The Beaumont-geweer was the Dutch infantry’s breech-loading service rifle — the principal small arm of the Indische leger in the Atjeh-oorlog of 1873–1878. It is mentioned repeatedly in Borel’s account of the battle of Lampoeloe of 20 June 1874, the battle of Soerian of 26 July 1874, the surprise of Lamara Olejlo of 14–15 February 1875 and the Longbatta disaster of 31 December 1874, and is the weapon whose capture by the enemy at Longbatta Borel records with characteristic indignation.
Description and Role
The Beaumont-geweer was a breech-loading (achterladend) rifle — the standard service weapon of the Dutch infantry in the 1870s. It fired a metallic-cartridge round from a bolt-action breech, allowing a much higher rate of fire than the muzzle-loading rifles it had replaced. In the Atjeh-oorlog it was the principal small arm of the European and inlandsche infantry of the Indische leger; the Barissans, the compagnie mariniers and the regular bataljons (5de, 6de, 9de, 10de, 12de, 13de, 18de) were all armed with it. The Beaumont-geweer’s rate of fire — the salvoes that Borel repeatedly mentions — was the principal means by which small Dutch detachments could hold their positions against Atjehnese attacks. The salvoes of Beaumont rifles needed at K. Podjoet and Pakan Atjeh to drive back attackers during the battle of Lampoeloe on 20 June 1874 are typical of the weapon’s tactical role.
Performance in Action
Borel’s account of the Beaumont-geweer in action is mixed. On the one hand, the weapon’s rate of fire allowed small Dutch detachments to hold their positions against superior Atjehnese numbers. At the surprise of Lamara Olejlo on the night of 14–15 February 1875, kapitein von Ende’s handful of men held the abandoned enemy fortification against the dawn return of the Atjehneezen with Beaumont salvoes; the same weapon allowed van Zijll de Jong’s ~60 infantry to retake the lost benteng at Longbatta-Mesigit on 31 December 1874 and save the van der Meer column from certain destruction. On the other hand, Borel records that the compagnie mariniers — in their first real fight at the battle outside the ooster-face on 13 October 1874 — “wasted ammunition and had to give up position.” The lesson Borel draws is that raw troops, however brave, squandered their fire in the conditions of Atjehnese woodland fighting: the Beaumont-geweer’s rate of fire was only effective in the hands of trained soldiers who could aim and conserve their ammunition.
Capture at Longbatta and Lessons
The most damaging single incident involving the Beaumont-geweer in Borel’s account is the capture of about 40 Beaumont rifles — together with much ammunition and ambulance materials — by the enemy during the Longbatta disaster of 31 December 1874. van der Meer’s column, surrounded on the open sawah and cut to pieces, lost cohesion; some men threw away their weapons. The wounded and exhausted who fell behind were mercilessly killed by the Atjehneezen, who carried off the captured rifles, ammunition and ambulance materials. The capture of the Beaumont rifles was, in Borel’s account, a small but instructive disaster of the Longbatta retreat: it supplied the enemy with modern Dutch small arms and ammunition, and it illustrated the danger of marching in dispersed order over soaked sawah along wooded edges — the lesson Borel would later draw out at greater length in his account of the Atoeh catastrophe of 13 February 1876, when kapitein van Swieten’s detachment of 2 officers and 57 men was massacred on the drassige sawah near Lamsajoen. The Beaumont-geweer was thus a serviceable weapon in trained hands but a source of danger when captured: the Atjehnese salvoes from captured Beaumont rifles would be heard by the Dutch in subsequent engagements.
The Beaumont carbine in the Korps Maréchaussée
the 1930 jubilee number of Het Nieuws van den Dag voor Nederlandsch-Indië records that the Korps Maréchaussée “waren bewapend met een karabijn, eerst de Beaumont-karabijn en later de Mannlicher, en het specifieke wapen van den Atjeher, een klewang” — were armed with a carbine, first the Beaumont carbine and later the Mannlicher, and with the specific weapon of the Atjehnese, a klewang, with which he was now himself fought. See Karabijn der Maréchaussée.
Their light armament was one of the reasons for the corps’s mobility: the maréchaussées “verplaatsten zich in hun gehardheid en ook door hun lichte bewapening gemakkelijk” — moved easily by reason of their hardiness and their light armament.
See Also
- Indische Leger
- Achterlaadkanonnen van 12 c.M.
- Battle of Longbatta (31 December 1874)
- Battle of Lampoeloe (20 June 1874)
- Surprise of Lamara Olejlo (14–15 February 1875)
- Atoeh catastrophe (13 February 1876)
- Majoor van Zijll de Jong
- Kapitein von Ende
- 1874
- Het Korps Maréchaussée in Atjeh (Jubileum-nummer 1930)
- Korps Maréchaussée te voet in Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden
- Karabijn der Maréchaussée
- Klewang
Source
Onze vestiging in Atjeh, critisch beschreven, by G. F. W. Borel, Kapitein der Artillerie. ‘s-Gravenhage: D. A. Thieme, 1878. pp. 154, 178, 204–206, 237, 251, 318.
Het Korps Maréchaussée in Atjeh: De Atjehsche Garde, 1890 - 2 April 1930 (“The Corps of Maréchaussée in Atjeh: The Atjehnese Guard”), Extra Jubileum-nummer of Het Nieuws van den Dag voor Nederlandsch-Indië issued for the fortieth anniversary of the corps (1930), pp. 1-16. Offprint DLP-143, Bibliotheek KITLV, accession 621 116 794.