Between the devil and the deep blue sea - University of Canterbury

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became increasingly more prevalent. Troops had not prepared or trained to become a
"police force" for the movement of goods, nor were there enough soldiers available to fulfil
the task properly, which emphasises another recurring theme that the ability of the
Netherlands to remain neutral took large numbers of soldiers away from defensive duties.
It is out of economic concern, especially the phenomenal rise in smuggling, that
the government granted controversial and wide-ranging emergency powers to the military.
Initially, the jurisdiction of the "state of war" and "siege" were confined to border areas,
ports and waterways, but by the end of 1917 encompassed nearly three-quarters of the
country. Chapter 7 considers the powers given to the anned forces in the "state of war" and
"siege", as well as some of the consequences involved in using a law designed as a
temporary measure to a protracted period of military, economic and social crisis. The
chapter focuses primarily on legal aspects of the "state of war" and "siege" laws, because
this aspect of neutrality maintenance has received little attention in scholarship and because
it had a considerable impact on the anned forces' ability to uphold "internal neutrality",
namely, on their ability to keep Dutch residents from breaching required neutrality
standards. Subsequently, Chapter 8 considers the types of "internal neutrality"
responsibilities attended to in the "state of war" and "siege", including smuggling,
espionage, censorship and the movement of people and their property. Germany's unique
response to Dutch neutrality, namely by erecting a deadly electric fence along the Dutch­
Belgian border is also mentioned. The fence illustrates how important Dutch neutrality
actually was for Gennany, but also indicates how the Germans tried to keep the advantages
neutrality provided to the Allies at a minimum.
In Chapters 9 to 12, the thesis moves away from the manner in which the anned
forces protected neutrality, towards an analysis of how the war influenced the ability ofthe
country, and especially the military, to uphold neutrality. Chapter 9 answers the question:
how does a neutral nation resource and maintain an anned force and retain a minimal level
of parity with the warring sides? Put simply, with great difficulty. Because the Netherlands
was a small nation, it was not industrially self-sufficient. As a neutral, of course, it could
not obtain necessary military goods from outsiders without encountering problems. In other
words, the Dutch suffered the fate of a small industrially weak nation in wartime, unable to
preserve even nominal technological equality with its warring neighbours.