The Netherlands in World War I

The Kingdom of the Netherlands was neutral during World War I. This was part of a strict policy of neutrality in international affairs that started in 1830 with the secession of Belgium, or the Southern Netherlands, from the north. It would end with the German invasion of 10 May 1940. In World War I the Netherlands would be in a tight spot as the country was relatively close to the Western Front and geographically positioned in between the German Empire, German-occupied Belgium and the United Kingdom. Both warring factions would regularly intimidate the Netherlands and put demands on it.

Position before World War I
Before the First World War, the Netherlands hosted two major international peace conferences in The Hague. The First Hague Conference was held in May 1899 on the initiative of the Russian Tsar Nicholas II. Representatives of twenty-six nations conferred on the limitation of certain types of weapons, including poison gas, hollow point bullets and aerial bombardment from hot air balloons. The conference was a surprising success and agreements were made on the laws of war and subsequent war crimes. In 1907, there was a Second Hague Conference at the instigation of the American president, Theodore Roosevelt. It had been planned for 1904 but had to be postponed because of the Russo-Japanese War. The second conference is generally considered a failure. The philanthropic American steel magnate Andrew Carnegie financed the building of the Peace Palace in The Hague to house the International Court of Justice. Today The Hague still is a centre of international law.

Royal House
The head of state of the Netherlands was Queen Wilhelmina. She was known as fiercely patriotic and strong-willed. Queen Wilhelmina leaned towards sympathy for France and Belgium, but only in private. In public she remained purely neutral. Her husband, the German prince-consort Henry Duke zu Mecklenburg-Schwerin, was openly pro-German. The army of his nephew, Frederick Francis IV Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, was part of the German army. Within the Prussian army there was the 'Husaren-Regiment Königin Wilhelmina der Niederlande (Hannoversches) Nr. 15', a Prussian cavalry regiment named after Wilhelmina of which she was honorary commander.

Government
On 29 August 1913 a centrist liberal minority cabinet was appointed under leadership of prime minister Pieter W.A. Cort van der Linden, an independent liberal MP. His cabinet would govern until 9 September 1918, an unusually long period for a Dutch cabinet. During this period the important post of minister of Foreign Affairs was taken by Jonkheer John Loudon. Minister of War was former general Nicolaas Bosboom (until 15 May 1917). Although the government as a whole was strictly neutral, the individual members had their preferences. Some ministers were in favour of France, but prime minister Cort van der Linden was privately seen as ‘German friendly’ and nicknamed ‘Kurt unter der Linden’ after Berlin’s main boulevard.

Declaration of neutrality
After the Austro-Hungarian Empire declared war on the Kingdom of Serbia in the aftermath of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, the Netherlands declared themselves neutral on 30 July 1914. According to international law, neutrality had to be declared in each instance of a war declaration between two sovereign nations. During the month of August, the Dutch declaration of neutrality had to be repeated regularly. The declaration consisted of eighteen articles. The most important were that hostilities were not allowed within the territory and waters of the Dutch Empire; that it was not allowed to use said territory and waters as a base for military operations; and that foreign soldiers who, for whatever reason, crossed into Dutch territory would be interned in POW camps for the duration of the war.

Dutch Military
On 31 July, the Dutch government ordered a full military mobilisation of its 200,000 men conscript armed forces, including reserves and regional militias. The chief of staff lieutenant-general Cornelis Snijders was promoted to full general and commander-in-chief, a function that only existed in war time. Snijders would be the first non-aristocratic Dutch general to become commander-in-chief, a position until then reserved for senior princes of the House of Orange.

Strategy
The Dutch military strategy was purely defensive and rested on three pillars. First there was the ‘Nieuwe Hollandse Waterlinie’ (New Holland Waterline), a defensive ring of rivers and lowland surrounding Holland proper that would be inundated. An older version had existed since the sixteenth century. A second line of defence was formed by a circle of nineteenth-century fortresses and further inundations surrounding the capital Amsterdam, called the Vesting van Amsterdam (Fortress of Amsterdam). The third pillar was the Veldleger, or mobile field army, that would operate outside the Waterline in the rural eastern and southern provinces. In August 1914 the field army had an operational strength of 88,770 soldiers.

