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Post by garrisonchisholm on Oct 30, 2020 7:38:28 GMT -6
Goodness, war with France. I hope the French are disorganized, or I shudder to think how the Dutch frontier will be held.
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Post by cv10 on Oct 30, 2020 7:50:03 GMT -6
Goodness, war with France. I hope the French are disorganized, or I shudder to think how the Dutch frontier will be held. We're hoping that Belgian neutrality will be respected, but if all else fails, we are allied to Great Britain. Hopefully they'll do better than they did in the South African War!
If all else fails we can flood the water line!
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Post by director on Nov 6, 2020 12:26:23 GMT -6
It is easy to see that no effort was made to avoid a war with France - rather the opposite. I do think having Britain at your back made the idea of war with France more easy to contemplate.
With command of the seas you can't be starved out or invaded amphibiously, and if Belgium and Germany remain neutral there is no land border for France to cross. The military prowess of the British and Dutch Armies will likely not be put to the test in Europe.
Assuming you have some naval success, what would you like to gain from the war?
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Post by cv10 on Nov 6, 2020 12:37:44 GMT -6
It is easy to see that no effort was made to avoid a war with France - rather the opposite. I do think having Britain at your back made the idea of war with France more easy to contemplate. With command of the seas you can't be starved out or invaded amphibiously, and if Belgium and Germany remain neutral there is no land border for France to cross. The military prowess of the British and Dutch Armies will likely not be put to the test in Europe. Assuming you have some naval success, what would you like to gain from the war? I. I made zero effort to give peace a chance! Once tensions reached yellow, I figured that the best thing to do was press on and fight. With the Brits alongside, I was pretty sure that I'd win. It seems to me that once you reach a certain level of tension, it's generally impossible to have good relations again until you've fought a war. II. With the German Empire acting as guarantor for Belgium in this case, neutrality should be maintained. The Germans and Dutch don't like each other, but the Germans have no love for the French and little desire to fight the British. III. I'd be inclined to stick with reparations. If what I remember from RTW is still true, reparations are more beneficial in the long term for the budget. I've got enough land to defend and the larger budget would be more helpful. The only overseas territory I'd like is something in Northeast Asia as a base to fight Japan, but the French don't have that.
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Post by aeson on Nov 6, 2020 14:16:54 GMT -6
If what I remember from RTW is still true, reparations are more beneficial in the long term for the budget. It's still true. It's arguably more true in RTW2 than it was in RTW1, because in RTW2 there actually is a significant drop in "Resources from Possessions" late game (I think the late '40s is when I really start noticing it) whereas I don't recall ever seeing a decline in "Resources from Possessions" in RTW1.
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Post by cv10 on Jan 29, 2021 22:04:07 GMT -6
Any Dutchman familiar with the French War of 1906 knows that it was not an auspicious campaign for the Navy. Combined with the British, we were able to keep the French bottled up in their own ports. However, the actions and engagements at sea did not favor our side of the balance sheet. As self-aggrandizing as it may sound, I don’t think there was any other officer more cognizant of this than myself.
I didn’t see much initial action myself as the Venlo, paired with Hr. Ms. Arnhem, spent most of its time screening convoys as they returned home. This was not popular duty; most of us wanted to be scouting for the fleet or running down enemy coastal patrols like the cruisers attached to the Battle Force. Consequently, we did not get to participate in any of the early actions.
We were soon cured of our disappointment. The initial meetings went mostly in favor of the French. On April 6th, the cruisers Tilburg and Rotterdam had a narrow escape from a pair of far larger French cruisers. While they took no damage, they didn’t inflict any either. Then in May, the battleships Zeeland and Konig Willem I failed to intercept a large French convoy with vital materials bought in the United States.1 Instead, they traded a few meaningless shots with a French cruiser force, inflicting no damage. Again, the French enjoyed a considerable moral victory, if not a large material one.
Even worse was on June 4th, as the Zeeland, Willem de Zwijger, and a trio of British battleships failed to locate enemy forces off the French coast. The cruiser Hr. Ms. Grave managed to find a French transport off Rochelle but ended up colliding with her. While the transport sank, the damage to Hr. Ms. Grave was not inconsequential. Again, the day went to the French.2
There was little glory to be had anywhere. Convoy duty is not glamorous, but neither is maintaining a blockade. Between our Home Fleet and the might of the Royal Navy, we had the French bottled up in port by July. Their battleships road at anchor in Brest, Le Havre, and Saint Nazaire while our own battleships road at anchor in Rotterdam and Plymouth. Helping the British block off access to the North Sea and keeping an eye on the Biscay ports won the Battle Fleet few laurels. I was the there for the worst day of the war. The one positive aspect of protecting trade is that eventually, enemy raiders blunder into you and you either flee or fight. This is what happened to us. On July 29th, the Venlo was patrolling off the French coast with concert with Hr. Ms. Arnhem when we spotted a French Sfax-class cruiser heading out to have a go at our shipping. We formed a sort of ad-hoc line of battle with the Arnhem to stern and closed with the Frenchman to engage at close range where our 4-inch guns would be most effective. I spent the action up in the spotting mast. Like every other man aboard, I felt certain that we’d pay the French out for all of our dashed expectations of victory in the previous actions. Indeed, I felt lucky that I was to have such a good view of the action from my perch high above the main battery. It was thrilling to watch as the distance between our cruisers and the French receded. The French ship had the range of us and started peppering away, but the initial shots didn’t come close and I put them out of my mind. The Sfax-class were ungainly ships with only a pair of centrally controlled single gun turrets, and their shooting was wide. Before I knew it, I heard a crash below as our own 4-inch guns began their rapid smashing fire. At 2-to-1, it seemed like victory was only a matter of time.
