The voorpostenbenting — the forward-post benting — was the light field fortification that the Dutch maintained in front of the geconcentreerde linie in Groot-Atjeh, distinguished from the permanent posts of the line itself by its primitive bamboo construction and its exposed position. P. H. R. Beuming gives a detailed description of both types in Schetsen uit den strijd op Groot-Atjeh, written expressly because het meerendeel der lezers wel geen goede voorstelling van zoo’n post hebben zal — most readers would have no good conception of such a post.
The permanent post of the geconcentreerde linie
A post of the geconcentreerde linie in the period 1886–1896 was, Beuming writes, a settlement of permanent character, fit for the residence of troops — een garnizoen in ‘t klein, a garrison in miniature, in which everything found in an ordinary garrison was present on a small scale.
Seen from a distance the post showed nothing but walls of palisades with zinc roofs projecting above them. The whole was surrounded by aloe bushes and thorny plants, and by a ijzerdraadversperring — a barbed-wire entanglement of stakes driven into the ground and connected by iron wire about a decimetre above the soil, which made walking through it as good as impossible and was intended to make the post storm-free.
Immediately behind the enclosure, inside the post, lay the banket, a very broad walkway from which one could see over the palisading; on it stood the sentry-boxes for the guards. Outside the benting there were also raised sentry-boxes, or use was made of trees or raised points of ground to observe the foreground.
Access was by a heavy gate or door which after six in the evening was never opened except in the presence of an officer. Entering, one found an open space with gymnastic apparatus and the flagstaff, surrounded by various buildings: first the officers’ dwellings — maak u hiervan, lezer, nu vooral geen al te weidsche voorstelling, want alles was er zeer primitief — and opposite them as a rule the soldiers’ quarters. There were further a canteen and magazines for victuals and powder. On the large posts an officier van Gezondheid was stationed and a sick-room was found. Most posts had two bastions on which the guns were mounted, and on some bentings an artillery officer was accordingly present.
During the existence of the geconcentreerde linie the permanent posts had communication with Koeta Radja twice daily by the steam tram, whose track ran round the posts. Such a ride, Beuming notes, was not always without danger, want de vijand beschoot de tram altijd lustig — for the enemy always shot at the tram merrily.
The forward post
Before the geconcentreerde linie the terrain had been cleared for about a thousand metres, and at the most strategic points stood the voorpostenbentings. These were of very primitive construction.
Beuming asks the reader to imagine a square earthen wall about one metre high, surrounded by vertically driven coconut-palm trunks forming a palisade about one metre above the earthen wall; before that palisade a four-metre-wide entanglement of barbed wire, and before that again a barrier of bamboedoeri, thorny bamboo bushes. In the diagonal of the reduite were two projecting bastions, on which as a rule a 12 or 7 cm gun was mounted. The openings in the reduite were protected by barriers into which long iron points had been driven.
Within the earthen wall stood the buildings, all raised in bamboo and covered with a roof of atap, the leaves of the coconut palm; the interior was otherwise extremely primitive. These forward posts were usually relieved every six weeks by detachments from the permanent garrison force.
Life and hazards
The forward posts bore the brunt of the fighting in the period Beuming describes. At the beginning of 1896, he writes, the posts were shot at day and night and the forward posts above all had to suffer. At Biloel the men bekommerden zich al bitter weinig om het aanhoudende schieten van den vijand, en letten er zelfs niet eens meer op, dat de kogels door de rietbedekking snorden — troubled themselves very little about the continual firing and no longer even noticed the bullets whistling through the reed roofing — yet victims fell often, by day or at night as the men lay on the baleh-baleh. When the firing became too severe a grenade was sent over, after which it was quiet for a time.
To prevent the Acehnese stalking the bentings, and for better observation, the high alang-alang grass around them was continually burnt off.
The forward posts named by Beuming as razed in 1896 before the Beradin operation were Sennelop, Lamsoet, Anak Galoeng, Lambarih, Biloel, Lamkoenjit, Kroeng Gloempang, Tjot Rang and Toengkoep, together with the blockhouses lying between them.
See Also
- Benting
- Geconcentreerde linie
- Biloel
- The sharpshooter of Biloel
- Alang-alang
- Atap
- Baleh-baleh
- Schetsen uit den strijd op Groot-Atjeh (1911)
- 1896
Source
Schetsen uit den strijd op Groot-Atjeh, met speciaal vervaardigde kaart en toepasselijke photo’s, bewerkt door P. H. R. Beuming, oud-onderofficier van het Ned.-Indische Leger (Amsterdam, December 1911; uitgegeven ten bate van het te stichten Herstellingsoord voor Rijks-Ambtenaren). Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen, Br N 82-144
Acknowledgement of sources. The material in this article derives from Schetsen uit den strijd op Groot-Atjeh, met speciaal vervaardigde kaart en toepasselijke photo’s, bewerkt door P. H. R. Beuming, oud-onderofficier van het Ned.-Indische Leger (Amsterdam, December 1911). Dutch passages are quoted in the original with an English rendering.