Herinneringen aan de tweede expeditie tegen Atjeh

By Een Indisch officier (anonim, inisial M.)

De Groot, Kolff & Co., Samarang · Een Indisch officier. Herinneringen aan de tweede expeditie tegen Atjeh, den lezers van Generaal van Swietens brief aangeboden. Samarang: De Groot, Kolff & Co., [1875]. Leiden University Libraries, KITLV, shelfmark M c 23 (Aceh Books). · [1875]

Identifier

KITLV-AB-M-c-23

Type

Buku

Publisher

De Groot, Kolff & Co., Samarang

Date Issued

[1875]

Bibliographic Citation

Een Indisch officier. Herinneringen aan de tweede expeditie tegen Atjeh, den lezers van Generaal van Swietens brief aangeboden. Samarang: De Groot, Kolff & Co., [1875]. Leiden University Libraries, KITLV, shelfmark M c 23 (Aceh Books).

Creator

Een Indisch officier (anonim, inisial M.)

Subject

Perang Aceh, 1873-1904 Ekspedisi militer Belanda kedua ke Aceh, 1873-1874 Swieten, J. van (Jan van), 1807-1888 Kolera -- Aceh -- 1874 Kesehatan militer -- Hindia Belanda Orang hukuman dan kerja paksa -- Perang Aceh Penayong (Banda Aceh) Intendans militer -- Hindia Belanda Pers kolonial -- Hindia Belanda Sumber primer -- Sejarah Aceh

LC Classification

DS646.15.A3

LCSH Subject

Aceh War, Indonesia, 1873-1904; Swieten, J. van (Jan), 1807-1888; Netherlands. Koninklijk Nederlandsch-Indisch Leger--Sanitary affairs; Cholera--Indonesia--Aceh; Aceh (Indonesia)--History, Military

BISAC Category

HIS003000 History / Asia / Southeast Asia; HIS027000 History / Military / General

