Talk:Military history of the Netherlands during World War II

I think that one of the main causes of the famine was that the Germans confiscated food. Andries 17:53, 25 February 2006 (UTC)


 * As far as I know, blocking the transport routes between the agricultural lands and the Randstad both by allied advance in teh case of Brabant, and by teh Germans in an attempt to enforce their defenses (north) were the main cause of the famine. But please correct my if you know for sure cofiscation was the cause (if was for lack of bikes in any case ;-) Arnoutf 23:06, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Cleanup?
This is a good article and I found it an interesting read. But I think it needs a clean up, some of the setences appear not to make sense (maybe it is just me). I noticed a few mis-spellings and sentences that are too short. I might have a go at cleaning it up my self later, (if I can find the time) however I just wondered if others agreed with me. Kyle sb 06:19, 7 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Please do, I think most of this article is written by Dutch editors; and fluent English is a difficult language to us. Arnoutf 07:33, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Holland - Netherlands
This page seems to make the mistake of stating that Holland and the Netherlands are synonims. This is not the case. Holland is only a small part of the Netherlands in the west of the country. Using the word "Holland" in stead of "the Netherlands" is offensive to two thirds of the population of the Netherlands, who do NOT live in the region called "Holland". Thank you.

Paul 08-01-07 (from anon user ip account 82.92.175.70)


 * There were 2 dubious instances of Holland use instead of the Netherlands, I changed them because Paul was right. To Paul - You are welcome to make edits yourself, that IS the whole idea about wiki. Readers are actively invited to edit erroneous content. Also use ~ to autosign your edits, it will give an IP number if you do not create an account, but that is still preferable over name signing as you did above which more or less counts as an usigned edit... Arnoutf 22:17, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Inaccurate
Most of the information in the article is inaccurate, meaning there is some truth there but it is highly colored. Quote " In 1940, the Netherlands had known peace for over a hundred years, its last war having been the Belgian Revolution of 1830. Therefore, and also because of widespread pacifism during the 1920s and 1930s, its army was in a sorry state." This sentence is, to say the least highly condensed and a wrong observation. The fact that the netherlands had been at peace for over 100 years did not automatically result in it's army being backwards. An example in case are the swiss who haven't had a war for ages and yet aren't considered backward. I'll translate and quote here a summary of the dutch book "Met man en macht, de militaire geschiedenis van nederland 1500-2000(english(my own): with man and might: the military history of the netherlands 1500-2000. A book used in training course of officers from the royal dutch army.): Summary if from the section armed neutrality and the second world war(1870-1949) from chapter V.(page 338) The dutch defensive policy showed a marked continuity for the period 1874-1940. Despite the changes the dutch military experts kept apace with the views developed in both france and germany. [] The cornerstone of dutch independence [] was [] armed neutrality. The point of this quote is that, wathever you might think dutch military thinking wasn't frozen in time.

This statement: Most of the Dutch army units where equipped with carbines dating from 1890 is meaningless. The for the standardised rifle of germany the gewehr 98 dated from the late nineteenth century, although it had been revised in the 20's to become the 98k. However the same applies to the dutch rifle: the mannlicher 1895: it dated from the late 19th century and had also been revised between the world war's. So this is no conclusive evidence that the dutch where backward in this respect, if they were more an accurate explanation is needed because if this is prove of backwardness then if the germans where also backward. And i doubt that anyone want to say that. Besides the main firepower for the squad doesn't lie with the rifle but with the machine gun. It would be more appropriate to state that the dutch did not have a submachine gun and it's machine guns were old (the standard light machine gun was the lewis gun dating from the first world war and 20's and heavy schwarzlose acquired from the allies from captured and surrendered german and austrian stocks) as compared to the german MG 40(both in the light and heavy version). Therefore in decisive power at the squad level the dutch where outmatched as compared to the germans. But note: the fact that dutch squads had light machine guns and where backed up with heavy machine guns shows that at least they where provided with the weapons which were used late in world war I and they where not as remarked on some sites even up to scratch to world war I standards. This again shows that they where well aware of developments and when money was available the military tried to supply the troops with modernised equipment as best as possible.

