The Axis member that never was

[Fiji]

If we look at WWII, there really aren't that many (semi-)plausible ways to get the axis to win.
The Germans were good at a lot of things but picking allies wasn't one of them.
Now, if you look at the political map of the 20s and 30s there was a country which would have made an excelent ally and one wonders why the Germans didn't move heaven and earth to get them to join in on the "right" side.
This country is of course, the Netherlands.
They're the most Germanic people in the world after Germany itself and Austria. Dutch and Berlin dialect are just about mutually intelligable.
The Dutch in OTL had a small but vibrant Nazi party and in the previous big mistake, they were about as close to the Germans as one can be without actually becoming an ally.
Furthermore, there had been a big row between the Netherlands and neutral-in-name-only Belgium after WWI.

Why Germany and the Netherlands weren't closer in OTL is a bit of a dark area to me. The royals seem to play a fairly big part and the almost complete lack of effort on the part of the Germans was another part.
This lack of effort is somewhat understandable ... on the surface, there was no reason for the Germans to ally with the Dutch. They were quite capable of crushing the Dutch defenses and grabbing everything there was to grab.

But, WI, the Germans had gone all out to bring the Dutch into the axis.
If you dig a bit deeper, the Dutch make a quite valuable ally.
They had a working snorkel in 1938.
They had excelent designs for submarine batteries, cutting recharge times by quite a bit.
Dutch aircraft manufacturers had excelent lightweight frames, perfect for scoutplanes and more importantly, they had designs for supersonic airframes.
Although these frames were never actually tested at supersonic speed, present day engineers maintain that they could easily have handled both rocket and jet engines.
Even the best jet fighters the Germans managed to come up with 7 or 8 years later were behind the Dutch designs of the late 30s.

And that's not all, the Dutch also bring the DEI to the mix.
In OTL, the Dutch sabotaged the oilwells so extensively that the Japaneese never managed to get them back up to pre-war production levels.
In this ATL, all Japan needs to do is ask.
How is Japan going to pay?
How about naval aviation tech? Or specs for a zero (which the Fokker engineers would have loved)? Or maybe they can work out an exchange rate ... 1 litre of crude = x m^2 of Australia?
Best thing of course is ... there is no need for Japan to attack the US

So, with all this in mind, how does WWII unfold?

thoughts? idea? deaththreaths? declarations of insanity?

 

[Redbeard]

Hi Fiji

I think you have found a very interesting PoD, and even one I haven’t seen before.

I doubt if the Germans would have been helped by any more technological gadgets, they in some ways had too many already and should have focused on something simpler and in numbers.

For me the most interesting consequences are found in the Far East, but the Axis wasn’t formed until September 1940 with the Tripartite Pact between Germany, Italy and Japan. But as I understand from your post Netherlands is pro-German before 1939, and that must mean that as soon as WWII breaks out in September 1939 the British and French also immediately will take steps to occupy DEI. Japan ought to be very alarmed over this and they may enter the war already in 1939. This will of course press the allies hard, but the Japanese will also be in a difficult situation fighting far away from own bases. In OTL 1941 they had French Indochina as a very important base for all operations in the Far East, but here they will have to fight for that first and in a situation where the allies can use Singapore as a strong base nearby. And even if FIC is taken the surprise element in the attack on Malaya is by nature lost, and that will make that operation much more difficult. Next it will be an IJN not yet with most of its battle winning aircraft like the Zero. The predecessor Claude would have problems even with the FAA’s mediocre fighters. Their best carriers are not yet in service and Yamato and Musashi neither.

The big question is if USA will declare war on Japan in this scenario. I believe there was a (secret?) agreement before PH between USA and UK about USA declaring war on Japan (the entire Axis?) in case of Japanese aggression, but I’ll have to dig up the details.

