The Beknopte beschrijving van den Kraton van Groot Atjeh (“Brief description of the Kraton of Great Atjeh”) was the intelligence document published by the Departement van Koloniën before the second Dutch expedition against Atjeh in 1873, purporting to describe the Kraton — the Sultan’s palace-fortress — and its defences. Borel critiques the document at length for its inaccuracy: its account of the Kraton’s construction, defences and approaches was substantially wrong, and the Dutch troops who attacked the Mesigit on 6 January 1874 and bombarded the Kraton for nineteen days did so on the basis of a document that misrepresented the very target they were attacking.
Contents and Defects
The Beknopte beschrijving was, by design, a brief intelligence sketch of the Kraton — its location, its defences, its approaches and its garrison — compiled by the Departement van Koloniën from such information as was available in the Netherlands and the Indies before the second expedition. Borel, who had walked the Kraton’s borstwering after its fall and had personally inspected its construction, indicts the document’s account of the Kraton’s defences. The Dutch had over-estimated the effect of their bombardment, believing the wall was thick stone — actually it was an aarden (earthen) borstwering, some four metres high, hidden by bamboo-doeri thickets. The Kraton lay between the Mesigit and the Atjeh-rivier, with a natte gracht (wet moat) on the northern and western sides and a dry gracht on the southern and eastern sides, and contained within its walls a large kerkhof (cemetery) — the old burial place of sultans. None of these features was accurately represented in the Beknopte beschrijving. The misrepresentation was not merely a matter of detail: it shaped the Dutch plan of attack, leading them to undertake a sustained bombardment — the nineteen-day bombardment from 6 January to 23 January 1874 — that, Borel judged, was ineffective against the actual earthen borstwering it targeted.
Consequences for the Mesigit Storming
The defects of the Beknopte beschrijving had immediate tactical consequences. The storming of the Mesigit on 6 January 1874 was undertaken “tegen alle Indische traditiën in, zonder noemenswaardige voorbereiding, alleen in front, waar ze natuurlijk het sterkst was” — without proper reconnaissance, against the strongest face of the work, and at a cost of 220 Dutch dead and wounded. The Mesigit, which the Beknopte beschrijving presumably represented as a fortified mosque of moderate strength, was in fact a meesterlijk work: a 180-metre earthen borstwering with bamboo, dwarswallen, schietkokers, and a dry gracht filled with bamboo-doeri. The work lay concealed “als een tijger die op zijn prooi loert” at “niet meer dan 1200 passen” from the Dutch bivouak at Penajoeng. The Dutch troops attacked frontally; battalion after battalion was repulsed by “moorddadig vuur.” Only the flanking move by luitenant-kolonel Pel that entered the Mesigit unopposed salvaged the situation. The 220 casualties of the Mesigit storming were, in Borel’s implicit judgement, the cost of the Beknopte beschrijving’s inaccuracy.
The omtrekkende beweging and the Fall of the Kraton
The defects of the Beknopte beschrijving also shaped the omtrekkende beweging of 23–24 January 1874 that finally delivered the Kraton to the Dutch. generaal Verspijck’s movement from Kota Goenoengan around the zuider- and ooster-facen to reach the Atjeh-rivier encountered “geen noemenswaardigen tegenstand” — a fact that, in Borel’s reading, confirmed that the Atjehnese hoofdmacht had already withdrawn. The crossing of the Kroeng Daroe caused “groot oponthoud”; the omtrekkende beweging continued on the morning of 24 January 1874 and reached the Atjeh-rivier; all works fell “zonder slag of stoot.” An afdeeling climbed the low borstwering and discovered, “tot niet geringe verbazing,” that they were inside the Kraton — which was “op een grijsaard en een zieken Atjehnees na, geheel verlaten.” The whole operation, Borel judged, could have been done “na weinige dagen” if regelmatig conducted; instead it took a month, in part because the Beknopte beschrijving had not given the Dutch an accurate picture of the defences they were circumventing.
See Also
- Kraton of Atjeh
- Kraton (institution)
- Storming of the Mesigit (6 January 1874)
- Bombardment of the Kraton (January 1874)
- Fall of the Kraton (24 January 1874)
- Capture of Kota Goenoengan (12 January 1874)
- Bamboe-doeri versperringen
- Generaal Verspijck
- Generaal Pel
- Second Aceh Expedition (1873–1874)
- 1873
- 1874
Source
Onze vestiging in Atjeh, critisch beschreven, by G. F. W. Borel, Kapitein der Artillerie. ‘s-Gravenhage: D. A. Thieme, 1878. pp. 17, 24–29, 33, 99–107.