The Dutch Fight WWI

[LordKalvert]

What happens if the Dutch decide to join the allies in 1914. The most likely PODs for this are:

1) The Germans don't modify the Schifflen plan and go through the Netherlands as well as Belgium.

2) The Belgians put up enough resistance at Liege that the Germans decide they must go around the fort to stay on their timetable prompting Dutch intervention

3) The Dutch simply make the calculation that since Germany has violated Belgian neutrality, they won't respect Dutch neutrality either and that they should fight now while they have allies rather than latter when they won't


So how does this play out in the fighting:

the Dutch do have a fairly good army, relatively well equipped and about a tenth the size of the German. They also have very good defensive positions to fall back on and would represent a very serious threat to the German Northern Armies line of communications.

How do Moltke and Joffre react to the changed situation

Do the Germans still press forward with little hope of beating the French or do they fall back to defensive positions or simply resign themselves to a long war and try and conquer the low countries to exploit?

What does Joffre do? Does he push forward with his planned attacks? Shift forces to the north knowing that he could now threaten Germany's rear?

With Joffre, what do you think he actually does and what would have been his best option here

 

[MattII]

Makes it more difficult for German U-boats to operate through the Channel, since they can't duck into Dutch waters in the British get too close. Hells, if the Dutch are prepared to accept the British Transshipping their stuff, the Entente might be able to seal off the Strait of Dover altogether, which would make operating U-boats almost impossible that way.

 

[pompejus]

My theorie is generaly this:

The Germans don't actualy care enough about the Netherlands to fully focus on it. The main enemy was France and they must defeat France as quickly as possible, which was the entire point of the Schliefen plan, knock out France as quickly as possible. So since Germany does not focus on the Netherlands, they will slowly drive the Dutch army to the west, but since their atention is on France does a worse job than they can do and the Netherlands manages to retreat behind the waterline. The Germans are stopped there (they might have taken it, but the forces to do that are fighting in France or Belgium).

When the war stabalizes the Germans occupy the eastern half of the Netherlands and less of France (and maybe Belgium) than OTL. With WWI technology it will be extremely hard to breach the waterline (no planes for example and artilery and the machinegun rule the day), especialy if British and commonwealth forces join the Dutch (I think there will be quite a large amount of South Africans willing to help out in the Netherlands for example).

End result:
Germany still loses, since it is even more overstretched than OTL and it has another enemy to deal with and France is probably in a better position than OTL. The Netherlands gains East-Frisia after the war (and maybe some minor German colonies) for the price of lots of deaths and the destruction of a large part of the coutry.