This podcast is about the neutral Netherlands from roughly the end of the Napoleonic period up to the end of the First World War. The next podcast will complete the narrative up to the tragic events of May 1940.

Image: Dutch machine gun team manning a Schwarzlose MG (colourised).

Credit to Hubert van Tuyll's excellent The Netherlands and World War I : Espionage, Diplomacy and Survival and Abbenhaus’ The Art of Staying Neutral : The Netherlands in the First World War.

Feel free to contact me at: [email protected] if you have any questions or comments.

This podcast is a broad overview of the history of European neutrality in the early part of the twentieth century. It is kickstarting a series about all of the European neutral powers in the First and Second World Wars.

You can reach me at: [email protected]

With special thanks to: Amersfoort and W Klinkert's 'Small Powers in the Age of Total War, 1900-1940' and Karsh’s ‘Neutrality and Small States’.

In the very first podcast I discuss some of the current historical issues surrounding the famous Schlieffen Plan.