The next question is if the British, French and/or Americans will take over DEI as soon as Netherlands go nazi (early/mid 30’s?). I’m sure a Nazi Netherlands will very much be an eye opener to the British, as the Nazis are now not only a threat to obscure continental countries, but also to the cornerstones of the Empire. In general I think DEI under Nazi control has far greater strategic alarm effect than Abyssinia under Italian control, and I’m sure this will give extra burst to a British rearmament programme. The French will be very eager to use this as an opportunity to make a stand against Germany, and this may have the British and French risk an operation against DEI. Despite the partly disarmed state of UK and France by early/mid 30’s the Dutch never kept substantial forces in DEI so I guess something could be patched up to invade. Although the Axis isn’t a formality at this time the Japanese would have natural interests in supporting the Dutch Nazis and this could have WWII start some years earlier, but also the axis would be far less well prepared. By mid 30’s the Italians and IJN only had a fraction of their battleships operational, the rest were under reconstruction. As we know the British in OTL 1935 found themselves unfit to wage a major war, but I think there is a great chance of France and even USA joining actively from the start. So although Japan can field a substantial army force by mid 30’s it will quickly risk being cut off by superior allied naval forces.

Such a war will probably not last as long or be as bloody as OTL WWII, but will end with some kind of armistice/peace where the axis gives some concessions and the regimes stay in power, but weakened. The French will probably cry for an unconditional surrender of the Germans, but I believe without much effect - until the Germans try again…

The question is however if Germany by mid 30’s will risk going to war over DEI.

Regards

Steffen Redbeard

 

[Fearless Leader]

Fascist Netherlands?

Ok here's a rough Idea for a Fascist Netherlands...

POD=Pre WWI: Motlke the younger doesn't take over command of the German Army. Someone else does and the Schiefflen plan remains unchanged. Now IIRC a key part of the original Schiefflen plan involves moving through Dutch Territory (The Maastrict corridor) in order to outflank the Belgian Forts.

Now lets say this happens. Schiefflen assumed that the Dutch would balk at the betrayal of their nuetrality but wouldn't be much of a problem. Realisticly I don't see this happening. So Holland enters WWI resulting in the Germans participating in a bloody invasion which limits their progress in France. End Result is that Germany still loses WWI but the Netherlands are incredibly shook up. Thus the strength of the Monarchy is weakened and the Fascist party takes over just after Mussolini (1925-1930?). Britain isn't very worried and at most this Fascist party seems intent on consolidating and rebuilding Dutch Power. Now when Hitler comes to power things get really interesting There is now a Rotterdam-Berlin-Rome Axis...which probably leads to an earlier WW2.

 

[Fiji]

I had a scenario like this in mind:
1930 Netherlands start to lean to the far right
31-32 Net and Ger notice eachother in a crowded room
33-34 Net and Ger start winking and blowing kisses
35-37 Net and Ger are rolling in the hay
38-39 Net and Ger get married (or they start a commune with Ita and Jap)

in this scenario, Net starts arming itself for whatever may come in 35 or 36.

As for the tech toys, I think your right, Redbeard, as far as the scout plane goes. The Germans had their own designs which were definitly good enough.
But the supersonic airframes, those would have helped them along quite a bit. The frames they came up with on their own (several years later, btw) used very expensive alloys (both in production cost and raw materials). The Dutch designs were much cheaper and easier to produce.
And Doenitz would have given an arm and a leg for the snorkel and the batteries. In this scenario, Germany has them 4 years early.

Now, would the UK and France have moved against the Netherlands in the 30s?
On the one hand, they let Germany get away with a lot in OTL before they reacted.
On the other hand, The Netherlands are a pushover compared to Germany and the "peace in our time" thing was basically buying much needed time.

In the end it will all come down to timeing ... if the Dutch go openly nazi to soon (ie, before ties with Germany are strong enough) UK and France will make a move. If ties with Germany (and one would assume, Japan) grow strong enough before UK and France take notice, it's a whole new ballgame.

