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Fifteen years after Wilhelmina ascended the throne World War I began. The British blockade induced a grave food shortage. Trade was completely disrupted and the country was overrun with refugees. Dutch ships were sunk and by 1918 what ships still floated abroad had been seized by the Allies. Only bright spots on The Netherlands' horizon were that: 1) although the Germans considered invading the country, they eventually decided against it, partly because the Dutch had effectively remodeled their land defenses, partly because Germany, already at the Belgian Channel ports, had money and used it to buy supplies in neutral Holland; 2) The Dutch East Indies, selling to the Allies, cleaned up.
The peace conference at Versailles brought the threat of the big powers forcing The Netherlands to cede to a reconstituted Belgium the southern portions of Zeeland and Limburg provinces, which lie next to Belgium. This was averted not only by the Queen's dramatic tour of these provinces but also by the presence in Versailles of two South African statesmen of Boer origin, Generals Colin Graham Botha and Jan Christiaan Smuts. They remembered that it was Wilhelmina who in 1900 defied the British by sending a Dutch warship to pick up Boer Leader Paul Kruger and bring him to safety in Europe.*
Realism. No one has given Wilhelmina more trouble in recent years than Adolf Hitler, and from no ruler has the Führer taken, at times, such straight talk. She protested in a personal letter to Herr Hitler the death sentence passed on Marinus van Der Lubbe, the Dutch Communist, for his alleged part in the famed Reichstag fire. When the Nazis confiscated the passports of German bridesmaids and guests to her daughter's wedding, she stated with quiet directness: "This is the marriage of my daughter to the man she loves, whom I have found worthy of her love; this is not the marriage of The Netherlands to Germany." She wrote to Herr Hitler, and the passports were returned. On the Fuhrer's birthdays she has always tactfully sent congratulations, and fortnight ago, when he escaped assassination, she wired her "relief" at his good fortune.
Her Majesty knows when these little courtesies count. She was not at home when ex-King Amanullah of Afghanistan toured European courts, but she went out of her way to give a ceremonious welcome to Hirohito, then Crown Prince and now Emperor of Japan. Afghanistan meant nothing in The Netherlands' life; Japan, a bad neighbor in the Far East, meant a great deal.
Rich at Home. In the course of Wilhelmina's reign The Netherlands' population has risen from 5,000,000 to 8,500,000. More important, the country has changed from a predominantly agricultural to an increasingly industrial nation. Cheese, butter and tulip bulbs are still important exports, just as windmills, wooden shoes, dikes are still a part of the Dutch landscape. But more typical of The Netherlands in the 20th Century are its huge international banks, its thriving merchants, its busy manufacturers.