Onze Plaats in de Zon: The Rise of Frederik de Grote (van Holland)

[Tanzhang (譚張)]

Tommy: Out of curiosity, why do you consider this a gameplay AAR? and don't worry it's the thought that counts If this AAR is deserving I hope to have your vote in three months time.

aldriq: Yes, Macau starts off as a state, whereas Goa which:
A. has been Portuguese for a lot longer than Macau
B. Unlike Macau, was considered a colony for it's entire history under Portugal

Is not considered a state. I attribute this to Paradox's continued misrepresentation of Macau.

[Tommy4ever]

I know this is probably more of a history book AAR but that section is crowded and I felt there was enough gameplay in it that I could put it in that section.

[Eber]

Yep...you're right. I loved the update! Silly Portuguese thinking they could fight against you. Great Britain will always be a problem for you though since you both have extensive holdings in the Pacific.

That was a big revolt in Belgium...glad it was put down with ease. Love your description about Frederick's Tower and the such. Details such as that really makes your AAR seem like a history-book.

[Timmie0307]

Nice way of providing the ideal way of the Dutch Empire . If they would've put more effort indeed in colonial administration there would be a real win-win situation...

Tim

[Communitarian!]

Frederik's policies seem to be dedicated to not only building a state, but holding it together; rare to see such a collected monarch. Clearly, his personal tragedy has helped make him see the big picture and focus on the maintenance of the Netherlands present and future. I'm also secretly thrilled not only to see Dutch Formosa, but the Qing siege Sekondi as well. Not as thrilled to see the loss of Yunnan, but that might be a looming sense of dread.

Frederikstad sounds incredible, and I love the 'post-history history' overview of areas. It really lends a sort of cool plausibility to everything. The national-liberal policies of Frederik are interesting to see unfold too. Hoping to see more unfolding of the Gentleman's game; and waiting with bated breath for checkmate!

[FlyingDutchie]

At least Frederik isn't making the same mistake of not using native troops in sizable numbers. The real administration, by a combination of fear and racist prejudices never conscripted Indonesians on any serious level. The KNIL was rather small and only included natives from 'martial' islands. Using natives, as in Formosa will help the Dutch to police their Empire without sacrificing the ability to defend the homeland, whichis essential when playing with the big boys. Good show.

[Danking]

I demand an Update :P

[Rockingluke]

This is excellent reading. Please continue.

[Tanzhang (譚張)]

Eber (1): I can tell you've never played 1.1, that was nothing! a country-wide revolt is common, especially in the later years. Thank God The Netherlands doesn't have too many home provinces in comparison to say, Russia.

Eber (2): I knew that as soon as i started this AAR someplace in the empire would be named Frederikstad and that it would likely be someplace in Asia (as most the major cities in Asia we know today haven't been built yet, or are just being built around this time). When I found out there actually is a place called Frederickstad (in Norway I believe) and what the Chinese transliteration was, the rest of that chapter pretty much wrote itself.

Timmie: If Imperialism as a whole was run by people like Kipling and (this fictitious interpretation of) Frederik rather than people like Torquemada and Leopold II it would indeed be a win-win situation. Alas it was not to be...

Communitarian (1): I agree! For once I'd like to see some adherence to the "open door" policy; In my many games of Vicky II I've seen either Russia or Great Britain take swathes of Yunnan or Mongolia roughly one in every three games, but I've NEVER seen ANY country take a treaty port off China. At least Vicky I had an Opium war event chain. Places like Qingdao, Weihai, and especially Dailian, Shanghai and HK lose their significance when they're not treaty ports.

Communitarian (2): My eventual plan after the AAR proper was completed was to do a sort of appendix from 1935 to 2000, about the royal family, the colonies, etc. I'm glad to see that some people would enjoy reading something like that.

FlyingDutchie: The Dutch weren't the only GP guilty of that, actually most of them were, including the British at times. Frederik however, holds no such foolish prejudices against his subjects.

Danking: Very well, I noticed you have a Colombian avatar, I have a feeling you won't like the next update

Rockingluke: Thank you, I shall.

[Tanzhang (譚張)]

The Second Interbellum: The Dutch Industrial and Cultural Revolutions and Counter-Revolutions 1846-1852

Revolution

Following the end of the Portuguese war high taxes established during Willem's reign were abolished, and the tax rate lowered across the empire. This culminated with the completion of many of the government's railway projects, which ushered in a new age of private investment and industrial growth. The Amsterdam Stock Exchange was flooded with investment offers and opportunities as it rose to become the second largest in the world with a market capitalisation or over Four Million British Pounds (over Ten Million Guilder in 1840), four times as large as it's nearest rival, New York.


