So last night as I was starting to slowly drift off to sleep, my brain suddenly stuck on something (I promise this is Temeraire related). You see, the Netherlands have used "can't get an army across lots of water" as a basic defence strategy pretty much from Roman times until we got airplanes. The extent of it has varied; sometimes it was as simple as "well the river is too big" (Romans), sometimes it was "if we break this dike right here, the polder will flood and the Spanish can't get at the city".
But, from the end of the 17th century, there was a systematic line of forts along the polders and rivers that could protect the province of Holland (specifically), here shown in purple. To the south there's big rivers leading into an estuary, and then it protects the province from invasion to the east. From about 1870, it was replaced by the orange parts, as well as the brownish line around Amsterdam specifically. The yellow area is from the mid-18th century. It is basically a collection of forts, and a series of locks. Together, these can make it so the coloured areas flood to a depth of 30-60 cm. Too deep for infantry, not deep enough for boats. It protects the capital of Amsterdam (with its important harbour), and the big cities of The Hague, Utrecht and Rotterdam.
And again, until we developed airplanes and parachutists and airplane bombs and so on, this worked really well.
Now, since I've been rereading the Temeraire books, the drifting off to sleep made me suddenly realise - how would dragon aerial warfare interact with this? Which morphed into a discussion with my partner (who hasn't read the books) about how Dutch dragons would work.
The first thing I'd like to do is point out the size of the Netherlands, compared to the British Isles and to the United States:
In other words, very small. And, very importantly, it used to be even smaller; a lot of the current land was reclaimed from the sea or large lakes between roughly 1650 and 1950. Most of the west of the country is below sea level, and very wet. A fair part of the east of the country isn't very rich soils and thus not great for farming (until chemical fertiliser is invented in the 1900s) (though they did use sheep dung as fertiliser, and they would almost certainly have thought of using dragon dung as well, eventually).
So I propose that actually, the Netherlands probably would have mostly had middle- and lightweights. There just isn't the area to support a large enough population of heavyweights that they aren't all inbred. My partner suggested there is probably one heavyweight breed, and I like that idea. I think that - militarily - the Netherlands would probably have figured out a strategy for using middle-weights against heavy-weights when they are fighting alone, but preferentially use their middle-weights as support in battles when there is a larger coalition, joining whoever is on their side.
However. There may only be middle-weight dragons, there would be a fairly large number of different breeds, with different strengths. You see, unlike the United Kingdom, where England was mostly united by around 900 CE, and then the Normans strengthened that, or France, which has a similar time scale, the Netherlands is a collection of loose duchies and counties and prince-bishoprics and so on, pretty much until the 1550s. The map pictured is from 1670, after a fair amount of the lands have been united into a republic; there would likely have been more divisions before then.
They get united under the dukes of Burgundy, eventually, but even at that time, it is still the Duchy of Brabant and the County of Holland and so on. But until they come together against Spanish rule, the separate parts regularly fight with each other. Which means that each of them would have their own breeds. (Likely, Holland and Zeeland would have very similar dragons, with aquatic adaptations, who get fed on a mixture of fish and meat; the more inland regions would have more "standard" breeds. To outsiders they all look incredibly alike, but if you mention to someone from Guelders that you cannot tell their Zwarte van Gelre apart from the Brabants Blauwtje, they would be so insulted. Can you not tell that theirs is a pure midnight black while the Brabants Blauwtje is blue? However, the breeds are so alike that most of them follow a continuum. Except the Fryske Grutskens, which looks very distinct). This is also where the single heavy-weight breed comes in - I think it would have been Flanders. Flanders is a part of the kingdom of France (rather than the Holy Roman Empire, which is the power the rest of the motley collection belongs to). One of the counts of Flanders probably got a breeding pair of heavy-weights from the king of France; maybe during one of the (many) revolts. These were crossed with the native middle-weights until a new breed of heavy-weights was developed. And finally, purely for my own amusement, William the Silent/William of Orange, who led the 1548 revolution against the Spanish, would have a dragon that is actually orange. No one knows how or why it came out that colour, none of its progenitors was, it just did and he was named for it (the fact that he is Prince of Orange is a bonus).
I also think that the Dutch would be using dragons for shipping, at least within the country. It is efficient and cheap (especially the dragons that grew up having fish as part of their diet), and the Dutch have always been fans of efficient and cheap and trade. And since it's all middle-weights, that is less scary than heavyweight breeds dropping in. I don't think dragons would be used for passenger-work, but loading the big ships, that can't quite reach the harbour? Definitely. And if you have large-ish ships, but only middle-weight dragons, it's probably much easier to ship dragons across the world, so you can also have a dragon when you arrive at your destination.
To bring it back to the idle thought that started this all - the Waterlinie, aka using the water to prevent invasion. My partner and I think it would still have worked, mostly. The Romans start taming the native European breeds, so they probably could cross the Rhine. In our world, the Rhine was the limes, the border, because they can't cross it in large enough numbers; but if they have dragons and the native Germanic tribes don't, then they can. I don't think they'd have been able to hold the land, not for long, and it's not interesting enough to bother anyway. But after that, when the playing field is levelled by everyone having dragons, the water would still be a workable defence. Yes, the aerial forces can come over and wreak havoc - except everyone has dragons now and so they will try to defend it - but the infantry still has trouble crossing the water. And then, when artillery gets developed, it's still the same. You can shoot at the enemy dragons, they can shoot at yours - and the infantry still can't cross the water. I think an enemy (often the French) would try to use dragons against the forts, before they can inundate the land, but that it wouldn't work as well after.
Anyway, here are some rambly thoughts about Dutch dragons in the Temeraire universe.
(Sidenote but I can't make heads nor tails of the Dutch names that are used once or twice in the books. They just don't work.)
blakekathryn
turnnoffyourmind
germansingergirl
dailybridgerton
kianamaiart
stormborns
andulkaphoto
snowghoul
pixelskylines
discoholicmusic
