Before the First World War, the Netherlands hosted two major international peace conferences in The Hague. The First Hague Conference was held in May 1899 on the initiative of the Russian Tsar Nicholas II. Representatives of 26 nations conferred on the limitation of certain types of weapons, including poison gas, hollow point bullets, and aerial bombardment from hot air balloons. The conference was a surprising success, and agreements were made on the laws of war and subsequent war crimes.
In 1907, there was a Second Hague Conference at the insistence of the American president Theodore Roosevelt. The conference was initially planned for 1904, but it had to be postponed because of the Russo-Japanese War. The second conference only secured a few additional treaties and is generally considered a failure.
The First World War breaks out in the summer of 1914. During four years the war rages through the whole world, but the Netherlands are kept on the side. This doesn’t mean the war goes by unnoticed. The Dutch army is spreaded all over the country and its borders defending it from any threat. The Netherlands faced problems coming from neutrality, a flood of refugees, restrictions on the freedom of the press…
In the long term neutrality turns out to be good for the Dutch economy. Industry and commerce are given free rein on the national and international markets now that there is no foreign competition. Companies are forced to develop innovative activities that will turn out to be lucrative.