The Amsterdam Stock Exchange (Beurs van Zocher shown), was the second largest in the world. It was designed and named after Jan Zocher and completed during the war with Portugal

Most Industry was centred in the southern provinces, namely Vlaanderen as it had been during the reign of King Willem I. The dominating industries were steel, cement, liquor, shipbuilding and furniture. Numerous plans for a fertiliser industry were proposed during this time despite an utter lack of demand for fertiliser either home or abroad. Frederik ordered the establishment of an industrial commission to squash any further plans for any such industry, citing that the unsold stockpiles of fertiliser would be a danger to public health.


Work taking place at the Vlaanderen Steelworks

Technological advances in mechanical production lead to a flurry of inventions by The Netherlands' brightest minds, inventions such as the mechanical saw, reaping machine, precision saw, the threshing machine and three varieties of the power loom. The most important invention invented during this period however, had nothing to do with industry.

On the 4th of May 1847, a Dutch chemist and pharmacist named Petrus Kipp had discovered a new malaria vaccine for the Dutch Army. Kipp had analysed bark remedies he had brought from southern Columbia and found out that the main ingredient, Kinine (quinine), could be isolated and when combined with water and taken orally would provide a suitable defence against malaria.


Petrus Jacobus Kipp, Dutch chemist responsible for starting the Kinine craze

"Conquest without Conquering": Cultuur Imperialisme (Cultural Imperialism)

The main ingredient in Kipp's anti-malaria tonic was Kinine extracted from the Cinchona plant of South America. Malaria was common throughout the world at the time, and especially prevalent in Africa and South East Asia where it hampered colonial efforts by causing the deaths of many European settlers. Kipp's discovery was thus highly prized by the colonial powers of the day, including his home country The Netherlands.

King Frederik himself was intrigued by the medicinal properties of the cinchona plant, and believed it essential to gain a monopoly on it's production before any of the other Great Powers did. To do this he realised that the Netherlands must have it's own supply of cinchona, a plant which only grew in Peru and Columbia.

The most obvious solution would be to trade seeds of the plant and grow them in Dutch-controlled territory such as Guyana or somewhere in the Dutch East Indies, however the Colombian and Peruvian authorities knew the potential wealth of a cinchona monopoly and were reluctant to sell.


The Colombian government was reluctant to negotiate any deals

The next most obvious solution would be to invade Colombia, but this was unfeasible. The Netherlands had recently been embroiled in two wars of aggression, a third in such a short space of time would set The Netherlands as a pariah among nations, Frederik refused to let his reputation be tarnished in such a way.

Instead, Frederik came up with a revolutionary third-way, which would branch into a whole new philosophy and doctrine of Imperialism, one which would be widely copied by the Great Powers of the day (especially The British in China) and some liberals argue still is in practice by countries and multi-national corporations today. Frederik called this new doctrine Cultuur Imperialisme or as he put it simply, "Conquest without Conquering".

Unlike today where the majority of the world's nations have embraced Free Trade and Free Market economies, the economic trend of the 1800's was largely protectionist. In simple terms, this meant countries would raise taxes (called tariffs) on foreign, imported goods in order to either encourage local industries and goods, to raise revenue or both. As a highly advanced and industrialised economy the Netherlands had little need for foreign goods, so it raised it's tariffs to encourage Nederlanders to buy local, superior goods of high quality rather than cheaper, low-quality imports. This also meant that countries like Columbia which couldn't afford to produce goods of the quality of Dutch goods had to either pay ridiculous prices for Dutch goods or go without and live off inferior local produce.

Frederik hoped to use this economic leverage to force Columbia into dependency. He entered into a trade treaty whereby he would lower all tariffs on one of the most prized goods to be produced in Holland, Liquor.

The effects of Frederik's plan were devastating to the Columbian economy and people. Within only two years, Liquor exports to Columbia totaled over Forty-thousand barrels a year, and local estimates put the number of local men with an alcohol addiction at roughly 60 percent of the male population. The "national addiction" as it was known, forced the Colombian government deeper into debt, as it payed the Dutch alcohol merchants in Guilders loaned from Dutch banks. By 1851, the Colombian government was deep in debt it couldn't pay, it's workforce was dead drunk, the ills drunkenness inflicted on Colombian society lead to many personal tragedies and broken homes and any attempt to curtail the distribution of alcohol in any way was met with anger by an ever-thirsty public. Columbia was utterly dependent on a dangerous cocktail of Dutch Liquor and Dutch Finances.

