CAB38-17 — Page 208

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Holland can practically guarantee that any English attempt on Dutch ports will be prevented or beaten back, Germany may feel compelled, as a matter of necessary precaution, herself to occupy Holland. Apparently the strengthening of the Dutch sea-defences would quiet these German apprehensions. Holland has reason to believe that Germany's professions of goodwill (if Holland's neutrality is assured against even an English attack) are quite genuine, because Germany's interest in keeping Holland neutral is recognized. If, therefore, Holland is able to put an end to all danger of a German occupation arising out of an Anglo-German war, by yielding to Germany's demand for a strengthening of her sen-defences, she is acting in her own interest in doing so.

This being so, Great Britain is not in a position, seeing that she has no treaty right to appeal to, to find fault with Holland's decision to fortify her coasts, unless she is able and prepared, on her part, to guarantee Holland against a German occupation. If we were able to do that, and actually offered to do it, then indeed we might remoustrate with Holland on the ground that her action showed a mistrust against England and an unmistakable leaning towards Germany, which, in the circumstances, we can only regard as unfriendly. As it is, as nothing that we can do would prevent Germany from occupying Holland, it seems to me that we have no business to prevent Holland from taking such measures as to her appear best calculated to obviate that danger, so long as those measures involve no breach of international law.

But there is more than that: If it is a German interest that Holland should be neutral in an Anglo-German war, it might appear at first sight that British interests would be served by Holland giving up the position of a neutral. No doubt if Holland, on ceasing to be neutral, were to become the ally of England, and could England successfully make use of Dutch territory in conducting the war against Germany, there might be something to be said for this arrangement from the British point of view. But it may be asserted with little hesitation that from the moment Holland ceased to be neutral, she would be overrun by Germany, who would not only occupy her territory, but would use all the Dutch ports for her own naval purposes. It is no doubt true that we should gain at the moment by being free to blockade the Dutch coast and so throttle all neutral trade with Germany by the Rhine. But ultimately it is only too likely that we should be the losers. For at the end of a war during which Holland had been in German military occupation, it is to be feared that Germany would emerge with a greater hold over Holland than ever before, and we might be forced to accept some arrangement by which closer ties were established between the two countries that had been fighting together against us, and by which Germany might in some guise de facto establish herself for good in the Dutch ports. Probably this eventual danger would altogether outweigh any temporary advantages we might derive from having during the war a hostile Holland which we could blockade.

CAB38-17 — Page 208

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