Repington's 1905 warning followed damage to Anglo-Dutch relations during the Boer War and criticized the British press for missing the danger. He treated the security of the Low Countries as Britain's greatest continental interest because their ports and rivers opened directly onto the North Sea and Channel. Britain, Prussia, and the Netherlands had once fortified the region as an allied bridgehead, while Belgium later depended on Antwerp and British support. The maritime position from the Scheldt to the Zuiderzee had figured in invasion projects from Philip II to Napoleon. Control of that geography could help a continental power rebuild a navy, threaten British communications, and challenge Britain as an independent state. Britain therefore sought independent coastal states there rather than direct possession or hostile consolidation.
Chapter · 42:48-44:22
The Low Countries as Britain's foremost continental interest
The maritime corridor from the Scheldt to the Zuiderzee made independent Low Countries central to British security from Philip II and Napoleon to imperial Germany.