The Netherlands

When children learn about the Second World War, they are often reminded, several times, that Switzerland remained neutral all the way through the war. This is a commonly known fact. What is not so commonly known, however, is that there was another European country that demanded that its army, despite many thinking that it was the most powerful army in the world, should not get involved. That country is the Netherlands. The Netherlands was neutral all the way through the First World War, avoiding the carnage that Belgium, another neutral country, had to suffer through, but in the Second World War, all of that changed. Mainly because Hitler decided to invade in 1940. The Netherlands were simply not prepared for war on that sort of scale, or any sort of scale for that matter. The Germans global firepower was too much for them, and the Netherlands was defeated in May 1940. Despite that terrible experience that the entire country had to go through, the Netherlands emerged from the Second World War even more determined to be neutral again. They didn t want to get involved with the strongest armies in the world, they just wanted to be left alone. That all changed in 1948, when they signed the Treaty of Brussels and helped to create NATO in 1949. since then, the Netherlands have had men and women sent all over the world.