The guerilla war in Groot-Atjeh was the characteristic form of warfare which the Atjehnese enemy waged against the Dutch occupation army in Groot-Atjeh — replacing battle in the open field by surprise, ambush, night assault, murder of stragglers, cutting of communications, fire, flood and sleeplessness. It was described and analysed with a precision no earlier Dutch work had reached by H. F. Meijer in his Atjeh van 26 December 1875 tot 4 September 1876 (1883), whose subtitle, De offensieve handelingen der guerilla (the offensive operations of the guerilla), was meant literally: the enemy, everywhere the Dutch believed themselves on the defensive, was in fact the offensive party.
The enemy’s method
Meijer’s portrait of the enemy’s method, spread through his chapters, includes:
- Use of the terrain. From the mountain tops the guerilla watched all daytime movements of the Dutch troops with his practised eye; he descended when a weak patrol or a badly guarded detachment offered itself, and lay “as a tiger in ambush” for his prey; the sawahs, kampong hedges, nipah bushes, pagars and ditches were his covered approaches, often to within ten paces of a post.
- Surprise attacks by night. Posts like Lemboeq N.O. (January), Lamprit (April), Lampagar (May) and the west hill-post (June) were assaulted after careful spying, usually a few hours before dawn, at the posts’ weakest hour and point — sometimes with the help of information drawn from friendly kampongs.
- Ambushes by day. Patrols, escorts and convoys on the sunken footpaths between posts were his daily object: February (13 and 17 February), March (4 and 21 March), April (7 and 16 April), June (18 June), July (14, 17 and 28 July) and August (28 August) each produced their characteristic ambush.
- Weapons of circumstance. Grass fire in the dry monsoon (Lamprit, 8 February), the damming of channels to direct flood water over a work, and the continuous night firing that withheld the garrisons’ sleep (afmatting — the methodical tiring-out) were part of the same warfare.
- Local coalitions. Repeatedly the resistance was helped by the two-faced neutrality of the submitted population, which kept up its trade with the enemy as by ancient exchange — the betel-leaf and rice trade through the Dutch passenstelsel (pass system), in which passes of friends covered the passages of enemies.
The Dutch answer
The Dutch answer, as Meijer documents it, was never to try to break this war by a single battle — the guerilla never showed himself to a strong column — but by: careful march and escort discipline; the system of fortified posts (the bentingstelsel) with storm-proof palisades, obstacle belts of bamboo-thorn, randjoes and broken glass, and lighting by pole lanterns; the clearance of the terrain around the works; beaten roads and fixed convoy times; vivres depots for two months in every post, and counter-ambushes (hinderlagen) and night patrols. Meijer showed the price of their daily neglect, and the rarity of properly trained troops in 1876, when the greater part of the infantry were young recruits and the enemy always knew of every deficiency in advance.
Significance
Meijer’s book became the Indies army’s own standard text on the guerilla war; the standing comparison between the Atjeh war and the French Vendée and the Calabrian guerilla war of the Napoleonic era — which he quotes from an eye-witness of the latter — served the same purpose: a warfare in which every hedge, bush and hut might be hostile.
See Also
- Atjeh van 26 December 1875 tot 4 September 1876
- Guerilla offensives in Groot-Atjeh (26 December 1875 - 4 September 1876)
- Atoeh catastrophe (13 February 1876)
- Night attack on Lampagar (2-3 May 1876)
- Aceh War
Source
Atjeh van 26 December 1875 tot 4 September 1876, door H. F. Meijer (Breda: P. B. Nieuwenhuijs, 1883), chapters IV–VIII.