De onderwerping van Atjeh (“The Subjugation of Atjeh”) is a strategic and political treatise published in 1893 by Van Heutsz — then a major of infantry and former Chief of Staff in Atjeh and Dependencies — in which he argued that the Dutch defensive strategy in Atjeh had failed and that only a rigorous, systematic application of coercive measures, above all the scheepvaartregeling backed by naval power, could bring about the complete subjugation of the Achehnese sultanate. The brochure, published at ‘s-Gravenhage by De Gebroeders van Cleef and at Batavia by G. Kolff and Co. — the title-page bears both houses in parallel — and printed by the Typ. Zuidholl. Boek- en Handelsdrukkerij, was written in October 1892 and issued in 1893; it constitutes Van Heutsz’s first published strategic argument and the intellectual foundation for the aggressive policy he would implement as Governor from 1898 onward. It is also the principal ex ante text of the pacificatie doctrine and the document against which Van Deventer’s 1908 parliamentary critique of the post-conquest administration is measured. The book opens with the warning that “De Atjeh-oorlog knaagt aan ons Koloniaal bezit, hij moet eindigen” (the Atjeh-war gnaws at our Colonial possession; it must end).
Purpose and Argument
Van Heutsz wrote the brochure in response to the protracted failure of Dutch policy in Atjeh. The Atjeh-oorlog, begun in 1873, had dragged on for nearly twenty years without producing the subjugation that was its stated objective. Van Heutsz diagnosed the cause as a perpetual oscillation between systems — each change of governor or minister bringing a new policy, each new policy signalling weakness to the Atjehers, who interpreted every shift as proof that the Dutch “did not know what they wanted” and were “too weak to carry a principle through consistently.” The Atjehers, he wrote, had learned this lesson from experience: at Kemala shortly before the departure of Generaal van Teijn, the chiefs and elders had declared that they would not submit before the impending change of administration, because “experience had taught them that with the Hollanders every change of administration brings a change in administrative ideas.”
Van Heutsz’s central thesis was that a free and warlike people never submits except under compulsion — “Een vrijheidlievend en krijgshaftig volk onderwerpt zich niet anders dan gedwongen”. He argued that the only instrument capable of producing that compulsion, without excessive cost to the Dutch treasury, was the scheepvaartregeling — a system of controlled maritime trade that placed the Dutch “on the money-chest of Atjeh” and enabled them to reward, punish, and compel obedience at will. He rejected both the concentratie-stelsel (concentration system) and the rigorous blockade as primary strategies — the former as a mere display of weakness, the latter as a temporary war measure that produced bitterness without lasting authority — and argued that the scheepvaartregeling, properly and forcefully applied, was the permanent instrument of both compulsion and prosperity.
The book was written from the perspective of an author who, as former Chef van den Staf, had served under successive Governors and had personally witnessed every policy reversal since 1874. Van Heutsz signs the title-page as gewezen Chef van den Staf in Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden, a stance that lets him claim both insider knowledge (he had been at Kota-Radja through the Van der Heijden conquests of 1878–1879) and outsider independence (he was no longer in office when he wrote). The book is dedicated to no one and bears no ministerial authorisation: it is a private printed memorandum, intended for the political and military class in The Hague and Batavia. The book was written in direct response to two events: the 1892 appointment of the eleventh Governor of Atjeh (Generaal Pompe), and the warning that the retired Generaal van Teijn had addressed to the Minister of Koloniën in a letter dated 23 November 1891 from Utrecht — “dat telkens veranderen van politiek; dat gebrek aan eene vaste consequent doorgezette richting” — which Van Heutsz takes as the rhetorical starting point of his tract.
Survey of Dutch Policy, 1873–1892
The brochure opens with a systematic review of Dutch policy from 1873 to 1892, organised by the successive governorships and their shifting strategies. Van Heutsz catalogues eleven Governors of Atjeh — Van Swieten, Pel, Wiggers van Kerchem, Diemont, Van der Heijden, Pruijs van der Hoeven, Laging Tobias, Demmeni, Van Teijn, Pompe van Meerdervoort, Deijkerhof — and sets the catalogue against the simultaneous rotation of five Governors-General (Loudon, van Lansberge, ‘s Jacob, van Rees, Pijnacker Hordijk) and thirteen Ministers van Koloniën — together with “zevental algemeene secretarissen”. The point of the catalogue is the diagnosis: that “de Regeering den juisten weg nog niet weet aan te geven” (the Government does not yet know how to indicate the correct path) because every landvoogd and every minister undoes the policy of his predecessor.
