Coblijn’s programme for the subjugation of Atjeh was the detailed military and political plan set forth by the retired colonel W. A. Coblijn in the closing chapters of his pamphlet Hoe Atjeh te onderwerpen (1893), the culmination of his review of the twenty years of the Atjeh-oorlog. Its leading maxim — prefixed to the whole work — was the sentence: “When work of this kind is to be done, it should be done promptly.”
The premise: no evacuation, no third expedition of the old kind
Against the counsels of despair Coblijn placed the answer of lord Canning to John Lawrence, who in the mutiny summer of 1857 had proposed to evacuate the Pesháwar valley: “Hold on to Pesháwar to the last.” For the Dutch there could be no question of evacuating Atjeh: To stand still is danger, to recede is ruin. The scheepvaartregeling (shipping regulation) then being introduced should be given a trial of three years; if by that time it had not answered expectations, the sword must again be firmly grasped and niet meer in de schede worden gestoken voordat de oorlog werkelijk geëindigd is — not put back into the sheath before the war was really ended. A third expedition of the old kind Coblijn expressly did not advise: it would most probably run the same course as the second, and much money and many lives would be sacrificed to stand, after ten years, exactly where one stood before. The Atjeh war was een monster met vele koppen (a monster with many heads): the heads must be crushed systematically, one by one, and the re-growing prevented.
The reserve-brigade
The heart of the programme was the creation of a reserve-brigade, to be cantoned on a suitable point in the Padangsche Bovenlanden in the neighbourhood of Fort de Kock or Padang Pandjang — where Padang was only a few days’ steaming from Atjeh and enjoyed a healthy mountain air — in temporary cantonments built for:
- four field-battalions, each of five companies — four field companies and a dépôt company — the field companies together about 800 men strong, composed as far as possible of the best elements, Europeans (the cadre) as well as natives, that the infantry of the army could miss without being disorganised; shortages were to be made up by recruitment, the recruits first being exercised in the dépôt companies;
- a mountain battery of getrokken mortieren (drawn mortars) together with six snelvuurkanonnen (quick-firing guns), named also infanterie-kanonnen (infantry guns);
- a company of mineurs (sappers) and hospitaal-soldaten (hospital soldiers).
Only lieutenants with some years of service, and especially those possessing war experience, were to be posted to the brigade; the battalion and company commanders were to be picked officers, with, as far as possible, a colonel at the head of the brigade, and the cadre was to be kept complete from Java and the Netherlands. The troops were to be brought up to the highest degree of war-readiness by an intensive training: long marches, also by day in the heat and by night; bivouacking in the open; salvo fire and tirailleur fire; gymnastics and bayonet fencing. When one of the battalions should have performed a brilliant feat of arms for which its vaandel (colour) had to be decorated, the Queen herself should attach the decoration at a parade at The Hague: a royal hand consecrating the colour was estimated by Coblijn, from a military point of view, of far higher value than the sending of a marechaussée. Should the trial of the shipping regulation succeed and no war be necessary, the means created would not be lost: the battalions could be melted into those of the existing army, and fast-steaming cruisers were precisely the kind of vessels most needed in the Archipelago.
The cruisers
As naval complement Coblijn demanded three fast-steaming cruisers, always stationed in the waters of Atjeh, each with a strong crew and a landing detachment of between 60 and 80 men, composed of picked soldiers. The cruisers were to steam time and again around the Acehnese coast, to watch the trade-lines running from Atjeh to the Straits Settlements, to bring up Acehnese trading vessels — ship and cargo declared forfeit, the crews sent to Java as prisoners — and to chastise kampongs lying here and there on the coast, destroying possessions and taking men, women and children captive. All import and export to and from Atjeh was as much as possible to be prevented — in a note Coblijn added: the closing of all Acehnese harbours, except Oleh-leh, could be accompanied by a blockade with other kinds of ships, and licenties (licences) must of course not be granted.
