The korpsgeest der Maréchaussée — the corps spirit of the Korps Maréchaussée — was identified in the 1930 jubilee number as the chief factor in the corps’s success, and described at length both by the editors and, from within, by the former maréchaussée W. J. Mosselman.
The editorial view
“De voornaamste factor van hun succes is ongetwijfeld geweest de uitstekende korpsgeest, welke de Maréchaussée van de andere Wapens heeft onderscheiden” — the chief factor of their success has undoubtedly been the outstanding corps spirit which distinguished the Maréchaussée from the other arms. Continual companionship during the most perilous moments had created a fraternisation, which the officers cultivated and promoted in their leadership.
The motto
The corps’s watchword, in Mosselman’s account, was “Eén voor allen, allen voor één” — one for all, all for one. Only two words were permitted to have value: Doel (objective) and Bereiken (to reach it). What lay between — “soms een zee van armoede, ellende en ontbering, soms een zee van krachtproeven op het moreel en physiek” (sometimes a sea of poverty, misery and privation, sometimes a sea of trials of moral and physical strength) — was not counted, and might not even be thought of. Onmogelijk — impossible — did not exist: “je deed, of bezweek bij de poging.” The corps and Atjeh demanded “den heelen man, den heelen soldaat, het heele zijn, het heele kunnen” — the whole man, the whole soldier, the whole being, the whole capacity.
Discipline
Mosselman insisted that the corps’s discipline was strict but just — “onze gemeenschap was hecht, onze discipline streng, maar rechtvaardig” — and rested on the general military law and hierarchy and the Reglement van Krijgstucht; yet something else gave it a place apart in comparison with the infantry battalions. In the infantry, discipline was founded mostly on the regulation alone, with the strafregister as the stick behind the door. The Maréchaussée formed its own organisation, “eigenlijk een vreemde loot, die met een speciaal doel op den ouden onbuigzamen Legerstam was geënt” — really an alien shoot grafted for a special purpose onto the old inflexible trunk of the army.
The reputation of a lawless band
Outsiders, Mosselman wrote, could not judge this, since they saw the maréchaussées only when they were free and “aan den boemel” (on the spree). Then the men lived out their youth and their feelings, each according to his nature, and spent the “schamele paar centen” they had saved by going without, consuming “de colonnezak” (the column’s common purse). Their officers were men who knew what was due to them and understood that their noise was not wantonness but natural reaction; the younger among them were mostly of the same stamp, “de boog kon niet altijd gespannen blijven” — the bow could not always stay drawn.
Many officers and non-commissioned officers of the infantry corps called them “een zootje, een vrijgevochten bende” — a rabble, a lawless band. Mosselman recalled infantry posts at which the maréchaussées presented themselves in the hope of enjoying a few days of complete rest, without watches and without sentry duty, only to be refused admission: they might bivouac outside, but not inside, the wire entanglement, the garrison being afraid that they would lead their sheep astray. “Zij maten met verkeerde maten” — they measured with the wrong measures, testing the corps against the arrangement of the peacetime garrison, where everything had its precise, exactly appointed place and any artistic grouping meant revolution.
Officers and men
Mosselman’s memoir attributes the corps spirit above all to the conduct of its leaders: an authority that had grown naturally through “een doelbewust en tactvol instellen van de organisatoren en optreden van de Officieren,” who for all orders would never pass over the relevant subordinate leaders and seniors. That produced “die hechte band, die eensgezindheid, die subtiele Korpsgeest van hoog tot laag, die het geheim was van de groote daden” — the close bond, the unanimity, the subtle corps spirit from high to low, which was the secret of the great deeds performed.
Colonel L. A. Snell described the same spirit from the officers’ side: at the feasts on the posts there reigned “een toon van saâmbindende kameraadschap, zonder dat één oogenblik de discipline werd verstoord; wij begrepen elkander volkomen” — a tone of binding comradeship, without discipline being disturbed for a single moment; we understood one another perfectly.
See Also
- Korps Maréchaussée te voet in Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden
- W. J. Mosselman
- L. A. Snell
- Maréchaussée-vocabulaire
- Brigade (Maréchaussée)
- Marechausseelied
Source
Het Korps Maréchaussée in Atjeh: De Atjehsche Garde, 1890 - 2 April 1930, Extra Jubileum-nummer of Het Nieuws van den Dag voor Nederlandsch-Indië issued for the fortieth anniversary of the corps (1930), pp. 1-16. Offprint DLP-143, Bibliotheek KITLV, accession 621 116 794.