The Van Swieten System (1874)
Generaal van Swieten, whose instructions dated 26 May 1874 (Besluit of the Gouv. Gen. Loudon No. 1) and his note for Kolonel Pel dated 22 April 1874, prescribed the occupation of a small but strong position in the most important part of the valley of Groot-Atjeh, which should be actively defended while political policy completed what the weapons had so fortunately begun. Van Heutsz praised Van Swieten as both an excellent statesman and a military commander, thoroughly acquainted with Dutch capabilities, and argued that had his system been followed, political policy would have soon revealed the correct path for the subjugation of the interior and the dependencies without the expenditure of vast military resources.
The Pel System (1875)
After Van Swieten’s departure, military operations for the expansion of the occupied position consumed nearly all attention. In 1875, on the proposal of Generaal Pel, the Gouv. Gen. van Lansberge abandoned Van Swieten’s prescribed path entirely and resolved on a large-scale offensive with the weapons in the valley of Groot-Atjeh. Pel’s letter to the Governor-General, dated 30 April 1875 (published as Appendix IV in the second volume of Kielstra’s Beschrijving van den Atjeh-oorlog), laid out a plan for the closure of Groot-Atjeh from the sea between Kroeng Raja and Kroeng Raba and the occupation of the VI Moekims, which would reduce the inland population to a collection of inland villages dependent on Dutch-controlled supply. Van Heutsz regarded this as a well-thought-out system whose completion would have posed the question of what further political measures were needed — a question Pel would certainly have answered correctly had he not died during his campaign in the beginning of 1876.
The Van der Heijden Conquests (1878–1879)
Van Heutsz devoted the most sustained admiration in the brochure to the campaigns of Generaal van der Heijden. The conquest of the XXII Moekims and XXVI Moekims, the submission of Habib Abdoer Rachman and Tekoe Moeda Baid on 13 October 1878, the reduction of the XXVI Moekims and the expedition to Selimoen — these were, Van Heutsz wrote, operations of which “we all know the brilliant results.” He quoted Van der Heijden’s dayorder of 5 September 1879 in full, with its careful statement that “large-scale military operations will presumably no longer be necessary, but for a considerable time the strong support of the military will be required to introduce a good administration and create a regulated order of things.”
Van Heutsz argued that Van der Heijden had the “brand under the foot” at Groot-Atjeh — a position no governor before or after him had attained — and that his dismissal in the beginning of 1881 was “irresponsible.” He further praised Van der Heijden’s Nota of 19 April 1880, which laid out the political measures needed to crown the military conquest with lasting subjugation, and argued that had Van der Heijden been allowed to implement these measures — particularly the scheepvaartregeling as later refined by Scherer — the complete subjugation would have been achieved in short order.
The Civil Governor and the Concentration (1881–1884)
Van Heutsz described the period from April 1881 to March 1883 — the administration of the first civil governor — as one of rapid deterioration. The scheepvaartregeling proposed by Scherer was not introduced; the conquered positions were progressively abandoned; the army was reduced to a “passive role, sometimes even the humiliating role of target.” He quoted Laging Tobias’s own assessment that his predecessor had “managed in two years to turn Groot-Atjeh, where at his entry everything pointed to a peaceful solution, into a region where no one belonging to the government, or even showing signs of goodwill toward the government, was safe outside our fortifications.”
The concentration system ordered in June 1884 by the States-General in secret session, and proclaimed by Gouv. Gen. van Rees on 19 August 1884, was, Van Heutsz argued, a display of weakness that the Atjehers immediately recognised as forced rather than voluntary — despite the Governor-General’s proclamation that they would “never succeed in driving us back a single step.” The system combined a withdrawal into a concentrated line at Kota-Radja with a rigorous closure of the entire coast from Tamiang on the East Coast to Troemon on the West Coast. Van Heutsz argued that the closure was the correct instrument but was undermined by Generaal Demmeni’s half-hearted implementation, which produced a “twofold thing” — a defective scheepvaartregeling alongside a partial blockade — that satisfied no one. The closure, however, was the immediate precedent for the prescription of the brochure itself.
The Cajolery Period (1885–1892)
After the withdrawal of the blockade in 1885 (Staatsblad No. 85 of 1885 repealed Staatsblad No. 105 of 1884), Van Heutsz described the policy as “the most wretched system that can be imagined”: the Dutch waited in their concentrated position, without exercising any compulsion, for the Kemala party to offer its submission. This produced what Van Heutsz called a “policy of cajolery” — the paying of monthly allowances (about f 8000 a month, much of which flowed onward to Kemala and to the priest) to chiefs who rendered no service, the sending of emissaries and gifts to Kemala, and the vain hope that the Atjehers would eventually prefer Dutch administration to the old order under the sultan. He quoted Napoleon’s dictum on ruling subject Mohammedan peoples: “Obey for them, is fear.”
