The Indrapoeri defensive triangle was the strategic system within which Generaal K. van der Heijden closed the first phase of the Atjeh-oorlog in 1879: a triangle whose base was the sea and whose two standing sides were the Glé Raja and the uninhabited bare hill-ridges east of the XXVI Moekims, with its apex at Indrapoeri — “het toppunt van den driehoek … Strategisch was dit het punt, waarnaar wij jaren lang hadden gezocht” — as expounded in the final chapter of W. Cool and G. B. Hooijer’s Eene schoone bladzijde uit Atjeh’s geschiedenis (1889), pp. 77–79.
The development of the lines, 1874–1879
The book’s analysis traces the whole topographic evolution of the Dutch position. When the mere holding of the Kraton and the mouth of the Atjeh-rivier no longer proved tenable to Generaal Pel, he had driven his room broadly to east, west and south, and drawn through the plain, perpendicular to the river, a line strengthened with bentings. The shutting of the Achehnese off from the sea became at once necessary, so that this defensive line had to touch and lean against the uninhabitable, wild mountain country to west and east. As a closure against hostile irruptions it did not entirely answer; to shorten and improve it, more ground was conquered forward, and the actual junction with sea and mountain on the east was carried to Biloel. With a tolerable closure obtained there by the steep Raja-gebergte, the line of posts from Koeala Lock to Biloel Zuid remained too long and too insecure, though supported along a part of its course by the river.
Habib Abdul Rachman’s proof of its weakness
It was this line whose weakness was proved by the invasion of Habib Abdul Rachman — “een op zichzelf staand feit,” a fact standing by itself: only so eminent a leader as he could bring three thousand Achehnese through and over that mountain country to fall upon the Dutch rear at Kroeng Raba. Happily he was driven back; and then was conceived the plan of obtaining, by the conquest of the XXII and XXVI Moekims, a shorter closure line between the mighty bulwarks placed by nature.
The triangle completed
At Indrapoeri the Dutch had reached the apex-point of the triangle whose base is the sea, and whose standing sides are the Glé Raja and the uninhabited bare hill-ridges east of the XXVI Moekims. Strategically this was the point sought for years. The old lines that meandered through the swampy sawah terrains could now fall, for miles-wide strips of wild, uninhabited and partly impassable mountain land would replace them — “Zij zouden een betere afsluiting daarstellen voor den Atjeschen vijand die zonder proviand of transportmiddelen moet ageeren, dan onze posten, die verloren lagen te midden van de kampongs” — a better closure against an enemy who must operate without provisions or transport than posts standing lost among kampongs inhabited by a conquered and perhaps conniving population. When the flag was hoisted above the high, triple roof of the Missigit Indrapoeri, the conquest of Groot-Atjeh stood crowned.
The tochts as verification of the sides
The designer of the conquest felt the necessity of convincing himself of the strength of the triangle’s sides, and of increasing it as far as might be: “Daarom werd mede Lamtoba bezocht, werden de vluchtelingen der XXVI Moekims nog verder teruggedreven. Daarom werd tegen het gevoelen van den Gouverneur-Generaal in, ook opgerukt naar Selimoen” — hence Lamtoba was visited, hence — against the Governor-General’s feeling — the advance to Selimoen, to anticipate the attacks to be expected upon the principal closure point of Indrapoeri, whether by submission of the chiefs and population of the country in front or by destruction of their resistance. The tochts gave the Military and Civil Commander at the same time a pure insight into the social, political and topographical condition of the last and deepest part of the valley; and the data then collected showed that the sides of the triangle would furnish sufficient security of closure if they were well strengthened in the corner-points and above all at the apex, to prevent the leaking through of all manner of mischief.
The sequel
Under the strong government of Van der Heijden, the book continues, more than a year of complete quiet followed; no hostile bands showed themselves; the reconciling gathered with the first stone-laying of the Missigit and the chandoeriefeest — the reconciliation meal in which a crowd of more than six thousand Achehnese, chiefs of Groot-Atjeh and princes and rulers of the vassal states took part. Then the demolition began: the removal of Van der Heijden, the splitting of military and civil authority, the piece-by-piece demolition of the structure under his civil successor, and at last the nerveless withdrawal behind an artificially bare flat strip of a gunshot’s width into the low, unhealthy delta among the lagoons — “Ware ‘t niet te tragisch, ‘t zou komisch zijn!” This strategic epilogue is the polemical heart of the book, referred to the fuller treatment of the authors’ het Atjeh-vraagstuk (1886).
See Also
- General van der Heijden
- Indrapoeri
- Glé Raja
- J. L. J. H. Pel
- Pel’s plan
- Stelling Pel
- Kroeng Raba
- Habib Abdurrahman
- Selimoen Expedition (August 1879)
- 1879
Source
Eene schoone bladzijde uit Atjeh’s geschiedenis, door W. Cool en G. B. Hooijer (‘s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1889), pp. 77-81. OCR-filename: 20260720_115822_DLP-135-Eene_schoone_bladzijde_uit_Atjeh_s_geschiedenis_Nemotron_OCR_v2_OCR.txt.