To alleviate Colombia's growing debt a deal was signed with The Netherlands whereby Liquor would be paid through export of the cinchona plant at a rate of one case of cinchona for six bottles of Dutch liquor. In addition, the Dutch gained cinchona seeds necessary for establishing plantations and kinine-producing facilities. Colombian hardships worsened however with the growth of these new plantations located in Dutch Guyana and where they were needed most, the Dutch East Indies. By 1870 over 97% of the worlds kinine was harvested and produced in Java.


A typical Colombian cinchona plantation. "workers" were said to have worked 12-14 hours a day and were paid very little, if at all.

Colombia's lost was Holland's gain however, as the kinine industry greatly increased the living standards of the Dutch people both through it's medicinal properties and the commercial gains of it's distribution. With the spectre of malaria banished from the East Indies, colonisation of the outlying islands could finally commence, starting with the Alor archipelago.


The banishing of malaria also led to massive population growth in the East Indies, especially among the Malay and Javanese ethnic groups. The plantations offered thousands of locals employment in the fields, and the massive growth of the plantations and lack of Dutch colonial officials to run them led to the establishment of the Politechnische School van Batavia by royal decree in 1850 to teach locals agricultural management. This led to many being employed as clerks and bureaucrats, culminating in the rise of a new and prosperous Javanese middle class.


The Dutch East Indies grew prosperous on the back of the Kinine Plantations, such as this one in Sulawesi

Counter-Revolution: The Romantiek movement and The Netherlands

The Industrial Revolution was not without it's consequences. Many people, namely conservatives, felt increasingly disillusioned by the change happening around them. For the first time in it's history, more people in The Netherlands (proper) lived and worked in cities and factories rather than farms and plantations in the countryside, working long hours indoors in cramped conditions. Many yearned for the lives of Nederlanders past, and a general feeling of Nostalgia for the Dutch Golden Age began to sweep the country.

This movement was connected with similar sentiment in France and the German states and be came known as De Romantiek stroming or the Romantic movement, and it soon came to dominate all cultural spheres: from art to philosophy, music to the performing arts. Even the Royal family caught on, King Frederik especially encouraged the new-found interest in Dutch culture and history, as he called it "a resurgence in Dutch pride; a pride of what we have accomplished and of what we hope to accomplish".

Scholars have debated the precise impact of Frederik's words ever since; many have argued that he deliberately steered the course of the movement from nostalgia to nationalism, whereas others have argued that a Dutch movement would always follow it's own course based on the general feeling of the time, and that the drift away from "classical" romanticism away to a new, patriotic Dutch movement was inevitable.

This new school of ideological thought, which was both passionately patriotic, nationalistic and nostalgic, found an audience in Nederlanders from all walks of life. Industrial revolution, which started the movement in the first place through change, fueled it through wealth. People were now richer; among the upper class many aristocrats and plutocrats became generous patrons of the arts, whereas the middle and lower classes became captive audiences. Paintings which had previously been bought by the rich, began to be displayed in public galleries where they were appreciated by people from all walks of life. New playhouses sprung up, as playwrights penned heroic tales of Frederik's victory over the Belgians, or Willem's victory over the Spanish and literature, which had previously been used by liberals to condemn the monarchy and criticize Frederik began to instead exalt him; the movement bordered on personality cult.

Despite the public's near universal adoration for the King and monarchy, the wave of nostalgia had made the cause for re-introduction of partial democracy into The Netherlands more popular, and even Frederik had to agree that espousing traditional values meant a return to some form of constitutionalism no matter how limited.


On the 18th of March 1848, The Netherlands once again had a parliament. The new constitution still granted excessive powers to the ruling monarch when compared with Britain, France or Prussia but was nevertheless well received by the liberals and considered the catalyst for ending the Liberal Revolution in The Netherlands.

One of the most important writers of the Romantic movement was Eduard Douwes Dekker. Dekker had been a satirist under liberal employ before the movement but soon became disillusioned by certain anti-monarchical policies and took a post in The Dutch East Indies civil service as a bureaucrat in Batavia. Dekker saw first hand the effect of Ethische Politiek, the kinine boom and the positive effect both had on the lives of the Malay and Javanese population at large, and upon returning to the Netherlands in 1850, wrote about his experiences in the Dutch East Indies and in the Liberal movement in his semi-autobiographical epic, Max Havelaar.


