The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-11-21
IS HOLLAND TO LOSE ITS NDEPEND-
 ENCE IN THIS WARP

It will be twenty four years on Monday since King William III. Of Holland died, without male issue, and left the throne of the Netherlands to a ten-year-old girl. WiIhelmina-
 It WAS a Hateful moment in the long history Of that small but virile nation which had been among the first and foremost in the development Of civ- ilization and culture in western Eu- rope, and whose brave mariners had carried its dag to America, to India, to South Africa, and many other parts of the world.
 On the life of WIlhe1mtna depended the fate of the Netherlands. The Dutch people, Jealous of their fnde- pendence, were filled with fear and foreboding. The girl Queen was ths, last really Dutch member of the roy- al family Of Orange-N Nassau, the de-. scendant of the Princes of, Orange who were stockholders dt1ri1g the Dutch republic. If she sdfsds the thr one would pass to g descendant of the female line. a German From that, they believed. would be but a. step to the annexation of the Neither lands by the German empire, and Holland would fall from it's proud estate as an Independent nation to the position of a province.
 But WfIheImina survived, and, un- der the regency of her mother, Queen Emma. a princess of the German house Of WaIdeck-Pyr was edu- cated in. the duties of a ruler. It was impressed upon her that her first duty was to marry and provide an heir to the Dutch throne, and in 1901 three years after she had become Queen in fact as well as in name, Will helmina was given as a husband, Prince Henry, of the German state Of MeckIenburg- Schwerfn.
 fhe followed period of anxious waiting for the Dutch people. Y ear after year passed. and still the stork failed to deliver the expected tiny burden to the Dutch royal palace The Eyoung Queen. worn and wearied by aged and her haggard features bore but slight resemblance to those Of the Wtnsone girl who had ascended the Dutch throne in 1898.
 It was not until more than eight years had passed after her marriage that the storl1 put in a be1ated ap- pearance. bringing little Princess Ju- nana Wilhelmina. now a sturdy girl of five.
 There was wild rejoicing among the Dutch peoples for, while they had hoped for a male heir, the wee girl was more than welcome. And there | was corresponding rage across the border. for Berlin had taken it for granted that Wtlhelmina would be tch1ldless- In that case the heir to l@AS throne would DS a 1ST1nHu Q14nCS an officer in the Kaiser's army, and the long coveted road to the North Sea would be open. There are those who go so far as to say that the birth o1
 J Juhalaa was responsible for the war
 which is now devastating Europe
 With the probability Of the peaceful
 possession of Holland a matter of ths ' not distant future, Germany rnigh1
 have been more anxious for peace
 Thus for several years Dutch inde.
 pendence hung on the slender thread
 of the life of a girl child. Now it ii threatened by the flames of war whict are sweeping Europe, and Dutchmer are asking each other what the enl , Wii1a be for their little country.
 Will history repeat itself? VII
 Holland, which was governed b,
 counts under the German emperor from the tenth to the fifteenth cen
 turies, again become vassal state O
 the Germans? Are the frail hands O l Queen Wilhelmina, the. tiny pfnl 1 hands of the Princess Juliana.%poWer full enough to stay the enguIfing tide
 The Dutch people have seen wha 1 has happened to their little neigh Dor, Belgium. and they have enter tained its stricken refugees who hay : hocked by thousands across the Dor
 der. They have heard the roar Q confldct. and their staunch hearts ar