Kingdom of the Netherlands
Inside the Royal Palace of Amsterdam, Wilhelmina was discussing affairs with her ministers. Although the Netherlands was a constitutional monarchy, as the nominal supreme leader, she still had to personally pay attention when a large-scale rebellion erupted in the colonies.
Queen Wilhelmina did not take this rebellion too seriously. Colonial uprisings were already a common sight to her—what year went by without several of them?
This time, it was merely somewhat larger in scale, but it was still within expectations. Over the past few decades, the population of Indonesia had grown too quickly, leaving insufficient local resources to go around. Rebellion breaking out was perfectly normal!
Exploitation and oppression? Hadn't things gone on this way for all these years?
As a monarch—even a rubber-stamp monarch—one could lack ability, but never brains, so she simply filtered out those main factors!
"Prime Minister, what has the government prepared to suppress this colonial rebellion?" Queen Wilhelmina asked.
She did not ask about the cause, nor did she demand accountability. She went straight to the heart of the matter—sending troops to quell the rebellion!
"Your Majesty, the situation has changed. Just yesterday, rebellions also broke out in Jakarta and Banten. This morning, we lost contact with both cities!" the prime minister said grimly.
(Note: On November 12, 1926, uprisings broke out in Banten and Jakarta. The Sumatra uprising, originally planned to erupt at the same time, was delayed until January 1927 because its senior leadership had been arrested.)
What losing contact meant went without saying! In this age of radio, no matter how dangerous the situation, it should not have left the garrison without even enough time to send a single telegram!
"What is going on? Didn't we deploy two heavily armed regiments in Jakarta? Are our troops all wine