Eduard Dekker writing Max Havelaar the semi-autobiographical account of his experiences in the liberal movement and as a civil servant in Java told through the point of view of the fictional Max Havelaar. The book, which praises Ethische Politiek and satirises Liberal, anti-clerical and anti-monarchical movements and their members was a hit throughout Europe and a major inspiration for later pro-imperialist works. It was a major inspiration to British author Rudyard Kipling

Eduard's writing was very popular in The Netherlands too, and he was soon offered a job as a journalist for the state paper. He interviewed King Frederik and other prominent politicians many times, becoming a close friend with the King and others in the royal family. In 1852 he joined the Conservative Party and was the spokesperson of the Pro-Imperialist lobby; in public he drummed up support for Ethische Politiek in the Dutch East Indies and other Dutch colonies while in private he petitioned the King endlessly to expand the Dutch East Indies through force. On December the 12th, Frederik acceded to Eduard's demands...

Coming up next: I mention all the other countries we started influencing nearly 10 years ago, Colombia finds a novel way of eliminating it's debt and we start yet another colonial war!

[Danking]

I completely hate you. . .
I shall never return here xD

Now seriously it's funny because it's true and it happened (not in Colombia, and with Opium instead of Liquor)
xD
Nice Update. . . how's Europe?

[Tommy4ever]

Is Dutch beer really that good?

Always nice to get an SoI on Colombia for when the Canal decision comes around.

[FlyingDutchie]

An early boom for Heineken? And no Tommy, Dutch beer isn't that good, at least not the stuff we sell foreigners .

I like the twist with Max Havelaar. A book deeply critical about the actual Cultivation System, which was the opposite of the Ethical Policy.

Guess Thorbeckes whining about a Constitution still paid off, even if it isn't as liberal as the realone.

Just one question, who is the heir? Frederick never had a son, while Willem (II) did have one.

[Enewald]

Maybe you should have longer days so you could have more daily workhours?

[aldriq]

An early boom for Heineken? And no Tommy, Dutch beer isn't that good, at least not the I like the twist with Max Havelaar. A book deeply critical about the actual Cultivation System, which was the opposite of the Ethical Policy.

Well, he does have access to the Flemish beer now But I suspect by Dutch liquor he meant jenever, a bit of an acquired taste... then again mixed with that kinine water it's not that bad.

[Danking]

Frederik lives forever

[Tanzhang (譚張)]

Danking (1):

Danking (2): Nobody lives forever. Though Frederik did have a very long life in our timeline, so it may be feasible to keep him alive until the 1880's or 1890's...

Tommy (1): Well, compared to what they produce back in Colombia... (ie. water. And this is the 19th Century so it's probably dirty and full of tadpoles)

Tommy (2): Well yes, that was the general idea. A Great Power invading some poor, alcohol-starved country in South America would be a huge hit to Dutch Prestige.

FlyingDutchie (1): I'm glad somebody got that reference!

FlyingDutchie (2): I actually haven't mentioned him yet, have I? I suppose he has less influence in this timeline with Frederik on the throne, and technically he's just another Liberal politician.

Now that the Netherlands has embraced (P)Russian Constitutionalism I suppose we will need a figurehead Prime Minister now, but as The Conservatieven Party will stay in power until 1872 at the earliest it will have to be whoever led the conservatives at that time.

FlyingDutchie (3): Good question...

Enewald: Juh?

Aldriq: Forcing the Colombians to buy their own quinine from their own plantations at an inflated price? what a devious idea...

FlyingDutchie does raise a very interesting question; who will be the next ruler of The Netherlands? Frederik had four children, two daughters and two sons. His first son died before Frederik's brother did, his second son died in 1846 at age 10 (around this time in the story) his first daughter is set to marry Karl XV of Sweden while his second is only about 9-10 years old at this point.

So, my question to you is this: who should be the heir to Frederik's throne?
At this point in time it wouldn't be too late to keep his son (Frederik II) alive and make him heir, but the lack of pictures of him might prove troublesome...

Alternatively, Frederik II could die, which would leave either Louise (his daughter) as Queen or her future husband as King, it's a little late to have her marry someone else (she married in 1850 and the next update will take place in '52) and if she and Karl take the Dutch Throne, that would mean a personal union with Sweden, which would be very hard to represent in-game.

So, thoughts?

[Tommy4ever]

You could just make someone up and use pics of a random German royal to represent them. (a favourite tactic of mine)

[aldriq]

Republic!!

OK, OK, a bit too early for that. Weaker son of Frederik and then Republic...

[Alexspeed]

A great update and a enjoyable read, thank you for your dedication