The counterfactual Tsingtao crisis coincides with the January 1939 Dutch war scare. Admiral Wilhelm Canaris of the Abwehr leaks misinformation that Germany plans to invade the Netherlands and use Dutch airfields for a strategic bombing offensive against Britain. The scare pushes Neville Chamberlain toward commitments to France and continental Europe just as the imagined Far Eastern war begins. If Japan has already started a containable but costly Pacific war, Britain might word those commitments differently and make French support in Asia part of the bargain.
Chapter · 1:19-3:19
The Dutch war scare meets a Pacific crisis
A January war in the Far East complicates Britain's emerging commitments to France and the Low Countries after the Dutch war scare.