Atjeh gedurende de tweede expeditie en later was the 1876 Dutch book published under the name Een Oud Officier (An Old Officer). It was one of the earliest detailed printed defenses of Jan van Swieten and of the Second Aceh Expedition (1873-1874). The book answered critics such as Brutus, used official material such as the Commander’s Journal of the Second Aceh Expedition and the General van Swieten War Telegrams, and argued that many harsh judgments on the campaign were based on incomplete knowledge.
The book is important because it became one of the main documentary replies in the first Dutch pamphlet war over the Aceh War.
Publication and setting
The book appeared in Batavia in 1876, only a short time after the events it described and only a little later than the polemical attack in Open Letter by Brutus to General Knoop. It therefore belongs to the very first layer of printed interpretation of the war, when officers, journalists, and politicians were still fighting over what the campaign of 1873–1874 had really meant.
What the book tried to do
The author tried to defend Van Swieten and the second expedition by using documents, figures, and daily records. The argument was not simply that the expedition had succeeded. It was that many of its critics were reading events too quickly and too simply.
The book discussed:
- the timing of operations during the second expedition
- the use of intelligence from local allies
- the meaning of General van Swieten War Telegrams
- the role of transport, coolies, labor, and logistics
- the effect of weather and the monsoon
- the cholera problem in the Dutch force
- the practical limits on aggressive pursuit after battlefield success
Use of official records
One of the book’s main strengths was its use of the Commander’s Journal of the Second Aceh Expedition. The author drew on official published extracts to reconstruct daily events and to argue that command decisions had not been made blindly. He also referred to the short telegraphic dispatches later criticized for their optimism, arguing that they had been based on the information available at the time.
Reply to Brutus
The book became especially important as a reply to Brutus. Where Brutus treated the campaign as a chain of delays, missed pursuits, and false hopes, Atjeh gedurende de tweede expeditie en later tried to show that the picture was more complicated. It argued that climate, distance, uncertain roads, the burden of moving supplies, and the condition of the troops limited what could actually be done.
In this sense, the book did not deny that the war continued after the fall of the Kraton. Instead, it argued that continuation of the war did not prove that every step of Van Swieten’s command had been mistaken.
Later importance
The book became a frequently cited source in Aceh-related writing. Many later wiki pages use it because it preserves troop numbers, movement details, local reports, and the Dutch side of the argument soon after the events themselves.
Significance
Atjeh gedurende de tweede expeditie en later is significant because it is one of the earliest full documentary defenses of the second Dutch invasion of Aceh. It stands beside Open Letter by Brutus to General Knoop as one of the main texts through which the early history of the war was debated, defended, and remembered.
See Also
- Second Aceh Expedition (1873-1874)
- Open Letter by Brutus to General Knoop
- Brutus
- Jan van Swieten
- Commander’s Journal of the Second Aceh Expedition
- General van Swieten War Telegrams
- Aceh War
- 1876
Source
Atjeh gedurende de tweede expeditie en later, Een Oud Officier (Batavia: Ogilvie & Co., 1876), pp. 5–75.