Did Britain have to protect the Netherlands?

Did Britain have an obligation to protect the Netherlands?

Not a formal automatic obligation, but traditional Anglo-Dutch ties and Britain's security interest in the Low Countries made a German invasion highly provocative.

Britain did not have an automatic treaty obligation to defend the Netherlands in this scenario. It did have a traditional friendship with the Dutch and a long-standing strategic interest in keeping the Low Countries outside hostile control. English support against Spanish rule in the Netherlands illustrates why Dutch ports and coast mattered to invasion security. A German violation of Dutch neutrality would therefore make British nonintervention harder even without a formal guarantee.