Quote: The Dutch General Staff was led by General Izaak Reijnders, who was replaced on February 6, 1940 by Henri Winkelman, because Reijnders was unable to get enough funds from the defence minister Adriaan Dijxhoorn to modernize both the Waterline and the Grebbeline, the two main defensive lines that they had constructed to stop invasions from the east.

This is also inaccurate: Lou de Jong, remarks in part 2 of his work that the reasons why Reijnders was replaced was because of a escalating conflict between the politicians both in the cabinet(actually they hesitated even to appoint him commander in chief) and the 2nd chamber which culminated in a conflict about: 1 the interpretation of use of the rights allowed to the military because of the declared state of siege. In the law describing the rights under this state this gave the military almost dictatorlike powers both in civil and military affairs. It was felt that the military where actually not able to handle civil affairs properly and therfore this should be left to the civil administration. In additional an issue arose also about the cost of clearing field of fire. Although because of the law the military had the powers to make any decision they wanted without consulting the administration, in practice Reijnders was given to understand that he should not push his luck. Or as expressed by De Jong: a gentlemen's agreement to curb his powers. 2 the conflict about the social gathering clubs in the army. A request was made to have clubs for social gathering of non-religous people. Such club already did exist for the catholic and protestant soldiers. But at the end of the first world war some of these social gatherings within the army had been involved in revolutionary activity, hence the reluctance of Reijnders to have them reassembled. However this caused a major collision with the social democrats, who at this point in time had become part of the accepted polital establishment.

In the end Reijnders dealings with the politicians went for bad to worse until he was asked to resign. He was dismissed with honor. Reijnders wasn't technically the head of the general staff. He was chief of staff until he was appointed supreme commander 28 august 1939 of the land and air forces. The chief of staff, technically the head of the general staff, was van Voorts to Voorst, brother to the commander of the field army. Again therefore not quite wrong but not quite accurate also 2

RE: Inaccurate

I am not entirely sure if I am supposed to edit like this. But your post is wrong, Reijnders resigned because he was asked to defend the dutch mainland against an army and he was constantly being pushed to be "cheap" in his defence and also to listen to Dijxhoorn. Dijxhoorn after the war was completly pushed asside for his incompetent leadership. reijnders was right it was nonesense to ask your commander to either defend on the grebbe, or Waterline but not Both.

Secondly the Dutch army used Artillery dating from 1890, and the carbines where also from that age. May I remind you that carbines are meant for close range fighting and not for a long range firing duel. Honestly the army was pathetic, and I will also remind you that DE Jong your quoting was the guy who fled the day the war broke out in a minesweeper towards england. So as far as im concerned his story is nonesense. The books of brongers are much beter in that respect because they quote actual german and Dutch battle reports.

Several Issues
This article has several issues. One is the use of peacock terms like "the Dutch army was considered a joke" or "most of them were in a pitiful state". This leads me to question neutrality of the statments, especially since they aren't sourced. Also, there is a repitition of information (it's mentioned that the Dutch army had old weapons twice) and other general problems in writing. I don't intend to put down those that worked on this article, but just believe it could use improvement. Homersmyid 22:46, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Revision of March 11, 2010 I have reorganized and streamlined the first portion of the article to address issues like these. My goal was to improve organization and render the text more idiomatic without changing any substantive information, as my knowledge of the subject is just about as sketchy as can be. Hence, no more edits from me until those with greater factual knowledge review what I've done and either endorse it, correct it, or (if I've made a hash of things) revert it. I hope this helps out a bit. Drhoehl (talk) 20:52, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Merger appropriate?
My feeble efforts at improvement noted above notwithstanding, as far as I can see much of what this article does, Battle of the Netherlands does better. Should the two be merged? Drhoehl (talk) 21:10, 11 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Totally agree. This article is redundant. More importantly it is full of factual errors and assumptions. Battle of the Netherlands should be the only article on this topic. This article - of which the title is misleading too - should be deleted entirely! Grebbegoos (talk) 03:15, 21 November 2010 (UTC)