Causes of the Atjèh-oorlog (Kreemer's account)

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tagsconcept, political, colonial, atjeh-oorlog, 19th-century, dutch, atjehnese, causes-of-war, kreemer
aliasesKreemer on the causes of the Atjèh war, Oorzaken van den Atjèh-oorlog, Kreemer's causes of the Atjèh-oorlog, the structural causes of the Atjèh war

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The causes of the Atjèh-oorlog, as set out by J. Kreemer in the first chapter of his Atjèh (1922), are structural rather than incidental: the war is, in Kreemer’s account, already contained in embryo in the London treaty of 1824, whose twin obligations — to ensure the safety of shipping in Atjèhnese waters and to respect the integrity of the Atjèh sultanate — were, Kreemer argues, mutually irreconcilable. The half-century of Dutch “schipperen” — trimming — between these obligations, and the progressive breakdown of the Atjèhnese sultanate’s own capacity to police its waters, form the deep pre-history of the declaration of war of 26 March 1873.

The seed in the 1824 treaty

Kreemer’s argument is compressed into a single decisive passage. “De Nederlandsche Regeering ging er toe over om in het Londensch tractaat van 1824 de dubbele verplichting op zich te nemen, vooreerst om te zorgen voor de veiligheid in de Atjèhsche wateren en in de tweede plaats de onafhankelijkheid van Atjèh te eerbiedigen. De ervaring leerde al spoedig, dat deze twee zaken moeilijk vereenigbaar waren. Car wilde men de veiligheid van handel en scheepvaart in Atjèh — dat berucht was door roofzucht — met zijn fanatieke en hopeloos in zichzelf verdeelde bevolking waarborgen, dan was het eenige middel door occupatie van grondgebied een blijvend goeden toestand te scheppen. Maar onze toezegging van 1824 stond dit laatste niet toe: immers we zouden aan de integriteit van Atjèh niet tornen. Een politiek van schipperen moest hiervan het gevolg zijn en we zullen hieronder zien, hoe wij ons een halve eeuw lang de grootste vernederingen lieten welgevallen, liever dan, in strijd met het tractaat van 1824, iets te kort te doen aan Atjèh’s integriteit. Zoo kunnen we zeggen, dat in dit tractaat reeds de kiem ligt van den Atjèh-oorlog” — “The Netherlands government undertook in the London treaty of 1824 the double obligation, first to ensure the safety in the Atjèhnese waters, and secondly to respect the independence of Atjèh. Experience soon taught that these two things were difficult to reconcile. For if one wished to guarantee the safety of commerce and shipping in Atjèh — notorious for its rapacity — with its fanatical and hopelessly internally divided population, the only means was to create a lasting good order by the occupation of territory. But our promise of 1824 did not permit the latter: for we were not to touch the integrity of Atjèh. A policy of trimming had to be the consequence of this, and we shall see below how we submitted to the greatest humiliations for half a century, rather than, in violation of the treaty of 1824, do anything to compromise Atjèh’s integrity. Thus we can say that in this treaty the seed of the Atjèh war already lies.”

The colonial context

Kreemer adds a second structural cause: the colonial context of the 1824–1873 period. “Maar ook onze koloniale politiek dier dagen verdroeg zich niet met een krachtig optreden tegen Atjèh. Eerst op Java, toen op Soematra’s Westkust, hadden we belangrijke oorlogen te voeren en daarbij eischte het belang der moederlandsche financiën, dat in Indië de uiterste zuinigheid werd betracht” — “But also our colonial politics of those days did not tolerate a forceful action against Atjèh. First on Java, then on Sumatra’s West Coast, we had important wars to wage, and therewith the interest of the motherland’s finances demanded that the utmost frugality be observed in the Indies.”

The sequence of humiliations

Kreemer then catalogues the half-century of incidents that revealed the hollowness of the Dutch position:

The literature

Kreemer notes in a footnote that the literature on the causes of the Atjèh war is extensive, and cites as principal authorities: E. B. Kielstra’s Beschrijving van den Atjèh-oorlog dl. I (1883); the same author’s De Atjèh-oorlog verdedigd; E. S. de Klerck’s De Atjèh-oorlog dl. I (1912); P. J. Veth’s Atchin (1873); the Officieele bescheiden betreffende het ontstaan van den oorlog tegen Atjèh in 1873 (Regeeringsuitgave 1881) — which contains the so-called “Nota” on the relations between the Netherlands and Atjèh from 1824 to 1873; Mr. J. H. Boudewijnsche’s Atjèh; and I. D. Fransen van de Putte’s Atjèh, Parlementaire redevoeringen (1873–1885).

Significance

Kreemer’s account of the causes of the Atjèh war is, in its structure, an argument about structural determinism: the war is contained in the 1824 treaty, and the half-century of Dutch policy between 1824 and 1873 is the working-out of a contradiction that could only be resolved by the abandonment of one of the two obligations. The war, in this reading, is not the result of Atjèhnese provocation or of Dutch aggression, but of the impossibility of simultaneously guaranteeing Atjèhnese integrity and Atjèhnese-water safety without occupying Atjèhnese territory. The catalogue of incidents is the empirical proof of that impossibility.

See Also

Source

Atjèh. Algemeen samenvattend overzicht van land en volk van Atjèh en onderhoorigheden, door J. Kreemer, Archivaris van het Atjèh Instituut. Eerste Deel. Leiden: N.V. Boekhandel en Drukkerij voorheen E.J. Brill, 1922. Hoofdstuk I, B (“Periode 1824—1873. Oorzaken van den Atjèh-oorlog”), blz. 10–14, met noten.

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