Dutch East Indies

The Dutch East Indies.

The Dutch East Indies were a Dutch colony formed from the territory controlled by the Dutch East India Company.

The Dutch first began trading in the Indonesian archipelago in the late fifteenth century, leading to the formation of the Dutch East India Company in 1602. The company focused on the export of various spices from the East Indies, as well as introducing the cultivation of coffee, tea, cotton, rubber, sugar, and opium. Growing corruption within the company led to its bankruptcy during the Trans-Oceanic War, and its territories were taken over by the Dutch state to form the Dutch East Indies.

The Dutch East Indies were invaded by the Germanic Confederation in 1942 during the Global War in order to provide a base for the German conquest of Australia. Although the Dutch colonial administration surrendered to the Germans, native resistance to the German conquest rose to the point where the Germans were forced to evacuate Borneo in late 1942. Although Sobel does not specifically say so, it is likely that the native peoples were aided by Kramer Associates in their war against the Germans.

The Germans managed to establish a base on New Guinea from which they were able to launch an attack on Australia, but the attack was driven off. By the end of 1945, with Germany's European conquests in rebellion, German troops withdrew from the Indonesian archipelago. Sobel makes no mention of the Dutch East Indies after the Global War, but it is likely that after the German withdrawal the Malays and other native peoples established their own independent nations, possibly under the sponsorship of K.A.