UK and France rearm a bit sooner? (but are still beaten to the punch by the various axis members)?
the axis forms (formally or otherwise) sooner?
the Netherlands beef up their defences in DEI?
a deal between Net and Jap where Jap puts naval and/or air assets in the DEI?
big can ... lots of worm

 

[Melvin Loh]

(quote) Dutch and Berlin dialect are just about mutually intelligable.

I can sorta vouch for that with a good mate of mine back in Darwin who's Dutch, and he can speak both Dutch and German pretty fluently due to the great similarity between the 2.

In this scenario WI the Dutch rule in the NEI gets more oppressive with an overtly racist Dutch Nazi regime ? Could this lead to an earlier and more violent Indonesian nationalist rising against Holland ? Would the British and French support anti-Nazi nationalist rebels, or would they only be very lukewarm given their own colonial interests in SE Asia ? Of course, there's the question of Australia's role, being so close to the NEI and all: would Australia, as Britain's key ally in the Pacific, decide to launch an invasion of a fascist-ruled NEI in the case of war, in much the same way as ANZAC forces in 1941 invaded Vichy French Syria and Lebanon ?

 

[Max Sinister]

I think this scenario tends to be ASB.
Sure, many Dutch can speak German, but not the other way round. That's typical: People from small countries tend to learn the language of bigger, stronger countries. That's why everyone learns English, but Americans tend to learn not that many foreign languages.
There's been a nazi party in the Netherlands, but they were never in danger to become a dictatorship, let's not even talk about a unification with Germany. The Netherlands were born when they separated from the HRE after a long war, and they've always been wary about Germany. The Netherlands have a long tradition with their constitutional monarchy and democracy, while in Germany democracy was young and not everywhere accepted (of course, they had to deal with a helluvalot of problems). And the fact that they were of germanic stock too doesn't mean anything, since no one there believed in Hitler's bullshit theories about race.

 

[Linkwerk]

I don't think any loyalty would be race-based or anything like that, nor would a fascist holland be annexed by germany. I could see a very, very right-wing group taking over in holland and becoming an ally of germany in the same manner that a lot of central european countries did- not fascist, but a right-wing dictatorship maybe centered around a monarch.

The dutch did have pretty close military ties with the germans. German engineers and naval attaches that were working on dutch BC projects only left a few days before the invasion OTL.

 

[jgack]

Seems to me that this ah would be real important when the war starts and the Briish begin their blockade. In order to prevent the French and British from occupting the DEI the Japanese would probably move to occupy them and the Dutch authorities would probably not object but instead welcome the "Japanese protectors" with open arms. Now the Japs have all the oil they could want. The Japanese continue their conquest of China and possibly invade Russia as the Soviets begin to collapse, causing that collapse to happen even faster. The U.S. would have no reason to fight and would remain isolationist and any war between the Japanese and the West would follow the final victory over China when the full strength of the Imperial Army could be turned against the British, really the only important power left in the Far East following France's collapse. Without America's help the Soviets would eventually fall to Germany's superior armies and the British would be forced into eventual stalemate and peace. especially when the Japanese make their move against Britain's Far East empire. If hey are lucky the British might be able to make the Japanese give back Britain's lost territory in a marginal victory but the Axis would be a Juggernaut and only an American/British alliance could hope to contain them. (The Soviet Union being essentially dead.) That's how I see it going. Though I suppose I might be wrong. Maybe.

 

[Hierophant]

I think the Dutch would be neutral until their shipping or navy were pre-emptively attacked.