The political overture and the conduct of the war
If after three years the trial had failed, all negotiations with the chiefs of the coastal states were to be broken off and the agents recalled; a manifest was to be addressed to the princes, in which the complaints of the government were enumerated; and only in the case that all the princes, with the sultan at their head, came to offer their submission to the Governor-General at Buitenzorg and there heard his conditions — a letter of the sultan being required — was negotiation to be admitted. In the war itself the commander was to keep all his posts; Koeta-Radja was to be reinforced from Java; the bentings (bamboo fortifications) of the enemy were to be taken coûte que coûte (at all costs) — without heavy artillery, for which Coblijn appealed to the demonstration at Batoe Iliq; the cleared thousand-metre strip along the line was to be kept swept; and one or two forward posts were to be occupied and fortified, lying as far as possible not further than an hour’s march from the headquarter position, provisioned each time for a couple of weeks, with provision-trains always most strongly escorted.
The punitive expeditions
The reserve-brigade itself — expressly not placed under the orders of the Governor of Atjeh, but a force at the disposal of the Governor-General alone, through the intermediary of the legercommandant, and receiving its orders from the headquarters at Batavia — was destined for the tuchtiging (chastisement) of the principal coastal states, Pedir, Gighen or Samalanga, once or twice a year. The chastisement must not content itself with laying a few coastal kampongs in ashes: the force must penetrate deep into the land, in order to break the Atjeher in his prosperity as much as possible — laying his rich kampongs in ashes, felling his fruit-trees, devastating his fields and gardens. The deep penetrations need last only a few hours; columns were to be strong — at least a battalion with the necessary artillery, sappers and ambulance — and small detachments and patrols outside the fortifications were always to be avoided; the expeditions were to be home within a week — binnen eene maand uit en thuis — for an unnecessarily long stay on the theatre of war, with night after night of bivouacking often on damp ground and sometimes in the rain, injured the health without necessity. All Acehnese prisoners — men, women and children — were to be sent to Java and there regarded and treated as prisoners of war. When, after repeated chastisements, the resistance of the enemy was seen to slacken, the time had come to penetrate into the heart of the country and to make plain to the war-party that it was nowhere safe from Dutch blows. A permanent coolie-battalion was to be formed for the transport service, and, with an eye to the emigrants who might choose Deli for a refuge, the garrison of Deli was to be reinforced.
The final dispositions
Coblijn closed with the possibility that, the submission accomplished, the kraton might be given back to the sultan: in that case a strong fort was to be built at a distance of 3000 to 4000 metres, armed with heavy artillery under defilade, from which the kraton — which had only light smooth-bore pieces — could at any time be bombarded. For the choice of the position itself he referred to that recommended by luitenant ter zee A. F. Meijer in his article Onze positie in Atjeh (Marineblad, eerste aflevering 1892–93), voorzeker zeer de aandacht waardig (most certainly very worthy of attention).
Significance
The programme is significant in the military literature of the Atjeh-oorlog as the most fully elaborated public plan of the partij van de daad (party of deed) before the actual conquest. Published in the same year, 1893, as the brochure De onderwerping van Atjeh of majoor J. B. van Heutsz — whose scheepvaartregeling Coblijn held insufficient — it formulated the doctrine of the systematic punitive column which, in the years after 1896, Van Heutsz and the generals of the korte verklaring were in fact to apply in the definitive pacificatie of the sultanate.
See Also
- Hoe Atjeh te onderwerpen (Coblijn, 1893)
- W. A. Coblijn
- Padangsche Bovenlanden
- Scheepvaartregeling (1892)
- De onderwerping van Atjeh (Van Heutsz, 1893)
- Civil versus military government in Atjeh
- Pacificatie van Atjeh
- 1893
Source
Hoe Atjeh te onderwerpen, door W. A. Coblijn, gepensionneerd Kolonel van het Oost-Indisch Leger (‘s-Gravenhage: De Gebroeders van Cleef, 1893), pp. 88–105. OCR-filename: 20260716_140310_DLP-100-Hoe_Atjeh_te_onderwerpen_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt.