The 1000-meter strook — the thousand-metre strip, also open strip, free strip — was the 1,000-metre wide, felled, open zone surrounding the Dutch Geconcentreerde Linie (Concentrated Line) around [[Kota Radja|Koeta Radja] in [[Groot-Atjeh|Groot-Atjèh], established by the concentration system of 1884–1886 to prevent the enemy from approaching the Dutch posts unobserved or slipping through. The strip — which could only be kept clear with great difficulty and losses — was the principal site of the daily guerrilla warfare between Dutch patrols and Atjèhse Muslemin, and the location of the notorious Kaloet fortification that the Dutch repeatedly failed to take.
The Establishment
The Geconcentreerde Linie, established by the concentration system of 1884–1886 under Demmeni, was surrounded by a 1,000-metre wide, felled, open strip — the 1000-meter strook. The strip was to prevent the enemy from approaching the posts unobserved or slipping through. A ceintuursporbaan (belt railway) and telephone would connect the posts with one another and by spokes with Koeta Radja and Oleh-leh. All this was carried out and arranged as quickly and well as possible — indeed excellently — and by July 1886 everything was ready.
The Overgrowth
The 1000-meter strook, which could only be kept clear with great difficulty and losses, was soon largely overgrown again with tropical speed. The Muslemin made the line unsafe, damaged the railway and bridges, destroyed the telephone line, fired on the trains, laid grenades under the rails, and made raids inward. The troop strength, then about 5,000 men, had a heavy service through the occupation and securing of the posts, patrols within the line, and suffered much from beri-beri and other diseases.
The Kaloet Fortification
The notorious Kaloet — the principal Atjèhse fortification — was located within the 1000-meter strook. The Dutch troops repeatedly bloodied their heads against Kaloet; they could not take it. The reports then said that the Dutch were clearing, that they had achieved their object, that the taking of Kaloet was unnecessary. From Kaloet the enemy continually bombarded Dutch trains, posts, patrols, and transports. Under Deijkerhoff’s governorship, Teukoe Oema — operating with Dutch troops, Dutch artillery, and Dutch rix-dollars — took Kaloet on 10 August 10 August 1893, almost without a blow. He blew them away or walked in.
The Encirclement
Under Deijkerhoff’s governorship, the enemy closed the Dutch line ever more tightly, brought his fortifications to within 150 metres of the Dutch belt railway, in the 1000-meter strook, and harassed the Dutch from there continually. The enemy even entrenched himself within the line repeatedly, and had to be driven out with force of arms in April and October 1887 and in July 1888, and a part of the railway had to be moved further inward. Stepping ever more boldly and seriously threatening the communication between several posts, the Dutch were finally compelled to act outward.
Significance
The 1000-meter strook is the principal site of the daily guerrilla warfare between Dutch patrols and Atjèhse Muslemin from 1886 to the end of the Atjèh-oorlog. The strip — established to prevent the enemy from approaching the Dutch posts unobserved — was, in the event, the principal site of the enemy’s approach: the overgrowth of the strip with tropical speed, the location of the notorious Kaloet fortification within it, and the enemy’s encirclement of the line from within the strip — these were the principal forms of the Atjèhse military effort in the middle and late phases of the war. The Dutch’s inability to keep the strip clear, and the enemy’s ability to entrench within it, were the principal military failures of the concentration system, and the principal arguments for the Snouck Hurgronje prescription of a more active defence.
Account from Verstege’s Een beroep op het Nederlandsche volk (1886)
Verstege quotes the Koloniaal Verslag that the new line of 1885 was “omgeven door eene 1000 meter breede vrije strook, gezuiverd van kampongs, boomen en struikgewas, om het verdedigingsvermogen zooveel mogelijk te verhoogen” (“surrounded by a 1000-metre wide free strip, cleansed of kampongs, trees and shrubbery, to heighten the defensive power as much as possible”), and answers: “de plantengroei der tropen is zoo weelderig dat het terrein spoedig weder begroeid zal zijn” (“the plant growth of the tropics is so luxuriant that the terrain will soon be overgrown again”), while the Atjehers, by old habit, were already surrounding the Dutch line with entrenchments which would close in more and more as the terrain favoured them. The official journal shows what the clearing itself cost: from 9 to 26 February 1885, 3 dead and 15 wounded, among whom two officers; from 12 to 31 March, 8 killed (among whom one officer) and 25 wounded (among whom one officer); and Perelaer’s chronicle (Guerilla raids inside the concentration line (1885)) that the strip by no means fenced out the raids: the clearing-burnings at Lampermej, the surprise at Penditi (25 February), the nightly firing upon kampongs, watches and piles of rails followed immediately.
See Also
- Geconcentreerde Linie
- Concentratie-stelsel (1884-1896)
- Postenlinie
- Ceintuur-trambaan
- Kaloet
- Demmeni
- Deijkerhoff
- Teuku Umar
- Tengkoe di Tirou
- Tengkoe Mohamed Amin
- Kota Radja
- Oleh-leh
- Muslemin
- Aceh War
- Atjeh-oorlog
- 10 August
- April 1887
- October 1887
- July 1888
- July 1886
- 1886
- 1887
- 1888
- 1893
Source
De Atjeh-Oorlog: Kort Overzicht van Oorsprong, Verloop en Gevolg, door J. A. Kruijt. ‘s-Gravenhage: Loman & Funke, 1896. Chapter IX, X, XII. OCR-filename: 20260716_140310_DLP-101-De_Atjeh_oorlog_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt, pp. 48–52, 54, 64, 68.
Een beroep op het Nederlandsche volk in zake het Atjeh-vraagstuk, door J. J. W. E. Verstege (Amsterdam: J. H. de Bussy, 1886), pp. 81, 108-110. OCR: DLP-158.