 

[Proctol]

The Dutch had two reasons not to join the Axis. The first was a national revulsion to German arrogance. The second is because around 1935 the Germans signed a Concordat with the Vatican which handed command of the German military over to Catholic generals, specifically, Jesuits. (Hitler, and most if not all of his staff, were nominally Roman Catholics.) If there is anything that the Dutch of past generations hated more than German arrogance, it was Roman Catholicism (the Catholic provinces of Limburg, N. Brabant & Drenthe excepted). This, because the Spanish violently oppressed the Netherlands in the sixteenth
century, and specifically, suppressed Protestantism with the same kind of
boodbath the Irish inflicted on their Protestant neighbors in the
seventeenth century; only in the Dutch case it lasted much longer, whereas
Cromwell put a comparatively quick stop to the Irish massacres. Though
the current Dutch generation seems to know nothing of this, or, at least,
does not seem to care, even as recently as twenty years ago there were
vehement protests against a Papal visit to the Netherlands. At the time the
American media was at a loss to explain why the protestors were so opposed
to the one Luther had addressed as "his Hellishness."

 

[Paul Spring]

Hitler's military was commanded by Catholic Jesuits? That's a new one to me.

So what if Hitler and many of the leading Nazis were nominally Catholic? Most of the leading Nazis were basically hostile to all forms of Christianity and believed in a sort of twisted paganism that boiled down to "might makes right". They just didn't attack Christianity very much publically because they needed conservative Protestants and Catholics to support them.

 

[MerryPrankster]

"the Irish inflicted on their Protestant neighbors in the
seventeenth century; only in the Dutch case it lasted much longer, whereas
Cromwell put a comparatively quick stop to the Irish massacres"

What Irish massacres? I know about the Irish being oppressed rigorously by the English, and though ethnic uprisings tend to be gory affairs, I've never heard of any Irish "Catholic jihads" in the style of Imperial Spain.

 

[MerryPrankster]

Hitler and his crew were mostly from southern Germany, which is culturally very Catholic. Hitler himself was brought up as a Catholic, and at one point wished to be a priest or monk.

However, Hitler got into a lot of Nietzchean stuff--"might makes right" and "will to power" and all that. He sneered at Christianity as a "religion for weaklings" and wished the Germans had converted to Islam b/c it would supposedly make them more ferocious in battle.

Himmler and the SS gang were even worse. They were, to be blunt, devil worshippers. Not tree-worshipping paganism, as a lot of German "romantics" were into, but outright black-side-of-the-occult stuff.

I know the Nazis signed a Concordat with the Vatican and the Pope at the time gets cricitized a lot as "Hitler's Pope" (though Golda Meir praised him at his funeral for ordering monks and nuns to hide Jews and others in their religious houses); however, I've never heard of Jesuits being in charge of (or at least being influential in) the Nazi government.

 

[Aedh Rua]

A Fascist Netherlands could do the Axis much more good as a friendly neutral than as a wartime ally. This isn't to sell the Netherland short. I'm sure the Dutch people are as brave as anyone. However, a Fascist Netherlands that quietly lets Britain and France know it is not entering the war under any circumstances would almost certainly avoid any attack on the homeland or the DEI. When the Germans invade Western Europe, it could simply allow them transit rights, and claim to the Allies, quite correctly, that it was that or be invaded. It could give Japan all the oil it wanted, in exchange for technology or trade concessions in China. This keeps the Japanese out of the War, and greatly delays American entry into the War, at the very least.

Note that the Dutch government has traditionally been clever enough to figure all of this out, Fascist or not.

Whether this leads to an Axis victory is debatable, but certainly the Axis end up better off than in OTL.

 

[Proctol]

Hitler's Concordat with the Vatican was widely reported in
Newspapers at the time, including the conditions.

The Irish massacres are those of 22 October 1641, on
Loyola's feast day. References include Guizot, almost
every church history book.

 

[wkwillis]

Axis Netherlands

If the UK and France treated the Dutch badly in WWI they might have been German allies in WWII. If the Allied nation of Japan were to annex the Dutch East Indies?
Maybe they find the Groeningen supergiant gas field thirty years earlier and the Germans are their market after France siezes the Saar?
Hitler tones down the mudering the Jews thing in favor of concentrating on Russians and Slavs in general?
Nah, the Dutch are too sensible.

Oh yeah, the Japanese never went short of oil from the fields in Indonesia. They were short of tankers to ship it in. Somebody kept sinking them.