Language

Belanda

Description

Herinneringen aan de tweede expeditie tegen Atjeh, den lezers van Generaal van Swietens brief aangeboden door een Indisch officier, "Recollections of the second expedition against Aceh, offered to the readers of General van Swieten's letter by an Indies officer", is a Dutch-language book printed by the steam press of De Groot, Kolff & Co. in Semarang. The Leiden catalogue dates it to about 1875, while the foreword by the editors of the newspaper De Locomotief is dated 16 December 1874. It carries shelfmark M c 23 in the KITLV collection now held by Leiden University Libraries and belongs to the Aceh Books digital collection. The main text runs to 23 pages signed with the initial M., followed by a section of Bijvoegsels, or appendices, up to page 41. According to the foreword, the whole content had previously appeared in several issues of De Locomotief. The first article answered General J. van Swieten's well-known self-defence, his letter to General Knoop, while the other pieces had appeared as supplements or clarifications. The editors state that the publication was meant to point out serious shortcomings and a truly precarious situation. The book is therefore a public polemic from inside the colonial army itself, written not long after the second expedition captured the dalam or kraton of Aceh on 24 January 1874. The author opens by defending the Indies officers. They may be one-sided in judgement, he says, but they are free of party interest, since they are not politicians but instruments of politics. He then contrasts two styles of command, which he calls the Verspijck system and the Van Swieten system: the first brave, fast and straight to the objective, the second slow, cautious, more politician and economist than soldier. In his view the government chose Van Swieten deliberately because his temperament suited its policy. The aim of the first expedition had only been a treaty with the sultan. After the failure of April 1873, Dutch prestige among colonial subjects was at stake, so the kraton had to be taken and Aceh, in the author's view, really had to be annexed. Yet for fear of foreign interference, notably from Turkey, America and German diplomatic calculation, ministers repeatedly denied any annexation plan. Van Swieten, he says, was charged with waiting until the outside world itself recognised that the Dutch had no choice but to annex Aceh. This part contains one of the most candid testimonies about the nature of the war. The author writes that taking the kraton, conquering villages, returning prisoners with gifts, and the bombs and shells of the navy achieved nothing, because the Acehnese would not ask for forgiveness. That refusal, he says, was presented to the world as proof that Aceh had forfeited its right to exist as an independent nation. In other words, the steadfastness of Acehnese resistance was turned into a pretext for conquest. The author also records that Van Swieten had some 8,500 well-armed men, 74 guns, 3,500 convict labourers and a fleet of warships, facing an indigenous enemy whose courage, in the author's view, was limited by poor weapons and discipline. The core of the book's criticism is the destruction of the army by disease and mismanagement. The author says heavy fighting took place only a few times before the kraton fell, including at Moesapi, at Lemboe and in front of the great mosque, while most of the rest were skirmishes. The greatest danger to soldiers was not Acehnese bullets but a badly managed climate, exhaustion and disease. He recounts how the war preparation bureau in Batavia calculated a need for 27 ships, which Van Swieten cut to 16 for the sake of economy. The troops sailed with cholera aboard overcrowded ships. A battalion struck by cholera had to be landed on Pulau Nasi, where a bamboo cholera hospital for 150 patients was built and within three weeks consumed nearly all supplies. Ships even drew drinking water from a creek a few feet from that hospital. A footnote compares the steamer Gen. van Swieten, formerly the Ottawa: it had once carried 12 Europeans, 292 indigenous troops and 2 horses to Abyssinia, but was used for 82 Europeans, 171 indigenous troops and 91 horses to Aceh. The description of the camp at Penayong is highly detailed. Ground full of brush, pits and dykes was never cleared. There were no latrines, so excrement piled up on the river bank where soldiers bathed and washed, and convicts even drank the water. Good wells were spoiled for lack of supervision, and Norton pumps arrived only at the end. Food consisted monotonously of rice and meat for months. Thousands of people, including women, children and even infants, were crowded into a space smaller than the Waterlooplein in Amsterdam. Gambling and prostitution flourished, so the author calls the camp a Capua. The hospital ships could take only 180 patients while 500 more were heaped in the bivouac. He proposes an alternative: spreading the troops to the prosperous and spacious Kampung Jawa, to Lemboeh, Pinang and Longbatta (in Dutch spelling), the rice plain southeast of the kraton and the strategic point of Kota Batu, building a pier at Ulee Lheue, and keeping the kraton as a kraton rather than turning it into an unhealthy Kutaraja. He also mentions the Krueng Daroy, which the Acehnese later dammed. The closing lines of the main text deserve notice. The author states that the war was not waged with humanity, either toward one's own soldiers or toward the enemy. Aceh may come under Dutch control, he writes, but as a degenerated and decimated people in a region impoverished by long struggle, with needless sacrifice. He calls for a commission of inquiry to lift the veil over the expedition's failings. The appendices widen the picture. An article from the Padangsch Handelsblad of 24 June reports that more than 2,500 sick soldiers were received in Padang in half a year and urges that they be treated in the highlands of Padang Panjang, Fort de Kock and Payakumbuh. Articles from De Indiër of April 1874 on the Intendance mention inedible bread from the firm Leroux, potatoes bought at double the price, convict wages of f 5 a month paid only after three months, and testimony that at least a quarter of the convict labourers died in Aceh without a single rest day in five months. A final article from De Locomotief discusses plans for a convalescent home at Gadok and the failure of bamboo sheds at Batutulis near Buitenzorg. For Aceh studies, the book matters because it shows the Aceh War from inside the invaders' camp: disease, forced labour, the suffering of workers from Java, Nias and elsewhere, and the admission that Acehnese resistance did not die out even after the royal centre was taken. The text remains written from a colonial standpoint and must be read critically, yet its testimony on the human cost of the war is rarely found in official reports. The digital edition is presented through IIIF images from Leiden University Libraries.

Rights

Domain publik. Salinan digital dari Leiden University Libraries (KITLV), koleksi Aceh Books.

Alternative Title

Recollections of the second expedition against Aceh

Source

Leiden University Libraries, Digital Collections IIIF manifest

Extent

41 halaman (teks utama 23 halaman dan lampiran); 56 citra digital

Collection

Books