I don’t clearly remember what happened next. Indeed, I’ve had to read other accounts of the action from people on the Arnhem and on the French cruiser to understand what happened. From what was pieced together later on, it seems that a lucky French shell hit us and set off a flash fire.3 The poor old Venlo blew up. Most of the crew died with her. Those of us in the spotting mast and upper works were lucky. Instead of killing us, the explosion which broke the Venlo apart sent us flying off into space. It still seems strange to me, but I have no memory of this. One minute, I was at my battle station, about to inform the bridge of an enemy course change and the next thing I knew, I was floating amid a tangle of wreckage.
It was only luck, basic decency, and conformity to rules in an era when powers strictly adhered to the Hague Convention that saved my life. The Arnhem, damaged herself and facing a superior enemy, disengaged after the Venlo exploded and was unable to search for survivors. Fortunately, the French cruiser (the namesake Sfax herself as it turned out to be) declined to pursue and spent the rest of the day looking for survivors. The French pulled 17 survivors, me included, out of the Biscay.4
We were taken to Paris for interrogation. At the time, we were the only Dutch prisoners of war and were held in a disused barrack at one of the forts surrounding the city. Our party was grilled for useful information but stuck firmly to the general principle that we were only to inform them of our names, ranks, and service identification numbers. Happily, the French did not press the issue.
I wasn’t there for this. I was laid low in a French hospital. I received some minor wounds when the Venlo exploded, but nothing that the Sfax’s doctor couldn’t handle. Unfortunately, I ended up with a sore belly and was doubled over by the time we reached Paris. They took me to the Val-de-Grace where they diagnosed appendicitis and removed my appendix. The surgery, as the existence of this memoir would indicate, was a success. However, I contracted pneumonia in the hospital and damn near died. I didn’t fully recover until three months after the war ended.5
I was held in that hospital for the rest of the war. Aside from the doctors, a number of French naval officers came to visit, including some that I’d met before the war in port visits and regattas. They tried to innocuously ferret information out of me, and I responded by politely and subtly indicating that they could go to hell. An official from the American Embassy came to visit as well: as a neutral power that we enjoyed close relations with, they were handling some diplomatic interests on our behalf, including looking after Dutch prisoners as best they could. Say what you want about them, but I’ll always feel gratitude for the Americans. It was their embassy which first notified Amsterdam (and more importantly, my wife!) that I was still alive.
These visits from American consular officials, ostensibly to see that I was recovering, gave me the chance to keep up to date on the war news. In a monstrous violation of the spirit of neutrality, and likely the actual rules, the Americans smuggled newspapers to me. It was from them that I learned of the Dutch Navy’s first drawing of blood. On August 22nd, Hs. Ms. Ravenstein caught the French cruiser Cosmao and battered her into a burning wreck. Then, an Anglo-Dutch destroyer squadron caught a convoy bringing French colonial troops up from Senegal and bagged the lot of them, pulling over 700 enemy prisoners out of the water.
Then came decidedly mixed news. With the war going poorly but not yet badly for them, the French decided to seek peace terms. From what I understand, old Admiral de Graaf and the Admiralty were united (for the only time I can think of!) in recommending against peace. The French had been blockaded by a combination of Dutch and British sea power and fighting on was almost certainly going to benefit the country. However, the Molen Cabinet’s dovish tendencies won out. In exchange for certain trading concessions in Indochina, an indemnity paid to the family of the poor Venlo’s dead, and an assurance that the French would avoid meddling in Antillean independence for at least 5 years, the Cabinet agreed to a peace arrangement.6 The ended October 31, 1906.
Notes
1. While the U.S. Congress enacted a neutrality law to prevent American ships from carrying war materials for either side, the law permitted foreign powers to buy weapons and munitions If the materials were shipped on their own cargo vessels. On one occasion in New York Harbor, a British ship and a French ship were docked next to each other as the longshoremen loaded them with arms. Jaques Belloq became the only Frenchman to die on North American soil during the war: he was executed in the electric chair at Sing Sing Prison for stabbing John Lakey to death in saloon. 2. There’s rather little for me to comment on. These actions have all been well-documented and there’s nothing that De Jong says that clashes with the accepted narrative. 3. A flash fire or a magazine hit are the generally accepted explanations. 4. De Jong was the only surviving officer. 5. From what records survived, it seems that the French were worried about De Jong dying in their custody and have serious consideration to repatriating him so that they would not be held responsible if he did. 6. Prime Minister Molen’s statement to Parliament was simple: the French aggressors conceded, and national honor was satisfied. Privately, he described the desires of more hawkish members of the States-General for French territory in Indochina as “seizing a burning coal with a bare hand.”
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cvl
Junior Member
Posts: 50
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Post by cvl on Aug 14, 2021 17:51:17 GMT -6
Is this AAR still active?
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Post by cv10 on Aug 26, 2021 13:16:22 GMT -6
It is not, though I might take another stab at it when the DLC comes out.
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