The Ceintuur-trambaan (“belt-tramway,” also called ceintuurbaan) was the circular tramway built in 1885 along the postenlinie (line of forts) surrounding Kota Radja in Great Atjeh. The belt-tramway was connected by three straalbanen (radial lines) to Kota Radja, and thereby to the 1875 tramway to the roadstead at Oelèe Lheuë. In the Encyclopaedisch Bureau’s account, the ceintuur-trambaan was the principal material embodiment of the defensive phase of the Dutch presence in Atjeh — the physical expression of the doctrine that the Dutch position could be secured by a perimeter of fortified posts around Kota Radja connected by rail. After the betrayal of Toekoe Oemar in 1896, the ceintuur-trambaan was “gradually cleared” and the long-line strategy of 1897 onward replaced it.
Account from De Buitenbezittingen (1917) — Ceintuur-trambaan
The Encyclopaedisch Bureau’s account of the ceintuur-trambaan appears in the chapter on the Atjeh-tramway. The Bureau’s narrative identifies 1885 as the year in which “military necessity led to the construction of a ceintuur-trambaan along the famous postenlinie, which was connected by three radial lines (straalbanen) to Kota Radja, and thereby to the old tramway to the roadstead.”
The Bureau’s account of the 1896 abandonment of the postenlinie — and of the consequent dismantling of the ceintuur-trambaan — is explicit about the strategic shift that the dismantling represents: “with the abandonment of the postenlinie after the betrayal of Toekoe Oemar in 1896, the utility of the ceintuurbaan lapsed, which was since gradually cleared (geleidelijk opgeruimd). In its place came the long tramway, which since 1897 has followed step by step our extension of authority in Atjeh’s Onderhoorigheden.”
The Bureau’s framing of the ceintuur-trambaan places it as the principal material embodiment of the defensive phase of the Dutch presence in Atjeh — the phase of the 1873–1896 period in which the Dutch position was confined to a fortified perimeter around Kota Radja. The ceintuur-trambaan’s circular form — with its three radial lines connecting it to the 1875 line to Oelèe Lheuë — gave the network its distinctive wheel-like pattern: a circular line with three spokes, allowing rapid movement of troops and matériel between the central base at Kota Radja and the chain of fortified posts enclosing it. The ceintuur-trambaan was thus both a transport infrastructure and a defensive work — a single integrated system of fortification and railway.
Significance
The ceintuur-trambaan is, in the Encyclopaedisch Bureau’s account, the principal material embodiment of the defensive phase of the Dutch presence in Atjeh — the phase of the 1873–1896 period. Its construction in 1885 marks the high point of the postenlinie strategy; its dismantling after 1896 marks the strategic reorientation that opened the long Atjeh campaign of conquest and pacification. The ceintuur-trambaan’s wheel-like pattern — circular line with three radial spokes — is the distinctive geographic form of the defensive phase of the Atjeh-tram network.
Account from Verstege’s Een beroep op het Nederlandsche volk (1886)
Verstege gives the decision and the first stages of its execution: it was decided to lay a ceintuurtramweg (belt tramway) between Lamdjame and Pakan Kroeng Tjoet, “loopende langs alle tusschengelegen, tot de nieuwe postenlinie behoorende versterkingen; Siroen alleen uitgezonderd” (“running along all intervening fortifications belonging to the new line of posts; Siroen alone excepted”), after the steam tramway from Kota Radja to Lambaroe had worked since mid-1884 and was then extended from Kota Radja to Ketapang Doewa and from there both to Lamdjame and to Lambaroe; according to the latest Atjeh news at the pamphlet’s date (1886) that belt line was then completed as far as Roempit. To the same fence-work belong the telephone connections of every post with Kota Radja and the plan for electrical lighting of the whole position — measures that Perelaer’s list of incidents immediately showed could not keep out the nightly raids on the rails (see Atjeh-tram and Guerilla raids inside the concentration line (1885)).
See Also
- Postenlinie
- Atjeh-tram
- Kota Radja
- Oelèe Lheuë
- Groot-Atjeh
- Toekoe Oemar’s verraad (1896)
- Pacificatie van Atjeh
- Aceh War
- Departement van Oorlog
- 1875
- 1882
- 1885
- 1891
- 1896
- 1897
Sources
De Buitenbezittingen 1904 tot 1914, Deel I, bewerkt door het Encyclopaedisch Bureau, Mededeelingen van het Bureau voor de Bestuurszaken der Buitenbezittingen, Aflevering X (Weltevreden: Landsdrukkerij, 1917), p. 68 (section “De Atjeh-tram”).
Een beroep op het Nederlandsche volk in zake het Atjeh-vraagstuk, door J. J. W. E. Verstege (Amsterdam: J. H. de Bussy, 1886), p. 83. OCR: DLP-158.