy in prioritizing the retaking of their homeland?
 

HJ Tulp

Donor
This sounds like a better definition and proposal but how much more progressive would the Dutch government be if they moved to the Dutch East Indies?

I don't think that the Dutch government would be much more progressive. They could be more pragmatic than the DEI government though.

The Dutch government refused 500 native Surinamese volunteers from Dutch Suriname in the fear that their conscripts and volunteers from South Africa would be offended - would this change if the Dutch government moved to the DEI?

If it was for service in the DEI that shouldn't be a problem. In fact, there is the precedent of black solders serving in the KNIL as the Belanda Hitam. These volunteers wanted to liberate the Netherlands though so service in the DEI might put of a number of them.

This still begs the question of why they would go all the way to Batavia instead of London. Surely they would be more well placed there to influence British military strategy in prioritizing the retaking of their homeland?

Well as I said there were good reasons for the government to be based at London. The only way I can see that changing is by having Wilhelmina demand that. The government will have no choice but to follow her.
 
I don't think that the Dutch government would be much more progressive. They could be more pragmatic than the DEI government though.



If it was for service in the DEI that shouldn't be a problem. In fact, there is the precedent of black solders serving in the KNIL as the Belanda Hitam. These volunteers wanted to liberate the Netherlands though so service in the DEI might put of a number of them.



Well as I said there were good reasons for the government to be based at London. The only way I can see that changing is by having Wilhelmina demand that. The government will have no choice but to follow her.
I agree.

If the DEI is overrun by a Japanese invasion similarly to OTL, could Dutch forces stationed there be reformed in Australia? Would any of them become apart of the Princess Irene Brigade or form another brigade entirely?

How could WW2 change if the Dutch government moved to the DEI?
 
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