Six Holland-class “pantserdekschepen” (protected cruisers) were built in two groups of three ships. They succeeded the ship-rigged unprotected cruisers of the Atjeh-class also classified as “steam frigates”. Being faster but without sails they had a large endurance capable to negotiate the considerable distances in the East Indies Archipelago.

ARMOURED CRUISERS

From the late 1850s navies began to substitute their wooden ships-of-the-line by ironclad warships. However, the frigates and sloops which carried out scouting, raiding, and merchant ship protection remained unarmoured. For several decades it proved difficult to design a ship with any substantial amount of protective armour and capable of the speed and range required of a ‘cruising warship’. The first attempt to design armoured cruisers like the British HMS Shannon, proved to be unsatisfactory. Generally these ships were too slow for their cruiser role. HMS Shannon was the last Royal Navy ironclad to be built with a propeller that could be hoisted to reduce drag when she was under sail and the first ship to have an armoured deck. During the 1870s the increasing firepower of armour-piercing guns made armouring the hull of a ship more difficult as heavier armour plates were required. Even if the weight of armour dominated the design of the ship it was likely that the next generation of guns would be able to pierce it. The alternative was to leave the sides of the ship vulnerable but to armour a deck just below the waterline. Since this deck would only be struck very obliquely by shells it could be less thick than belt armour.

DUTCH EAST INDIES TILL 1890

It can be maintained with some exaggeration that until the end of the First World War the Dutch East Indies existed by grace of the Royal Netherlands Navy. The East Indies meant trade competition but they were no longer a geopolitical threat to the British interests in Asia. Great Britain had an interest in maintaining the existing colonial political relations. This to avoid that another European power would settle itself in the East Indies Archipelago. The British however were during a long time the only ones who could pose a threat to the Dutch Indies.