During the war, militarily sensitive border areas and places essential to the national defence would be declared in ‘state of siege’, a phase preceding the ‘state of war’. There, military authorities would rule under martial law and non-residents could only go there with a special permit. These prohibited border areas would expand during the war in order to fight espionage and expel suspect individuals.

Weaponry
The main weapons were the Männlicher rifle and the Schwarzlose machine gun, both manufactured in Austria. Artillery was German and French but mostly out-dated, especially the artillery in the fortifications. At the start of the war there was no air force, only a starting aviation department within the army. It had a couple of Farman planes built under license. Later during the war foreign planes who had crashed into Dutch territory would be repaired to serve in the aviation department.

Dutch volunteers in foreign armies
Some Dutchmen did volunteer for service in the French, British and German or Austro-Hungarian armies, but exact numbers are unknown. An example is adventurer Louis Grondijs who served in the French Foreign Legion. The German army did not accept foreign volunteers, unless they possessed German nationality as well. Foreign volunteers were often directed to allied armies such as the Austro-Hungarian, Bulgarian or Ottoman.

Prisoners of War
According to international law soldiers of the warring nations who entered a neutral country had to be interned for the duration of the war. Of the soldiers who entered the Netherlands on purpose or by mistake, 33,105 were Belgian, 1,751 British, 1,461 German, 8 French and 4 American. Among these were also pilots who had flown into Dutch airspace and crashed. Most Belgian and British POW's had fled to the Netherlands after the fall of Antwerp. The Belgians were held captive in Kamp Amersfoort. After a revolt resulted in the death of 7 Belgians, the camp regime was softened. Often their wives and children would seek accommodation in the vicinity.

Most British were members of the 1st Royal Naval Brigade. They were interned in Groningen City, where they were held captive under a mild regime, allowing for trips into the city. Some British soldiers formed a cabaret group named 'The Timbertown Follies' with which they toured throughout the country. The proceeds were donated to charities. Others would knit jumpers and socks for the British navy.

Many German soldiers entered the Netherlands by mistake, especially at the beginning of the war, as the border between the Netherlands and Belgium can be confusing. German patrols were arrested. The German prisoner of war camp was at Bergen in the province of North-Holland.

Deserters
Deserters were not considered foreign soldiers when they entered neutral territory if they were unarmed, removed badges from their uniform, and proclaimed themselves deserter to the proper authorities. Numbers are unknown, but most deserters by far were German. As deserters had no rights to hand-outs like free accommodation or food, some of them would be voluntarily interned in POW-camps.

Refugees
After the German invasion of Belgium on 4 August 1914, a million (out of seven million Belgians) fled their country into the Netherlands. The first wave consisted of Belgian Germans, German-speaking East Europeans and Jews who fell victim to the Belgian public’s outrage directly after the invasion. Their businesses and homes were often raided by angry mobs.

The second wave was caused by the German army’s onslaught and war crimes against civilians. Between August and October 1914, a million Belgians fled to the Netherlands. Most of those refugees returned when the war concentrated itself around the Western Front. Others moved on to England and France. On average 100,000 Belgians stayed in refugee camps during the war. The largest refugee camp was in Nunspeet.

Apart from Belgian civilians there were political refugees from Germany such as the German-American socialist Carl Minster, Germans who escaped conscription into the army, and prisoners of war escaped from German camps, mostly Russians or Russian-controlled nationalities such as Poles and Ukrainians.

Effect on food supply
War conditions disrupted the Netherlands' food imports and caused shortages.

