Hearts of Iron IV - Glorie aan de Nederland!

This is my first playthrough of Hearts of Iron IV rather than III (I've played it loads, but this is the first one I'm writing up), and I'll be playing as the Netherlands. My goals are simple. Firstly, to develop the Netherlands into a strong industrial power. Secondly, the militarise the Netherlands to be able to weather the storm of WW2 without being invaded (chiefly by Germany). I don't aim to change ideologies or make aggressive invasions, merely to survive and hopefully seize some German land near the end of the war.

My first order of business, defend the border! The army was moved over to the German border, a total of eight divisions of infantry. A further three were raised following the introduction of limited conscription laws, and were sent to train up before joining the main force.


This picture also shows contingency fallback lines, and an offensive plan to capture the cities of Wilhelmshaven, Dusseldorf and Essen, which will be enacted if German forces prove to be weaker than expected.


It was decided that the border must be fortified. My hopes are for a Dutch version of the Maginot Line, which will hopefully be impenetrable. For now, the German border is being fortified up to level 5 (of a possible 10). The bunkers will be further developed later.

I think it would also be foresightful to fortify the Belgian border, not against Belgium itself but against Germany's usual plan of going through Belgium.

The state of Dutch industry in May 1937:


This is an improvement over what we initially had in 1936, which was four military factories and only two naval dockyards. Now we have nine military factories and seven dockyards. The military factories produce mainly rifles at this point, and some support equipment. This will all need to be stockpiled for reinforcements and new divisions later. The hope is to eventually produce artillery too, but that will happen when we have more factories. The dockyards produce convoy ships, destroyers and light cruisers.

The European fleet in May 1937, which consists of two heavy cruisers, and three destroyers, two of which are recently-produced and more modern ones.


There is a larger Dutch fleet in the East Indies, but that is going to stay there to defend our overseas interests.

Henri Winkleman is appointed Commander in Chief of the Dutch Army:

He is an expert in defensive fighting, and he will help in the war to come.

Bernhard Coltoff is appointed to the military staff. He is an expert in infantry warfare, and since our army is entirely infantry based, he will provide helpful guidance in this area:



Diplomatic efforts are made to improve our relations with Belgium and Luxembourg. The hope is that some time in the future we will be able to form our own faction rather than have our fates decided by the Allies.





Our nine divisions based in the Dutch East Indies, many of them colonial reserves, are redeployed to properly garrison the colonies:



More to come soon.