This is the first article in the DACC Research Series The Netherlands Government-in-Exile, Australia and the Netherlands East Indies during the Second World War. The series explores the political, constitutional and administrative relationship between Australia and the Netherlands Government-in-Exile, drawing primarily on the pioneering research of Dr Jack Ford, supplemented by more recent Australian, Dutch and Indonesian scholarship.
Introduction
The history of the Netherlands Government-in-Exile during the Second World War is usually told from a European perspective. Attention naturally focuses on Queen Wilhelmina and Prime Minister Pieter Sjoerds Gerbrandy in London, on the German occupation of the Netherlands, and on the political struggle to preserve Dutch sovereignty until liberation in 1945.
Yet this tells only part of the story.
Less well known is that, after the Japanese conquest of the Netherlands East Indies (NEI) in early 1942, Australia became one of the principal centres from which Dutch authority continued to function in the Pacific. Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra all became home to Dutch political, military and civil organisations that played an important role in the Allied war effort and in planning for the liberation of the Indies.
This remarkable wartime partnership fundamentally reshaped relations between Australia and the Netherlands. It also exposed important differences within the Dutch administration itself. While the constitutional authority of the Kingdom remained firmly vested in the Netherlands Government in London, many practical decisions concerning the Netherlands East Indies increasingly had to be taken in Australia, where Lieutenant Governor-General Dr Hubertus van Mook and the Netherlands East Indies Commission for Australia and New Zealand rebuilt much of the Indies administration after the fall of Java.
Understanding how these different centres of authority interacted is one of the least explored aspects of Australia’s wartime history.
This article is the first in a new research series that examines the political, constitutional and administrative relationship between the Netherlands East Indies Government-in-Exile, Australia and the Netherlands East Indies during the Second World War.
As the war progressed, the Netherlands East Indies Commission for Australia and New Zealand evolved into what became known as the Netherlands East Indies Government-in-Exile. Operating from Camp Columbia in Brisbane, it became the principal centre for Dutch civil administration, intelligence, military planning and preparations for the eventual return to the Netherlands East Indies. The relationship between this administration, the Netherlands Government-in-Exile in London and the Australian Government forms one of the central themes of this series.
Beyond a military history
Although Dutch warships, merchant vessels, airmen, soldiers and intelligence personnel made significant contributions to the Allied war effort from Australia, this series is not primarily a military history.
Instead, it examines how governments operated under extraordinary circumstances.
After May 1940 the Kingdom of the Netherlands effectively existed in several different places. The constitutional government operated from London under Queen Wilhelmina and Prime Minister Gerbrandy. Following the Japanese occupation of the Indies in 1942, much of the civil administration responsible for the Netherlands East Indies was re-established in Australia. Military operations affecting the liberation of the Indies were increasingly coordinated within General Douglas MacArthur‘s South West Pacific Area headquarters.
Never before had the political, administrative and operational responsibilities of the Kingdom been so widely dispersed.
Australia undergoes its own revolution
At exactly the same time Australia was experiencing one of the greatest strategic transformations in its history.
The fall of Singapore in February 1942 destroyed the long-held assumption that Britain would always defend Australia in time of crisis. Both Australia and the Netherlands East Indies had committed substantial military forces to the defence of Malaya and Singapore, believing that British strategy would hold. The rapid Japanese victories profoundly shocked both governments.
Prime Minister John Curtin’s decision to work more closely with the United States did not represent a rejection of Britain, but rather the recognition that Australia’s security required new alliances. The arrival of General Douglas MacArthur in Australia in March 1942 confirmed Australia’s emergence as the principal Allied base in the South West Pacific.
These developments inevitably influenced Australia’s relationship with the Dutch.
Increasingly, Australian ministers, officials and military commanders dealt directly with Dutch representatives based in Australia rather than with the Netherlands Government in London. This did not diminish the constitutional authority of the London Government, but it reflected the practical realities of fighting a war across the Pacific.
The Indonesian dimension
No account of these developments can ignore Indonesia itself.
Long before the war, Indonesian nationalism had been steadily growing. The Japanese occupation accelerated these developments dramatically by dismantling much of the Dutch colonial administration, promoting Indonesian political leaders including Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta, and creating new political and military organisations.
Many of the assumptions held by Dutch policymakers before the war were overtaken by these rapidly changing realities.
One of the aims of this series is to understand how Dutch, Australian and Indonesian leaders viewed these developments at the time, rather than judging them solely through the benefit of hindsight.
Building on Jack Ford’s pioneering research
This research series builds primarily upon the pioneering work of Dr Jack Ford, whose doctoral thesis and later publication Allies in a Bind: Australia and the Netherlands East Indies in the Second World War remain the most comprehensive studies of the Dutch wartime presence in Australia.
The series also draws upon more recent Australian, Dutch and Indonesian scholarship, together with ongoing research undertaken by the Dutch Australian Cultural Centre (DACC), the Camp Columbia Heritage Association (CCHA) and partner organisations in Australia and the Netherlands.
Rather than replacing Jack Ford’s work, this series seeks to extend it by placing the Dutch wartime experience within a broader Australian and Asia-Pacific context.
Looking ahead
The articles that follow will examine how the Netherlands Government-in-Exile functioned, why Australia became such an important centre for Dutch administration during the war, and how wartime cooperation influenced the post-war relationship between Australia, the Netherlands and Indonesia.
The story that emerges is considerably more complex than the traditional narrative of Allied cooperation. It is a story of constitutional authority and operational necessity, of wartime partnership and political disagreement, and ultimately of a changing Asia-Pacific in which Australia assumed an increasingly independent role.
It is also a story that deserves to be much better known.
Sources
This article forms part of an ongoing research project. The principal source is:
Ford, Jack, Allies in a Bind: Australia and the Netherlands East Indies in the Second World War (doctoral thesis, University of Queensland, 1989; published edition, 1997). Page references in this series refer to the published thesis and will be updated where necessary following publication of the forthcoming revised edition currently being prepared by the Dutch Australian Cultural Centre in consultation with Dr Jack Ford’s family.
Additional sources include Australian, Dutch and Indonesian archival material and published scholarship.
DACC Research Series
The Netherlands Government-in-Exile, Australia and the Netherlands East Indies during the Second World War
This series currently includes:
- A Kingdom divided by war: Australia, the Netherlands Government-in-Exile and the Netherlands East Indies (this article)
- Pieter Gerbrandy, Queen Wilhelmina and Dutch constitutional authority in exile
- Van Mook, Van der Plas and the Indisch vision for the post-war Netherlands East Indies
- Australia’s strategic revolution: Curtin, Evatt and the changing Pacific order (forthcoming)
- The Netherlands East Indies Commission for Australia and New Zealand: Building a government in exile (forthcoming)
- From constitutional authority to operational reality: Dutch administration in the Pacific War (forthcoming)
- Indonesia under Japanese occupation: The wartime transformation that reshaped the post-war world (forthcoming)
- Why the wartime alliance changed: Australia, the Netherlands and the road to Indonesian independence (forthcoming)