On Tuesday 3 July 1917 this caused serious trouble. In Amsterdam, the city's authorities had decided to hold back the potato supply until there was enough to supply the whole city at once; hungry people who were not willing to wait started a massive riot and plundering potatoes from stores and markets, including using battering rams to break into warehouses and take potatoes intended to be exported to England. 2000 soldiers were called in, and the clashes involved sabres and bayonets and shooting; the crowd often withstood them successfully by throwing paving stones, and some of the soldiers were from Amsterdam and were unwilling to attack their own townspeople. One main battle was a place called Kattenberg. In Rotterdam all the Stoomvaart Maatschappij Nederland's workers and two groups of builders' workmen went on strike saying that available food was not enough for their heavy manual work and demanding increased food supply, stating specifically that they wanted food itself and not promissory pieces of paper.

On Land
In the beginning of the war on 4 August the German army marched near the Dutch-Belgian border in the province of Limburg. For a stretch of 500 m between border markers 42 and 43 the road was half Belgian and half Dutch territory. Dutch border guards made clear which part of the road was Dutch territory, and as a consequence the German army avoided it on their westward march. Despite their precaution, the Dutch were falsely accused by Belgian and French newspapers at the time of supporting the German invasion of Belgium.

At Sea
Dutch shipping and sailors suffered most from war-related incidents and neutrality violations. Several ships were torpedoed by German U-boats or sunk by British sea mines. The fishing town of Scheveningen lost 300 fishermen. 862 fishermen died and 175 fishing boats were sunk. Some sea mines washed ashore and killed incautious bystanders or military specialists tasked with disarming the sea mines. In order to protect merchant ships the Netherlands negotiated with Germany a free channel from the coast via the Dogger Bank to the north of the North Sea.

In the Air
Both Allied and German air planes violated Dutch airspace. On several occasions lost British and German pilots would drop bombs on Dutch towns. The worst incident occurred on 30 April 1917 when a lost British pilot of the Royal Naval Air Service mistakenly dropped 8 bombs on the town of Zierikzee, damaging several houses and killing a family of 3 people. After initial denial, the British government apologised and agreed to compensate for damage and loss of life. A total of 107 airplanes and 24 seaplanes would crash land in the Netherlands and 220 crew were taken prisoner. Of the crashed planes 67 were repaired and added to the army's air department.

German Zeppelins going to or returning from bombing raids on England, violated Dutch airspace due to weather conditions such as wind or fog. Soldiers often opened fire, but without much effect. It is unclear whether Dutch fire was responsible for the downing of the LZ54 (L 19). It came down into the sea and led to the King Stephen Incident, when British sailors let the German crew drown.

Espionage
Because of its geographical location between the U.K, Germany, and Belgium, and its international connections, the Netherlands became a hotbed of espionage. The Netherlands was neutral, which allowed citizen of belligerent countries to travel freely to or from the Netherlands. Most spy agencies had operators in the country. In Rotterdam MI6 had its most important station. Under command of Richard Tinsley, the British intelligence service handled several important spy networks in Belgium, such as La Dame Blanche. These Belgian resistance networks provided the Allies with intelligence concerning German troops behind the Western Front.

The German secret services used Rotterdam as a base for espionage in Britain. From there spies were sent by ferry to spy on the Royal Navy. Some of these German spies were caught and executed, such as Haicke Janssen and Willem Roos, two unemployed Dutch sailors. More famous is the case of exotic dancer and courtesan Mata Hari, convicted of spying for Germany in France, and executed in 1917. In total seven Dutch citizens were executed by the British, French, and Germans. Many more were imprisoned. Dutch citizens were in demand as spies, as they could travel freely through Europe.

Bibliography in English

 * Abbenhuis, Maartje. The Art of Staying Neutral. The Netherlands in the First World War, 1914-1918. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2006.
 * Linden, Henk van der. The Live Bait Squadron: three mass graves off the Dutch coast, 22 September 1914. Soesterberg: Aspekt, 2014.
 * Ruis, Edwin. Spynest. British and German Espionage from Neutral Holland 1914-1918. Briscombe: The History Press, 2016.
 * Tuyll van Serooskerken, Hubert P. van. The Netherlands and World War I. Espionage, Diplomacy and Survival. Leiden: Brill, 2001.