Brazorian-Dutch War

The Brazorian-Dutch War was a conflict fought between the Kingdom of Brazoria and the from the summer of 1893 to the autumn of 1894, in which fighting began after the RNV Goliad incident in  led to the invasion of the island by Brazorian armed forces. Brazoria would later go on to capture the Dutch and, and thereafter the Treaty of Ghent secured the territories as Brazorian protectorates.

The Kingdom of Brazoria, which won its independence from the in 1836, had recently undergone an intense period of economic development which coincided with the  and the build-up of politicised tensions over the future direction of the Kingdom. By the beginning of 1890, Brazoria's first true political party, the Progressive Party, was aiming to build confidence in future political ventures into, a policy known as the Hogg Doctrine that became key to the election of James Hogg as Chancellor. Seeking a power with active possessions in the Americas to target, Hogg and his government secretly selected the  due to their investment in the  and their weak standing in comparison to other European empires.

In order to ferment actual tensions in the Dutch American colonies, the Hogg administration secretly offered the government of  support in their claim of  in exchange for the creation of civil tension between Dutch and Venezuelan forces. Under the pretense of absolute Brazorian loyalty to their goals, Crespo accepted, and ordered secretive sections of his military to infiltrate the along with weapons for distribution to the downtrodden population of the islands. Meanwhile, in the January of 1893, Hogg internationally declared the Grand Caribbean Tour as a show of Brazorian commitment to the Hogg doctrine, procuring the right to a short rest stop in Aruba in the August of that same year.

On 11 August 1893, the Brazorian RNV Goliad, a part of the larger tour group of eight frigates and twelve corvettes, docked in, for routine refueling and checks. Late during that same night, the Oranjestad Riot broke out, an act secretly perpetrated by the Venezuelan conspirators, with the rioters boarding the RNV Goliad and sinking the ship through the sabotage of its, killing the entirety of the crew and some rioters. As a result, the tour group organised an impromptu of the island. The crisis broke headlines in Brazoria and in the Netherlands two days later, and on 14 August 1893, the Hogg administration sent a thirty day ultimatum to the Netherlands, in which it surrender jurisdiction over Aruba to Brazorian law or have the island taken by force. On 14 September 1893, when the Dutch allowed the ultimatum to expire, Hogg authorised the invasion of Aruba, which took place on 24 September 1893. Three days later, the Netherlands declared war on Brazoria, and on 28 September 1893, the Kingdom of Brazoria declared war on the Netherlands.

By November, Brazoria cemented total control over the Dutch Leeward Antilles, thereafter launching an invasion of the Dutch Lesser Antilles as well. The naval encounters of the war were particularly the most important actions of the conflict, as Dutch colonial land forces stood little chance against the highly motivated, closer proximity Brazorian home troops. The Second Battle of Phillipsburg, which took place on 11 March 1894, was particularly decisive of the conflict, when an unseasonable storm ravaged the Dutch fleet, allowing the late Brazorian fleet to lift the naval siege of the town by decimating the remaining Dutch ships. That August, the Surinam Expedition saw huge success when Brazorian forces captured the city of with ease, having landed due west, reorganised, and attacked by land. After securing most Dutch possessions in the Caribbean by September, the Hogg administration sent an envoy to negotiate in with Dutch diplomats and arbitration from the Belgian government. On 27 October 1894, after nearly a month of hostile negotiations, the Dutch government officially agreed to the Treaty of Ghent, which awarded Brazoria with all of its American colonial holdings.

The war was an international humiliation of the Netherlands and a triumph of the Brazorian doctrine of commitment to. The seriousness of Hogg towards support for his doctrine of would shine through in the following, which stemmed in part from the secret Brazorian agreement to aid Venezuela in its own territorial ambitions. Domestically, in Brazoria, the war was a major political success, with Hogg and his Progressive Party winning a huge amount in public opinion and cementing his image as a leading politician of the turn of the century.