If Japan would do that, what would be the point of the occupation? Furthermore, I doubt that imperial Japan was ideologically able to make such a promise, let alone fulfill it.
They could lie. And only slowly reveal, bit by bit, through their actions, that their promises were fake. Yeah, they could make fake promises, and fake apologies, and excuses. Lying and doublespeak were part of their repertoire in addition to macho-talk.
The military sure didn't. The KNIL realized it was only really able to fight a battle on Java, with forces in the Outer Regions stationed there for police-purposes and to serve as trip-wires. The KM on the other hand was being build - after WWI - to counter the coup-de-main through concerted submarine attacks.
The military sure didn't "
what"? accept helplessness in the face of a
coup de main? Because it had the KM counter-strategy of submarine attacks?
- Is the Japanese navy willing to capture Tarakan without first securing it's SLOCs by the capture of Menado? In WWII the offensive of the DEI was planned to be quite methodic in its nature.
I wonder if the Japanese could do a Tarakan
coup de main and Manado in a synchronized, simultaneous fashion, to retain surprise and chances at capturing Tarakan facilities undamaged, but also securing SLOCs, for longer term in case of counterattacks, foreign intervention, or unexpected setbacks or delays that require additional effort to finish the job at Tarakan. Manado on Sulawesi/Celebes is a shorter sailing distance from the Palaus and provides a stepping stone between them and Borneo/Kalimantan, while enveloping the Philippines from the south.
There will not be a Dutch counterattack that's for sure. Neither the KNIL or the KM were set up for that. Any counteroffensive will need direct foreign involvement. At least for places like Borneo, Celebes or the rest of the Outer Regions. Java or Sumatra is a different story, but certainly not completely.
Interesting and important point. Unilateral Dutch counterattacks just wouldn't be a viable thing outside Java and Sumatra.
Interesting your defenition of "inner" seems to include Java and Sumatra, with everything else, including Borneo, being "outer". I think one of the other folks - possibly on a counterpart thread to this on another forum, was counting Java and Borneo as the "inner" with all the other islands as "outer"
Still curious on the below, anybody have knowledge on it:
Curious - how were the oilfields and oil production distributed throughout the islands of the NEI archipelago.
I got the vague impression, just based on map symbols for oilfields and their density, that they ranked sort of like this:
1) Borneo/Kalimantan
2) Sumatra
3) Celebes/Sulawesi
4) Java
5) all others less, but New Guinea/West Irian next in rank, if any, just from size?
In fact, wouldn't a more crazy IJN help this scenario? What if the Navy pulls a 'Marco Polo bridge' by staging a coup-de-main attack without the government knowing about it?
Good point, it certainly would, and it certainly fit in with my thematic concept of enthusiastic Navy Officers pushing forward an operation for parochial Naval service interests (over the Army's) in addition to personal glory and the nation and Emperor's glory. For that purpose, a more "bite size" objective of a coup de main of prominent oil ports on a subset of islands, rather than a grand fleet assembly and DoW for an all-out, comprehensive invasion, are a better fit.
Certainly before an attack in Java that would be the case. KNIL-forces on Java would number some 40,000 though, would the IJN be able to muster a force to defeat that? Having this whole thing mainly be a IJN affair would make this interesting when the UK gets involved and things go South, what would that do to the inter-service war?
Good points again.
I have no idea though if the Japanese SNLF (the IJN's Marine's/ground combat force) had the size and armament---in 1936, to overwhelm 40,000 Dutch KNIL in Java.
Regarding the part I put in bold about the inter-service war.....the thing about Japanese inter-service war is that I think it is exaggerated if you are expecting it to mean Japanese Army and Navy commonly shoot at each other or repeatedly fail to support each other when under enemy fire. I don't think that happened much or that they deliberately did that to each other. They certainly had rivalry. They certainly competed for resources. They certainly each thought they knew best. They certainly did not fully trust each other and wastefully duplicated some capabilities, and probably literally stole logistic resources from each other, but they also multiple times commonly directed fire at the same enemy with synergistic effect, whether it was elegant or not. Their battling with each other was mainly budgetary and bureaucratic and by competitive bragging, not shooting each other. They could, and maybe on a couple occasions did, embarrass the other by leaving it in the lurch, or blame the other for its failure after working together. But if one could rescue the other, they might relish taking that chance too, so they could brag about it and hold it over the other. In this case, the Army probably would reinforce a navy DEI campaign that had insufficient naval infantry and firepower, on the expectation that it will be able to claim it was saving the day and could later say "I told you so".