"A few more Dutch" Topic

This ties into my original post about Dutch ships in the Ironclad forum, but these additional ships are pretty square in the 1890s.

From left to right:
HNLMS Koningin Wilhelmina der Nederlander
HNLMS Sumatra
HNLMS Reinier Claeszen

Enjoy!

Nice! I've had the weird urge to cobble together a campaign involving the Dutch, Dane, Norwegian,and Swedish navies c. 1900 against somebody, maybe the Germans or Russians. There is something appealing about those coast defence battleships and weak cruisers.

That would be a cool scenario and would be a good amount of ships on each side. I've always been a big fan of small ships with really big guns even if they weren't the most maneuverable.

@sn

How about this:

In order to increase export sales of sugar to Scandinavia, the Port of London has cornered the market in cinnamon and are holding the entire worlds stock at it's secret storage base.

The ward-rooms of the Danish naval fleet are abuzz with outrage at the absence of favoured cinnamon swirls.

A German spy has let slip the secret location:

Wiki – Heligoland Island

and the fact that the coastal artillery is crewed by members of the City of London Artillery Gardeners:

H.A.C Artillery Garden

there are also rumours of a secret weapon:

Wiki – 100 ton Gun

…A plan is hatched for the Danish to recover the vaunted spice and restore Danish Pastries to their rightful place in the pantheon of morning goods.

Excellent rationale Stoppage. Who wouldn't go to war for a good Danish pastry?

The historian Fritz Fischer argued that Germany's long-term pre-WWI strategic goal was the creation of a Central European customs bloc, which involved both territorial expansion and coercion/cooption of neighboring countries. One interesting idea that he claims they considered was war with Russia in the 1905-6 timeframe to take advantage of chaos in Western Russia after the 1995 revolution. The ostensible goal would have been the seizure of the Baltic provinces (Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia), and the separation of Poland.

It's easy to imagine that revolution breaking out as early as 1899 (since it would depend on a Russian defeat in the Far East). It's also possible to imagine a situation where Germany follows such a successful war with an attempt to coerce Holland and the Scandinavian states (Belgium would have been guaranteed by Britain and France, and you can either postulate that Wilhelm II momentarily showed better judgment than usual). Or you can bring Britain and France in against Germany in the wake of a Russian defeat, in a belated attempt to restore the balance of power.