Defending Neutrality: The Netherlands Prepares for War, 1900–1925

337 Pages·2013·7.553 MB·English

by  Wim Klinkert

contents i
Defending Neutrality
ii contents
History of Warfare
Editors
Kelly DeVries
Loyola University Maryland
John France
University of Wales, Swansea
Michael S. Neiberg
United States Army War College, Pennsylvania
Frederick Schneid
High Point University, North Carolina
VOLUME 90
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/hw
contents iii
Defending Neutrality
The Netherlands Prepares for War, 1900–1925
By
Wim Klinkert
LEIDEN • BOSTON
2013
iv contents
Cover illustration: On so-called army days (legerdagen) the Dutch army presented itself to the general
public. During these military shows all modern equipment was displayed, together with demonstrations
of sports and gymnastics by soldiers. With kind permission of the Nederlands Instituut voor Militaire
Historie, The Hague.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Klinkert, W.
Defending neutrality : the Netherlands prepares for war, 1900-1925 / by Wim Klinkert.
pages cm. -- (History of warfare, ISSN 1385-7827 ; volume 90)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-90-04-22747-7 (hardback : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-90-04-25250-9 (e-book) 1. Netherlands--
History, Military--20th century. 2. Netherlands--Military policy. 3. Neutrality--Netherlands--
History--20th century. 4. Neutrality, Armed--Netherlands--History--20th century. 5. World War,
1914-1918--Netherlands. 6. World War, 1914-1918--Influence. I. Title. II. Title: Netherlands prepares for
war, 1900-1925.
DJ285.K53 2013
940.3'25492--dc23
2013012935
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ISSN 1385-7827
ISBN 978-90-04-22747-7 (hardback)
ISBN 978-90-04-25250-9 (e-book)
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contents v

CONTENTS
List of Illustrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   vii
viii
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   1
1. The Netherlands Army, 1900–1914 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13
2. “It Is an Engineers’ War”: Metal and Chemical Industry in the
Service of the Military in the Netherlands, 1914–1925 . . . . . . . . . . .   65
3. “A Vital Interest of the First Order”: Military Aviation in the
Netherlands, 1914–1920 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
4. “GSIII, Guardian of the State”: Spies and Informants in, for and
against the Netherlands, 1914–1918 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
5. “The Destructive Power of the Present-Day Weapons”: The
Lessons from World War I for the Military Debate in the
Netherlands, 1918–1923 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
Glossary of Dutch Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
Illustrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
328
vi contents
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list of illustrations vii

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
1. The Netherlands and the main defence lines (NIMH, The Hague).
2. General C.J. Snijders (1852–1939), commander-in-chief 1914–1918
(NIMH, The Hague).
3. Schwarzloze machine gun (NIMH, The Hague).
4. Krupp field artillery (NIMH, The Hague).
5. Troops parade past Queen Wilhelmina. The Queen showed a great
interest in military matters and visited troops all over the country
very regularly during the mobilisation years (NIMH, The Hague).
6. L.A. van Royen (1865–1946) with his wife (private coll.).
7. The Artillerie Inrichtingen (Artillery Construction Works) north of
Amsterdam (NIMH, The Hague).
8. A provisional motor machine gun unit, developed by the officer J.P.
Bolten (NIMH, The Hague).
9. The cartridge factory, part of the Artillery Construction Works (NIMH,
The Hague).
10. Guano factory near Rotterdam, important for the production of
Dutch chemical weapons (Municipal archive, Rotterdam).
11. Exercise with gas masks at the gas school, 1920s (NIMH, The Hague).
12. German Albatros C.X. This planed crash-landed 28 August 1917 in the
Dutch province Drente, close to the German border. In 1918 part of
the LVA, in Dutch service until 1925 (NIMH, The Hague).
13. Trompenburg airplane factory in Amsterdam (NIMH, The Hague).
14. F. van ’t Sant (1883–1966) as police commissioner in Utrecht (Munici-
pal archive, Utrecht).
15. H.A.C. Fabius (1878–1957) as first lieutenant of the cavalry in 1907
(private coll.).
16. The employees of GSIII in 1918 (Municipal archive, Flushing).
17. Newspaper stand in Amsterdam. Both British and German propa-
ganda bureaus tried to buy stands like this in order to spread news-
papers. Spies also used them to exchange messages (City archive,
Amsterdam).
18. Th.F.J. Muller Massis (1866–1948), an admirer of the German army
and as attaché in Berlin an important source for GSIII (NIMH, The
Hague).
viii list of illustrations
19. Military attaches posted in Paris, among them Dutch officer De Quay,
visited the frontline in Flanders, 14-16 November 1917, approx. 10
miles northwest of Ypres (NIMH, The Hague).
20. In his brochure Ronduit (Van Voorst tot Voorst) published this map,
indicating the operational problems Dutch neutrality caused the
German advance into Belgium.
21. Mortars, ‘bomb throwers’ and flame throwers at the stormschool in
Waalsdorp (The Hague), 1918 (NIMH, The Hague).
22. Exercise in trench warfare at the stormschool in Waalsdorp. ‘Storm-
men’ practice the use of hand grenades, mortars, flame throwers and
daggers, 1918 (NIMH, The Hague).
23. On 19 September 1917 Gefreiter Becker of Jagdstaffel 20 flew a mission
from an airfield near Bruges (Flanders). Accidentally he landed near
Breskens in Dutch Zeeland. The plane was interned in the Nether-
lands (NIMH, The Hague).
24. P.W. Scharroo (1883–1963) (NIMH, The Hague).
introduction 1

INTRODUCTION
In general, the military history of armies of small states only receives scant
attention in the international historical debate, and even more so when
these armies have not fought in a war. Their existence seems to be of little
importance, except, of course, for the national military histories of the
states that these armies belong to. Moreover, the bulk of the military his-
tories of small states is in the national language, a fact which diminishes
the international impact of studies into these armies even further.
Fortunately, recent trends in historiography favour the study of small states
and their armies and it is on these that this book builds.
The past few years have seen a sizeable production of literature on the
role of small states in international relations. As allies of larger states or as
neutrals, small states, too, play a role in international diplomacy and they
have an impact on the behaviour of large states. The students of this phe-
nomenon usually approach it from the perspective of international rela-
tions or geo-politics. Only rarely is it considered from the perspective of
the internal development of the small states themselves, and for this kind
of study the reader has again to rely on available national historiographies.
The idea that we can learn more about their political and military behav-
iour in the international context by reasoning from the national, internal
developments of small states was the theme of an international conference
held in Breda, the Netherlands, in 2008. During this conference the central
question was why more or less comparable neutral European states in the
period between 1900 and 1940 pursued such divergent defence policies and
shaped the concept of neutrality in such different ways. It appeared that a
better insight into their national traditions and political and military cul-
tures offered good starting points for answering this question.1
A second trend is the growing interest in the role of the smaller neutral
states in World War I, especially those that were located close to the the-
atres of war. The conferences of the authoritative International Society for
First World War Studies give ample scope to contributions from and about
neutral states. This derives from the realization that neutral states, located
in close proximity to the belligerents, were influenced in various ways by
1 H. Amersfoort and W. Klinkert (eds.) Small Powers in the Age of Total War, 1900–1940
(Leiden: Brill Publishers, 2011).