Neutral Netherlands commiserates with its invaded, war-battered neighbor Belgium. One of a series of 1916 postcards on neutral nations by Em. Dupuis.
Pauvre petite Voisine va!. . .Poor little Neighbour.HollandeEm. Dupuis, 1916Signed: Em. Dupuis 1916Reverse:Visé Paris. No. 109Logo: Paris Color 152 Quai de Jemmapes
"The sharpened U-boat offensive was once again curtailed by diplomatic rather than military factors. The neutral Dutch were hard hit. On 16 March the Royal Holland Lloyd liner Tubantia (13,911 tons), outward bound for Buenos Aires, was torpedoed and sunk near the North Hinder light vessel by UB.13. The Tubantia was the largest neutral ship sunk by submarines during the war. Two days later the Germans sank another Dutch steamer, the Royal Rotterdam Lloyd liner Palembang (6,674 tons). The Dutch packets that plied the North Sea between the Netherlands and Great Britain were decimated by German actions."
After German submarines began sinking shipping around the British Isles in 1914, Great Britain declared the entire North Sea a military zone effective November 5, and imposed a blockade of Germany. On February 4, 1915, Germany announced a campaign of unrestricted submarine warfare in which ships of Britain and its allies were subject to sinking without notice, the campaign becoming effective on February 18. Germany accused Britain of false-flagging its merchant ships, sailing them under the flags of neutral nations to avoid being attacked. Britain both armed merchant ships, and used decoy merchant ships, the armed Q ships, to lure submarines before opening fire on them. Neutral nations protested against both Britain's and Germany's policies, but particularly the latter, which led to significant losses of life. On May 7, 1915, German submarine U-20 sank the passenger liner Lusitania, killing 1,195 civilians, 128 of them Americans. Responding to American protests, and fearful of drawing in into the war, Germany restricted its campaign at the end of August 1915, but did not end it. Neutral Netherlands was a significant trading partner with Germany, but was subject to the British blockade of the North Sea.
A Naval History of World War I by Paul G. Halpern, page 307, copyright © 1994 by the United States Naval Institute, publisher: UCL Press, publication date: 1994
1916-03-16, 1916, March, Netherlands, Holland, Dutch, neutral, sinking