The Van Teijn Governorship and the Closure (1887–1891)
Van Heutsz served as Chief of Staff under Generaal van Teijn and described his governorship in considerable detail. He praised Van Teijn’s energy in driving out Tengkoe di Tirou’s bands from the Dutch line in 1887 and 1888, and his systematic introduction of the coastal closure from January 1888 onward — beginning with a partial closure of the West Coast, extending to the whole North Coast and West Coast by the beginning of 1890. Van Heutsz described the closure as “not a blockade but a scheepvaartregeling” — a temporary coercive measure whose purpose was to compel submission and then be replaced by a permanent controlled-trade system. The closure of the Noord- en Westkust, completed by the beginning of 1890, had by early 1891 produced “een effect … dat zelfs de verwachting van Generaal van Teijn overtrof” — an effect that surpassed even Van Teijn’s own expectation.
Van Heutsz also recorded his disagreement with Van Teijn on the question of herstel van het sultanaat (restoration of the sultanate). Van Teijn shared the government’s view that the restoration of the sultanate under Toeankoe Mohamad Daoed was the correct means of obtaining submission; Van Heutsz argued that it was a fundamental error.
The Bugis Origin of the Sultanate
Van Heutsz included a detailed account of the origin of the present sultan’s lineage, which he stated was not correctly given in Veth’s Atchin en zijne betrekkingen tot Nederlands, Gerlach’s Atjeh en de Atjineezens, or van Langen’s De inrichting van het Atjehsche staatsbestuur onder het sultanaat. According to Van Heutsz, two Bugis brothers (Daengs) from Wadjo (on Celebes) had set out to trade. One went directly to Benkoelen; the other, sailing around Sumatra, was wrecked on Poeloe Bras, found by Loong fishermen, and brought to Loong on the West Coast. He prospered and was called Daeng Mancoer Boegis. His son, Tekoe Loöng, settled at Tanam near Nesoch and married a granddaughter of Soetan Mogal (also known as Sultan Iskander Sanie Mogajat Sjah), who was a son of Sultan Mohamad Iskander Sjah van Pageroeyoeng and had married the daughter of Sultan Makota Alam Iskander Moeda (1606–1636). The offspring of this marriage, Maharadja Lela Malajoe, became ferdanamantrie (first minister) at the court of Sultan Djohar Alam Imadoedin Sjah around 1723. When Djohar Alam died, the chiefs of the V Moekims Montassik proclaimed a courtier, Sjamsoel Alam, as sultan, but Maharadja Lela Malajoe persuaded the assembled chiefs in the Balei Blerong Sri in the Kraton to elect his son, Potjoet Din, as sultan. To secure this election, he sent each of the sagi chiefs of the XXII and XXVI ten katies of gold, to Tekoe Kadli Malikoel Adil two katies, and to Tekoe Nek Poerba of the IX Moekims and Tekoe Nek Radja Moeda Setia of Merassa five katies each. Potjoet Din was proclaimed under the title Sultan Alaïdin Achmad Sjah — the first sultan of the present lineage, placed on the throne by bribery.
From this event dates the custom of Djenamoe Atjeh — the payment of thirty-two katies of gold by each new sultan upon accession. The section is the genealogical-constitutional heart of Van Heutsz’s argument against the herstel-van-het-sultanaat programme (printed pp. 41–77 of the brochure): he traces the Polim-line, the Iskander Moeda tradition, and the succession disputes of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to demonstrate that the sultanate had never commanded effective allegiance over the coast, and that restoring Mohamad Daoed would merely prolong “een politiek van cajoleeren” (a policy of cajolery).
The Argument Against Restoration of the Sultanate
Van Heutsz devoted a sustained argument to the question of herstel van het sultanaat (restoration of the sultanate). He noted that the idea had been supported by Fransen van de Putte (since 1879), Van Swieten, Laging Tobias, Gouv. Gen. van Rees, Minister van Bloemen Waanders, Minister Sprenger van Eijk, and Generaal van Teijn — the last named having revived the programme in 1886 on the prompting of Laging Tobias’s December 1886 article in the Indische Gids and of Fransen van de Putte’s Parlementaire Redevoeringen. His reasons for opposing it were:
- The present sultan’s lineage was of Bugis origin and had never possessed real power.
- It had been placed on the throne by bribery, not by hereditary succession or force of arms.
- At the time of the Dutch arrival, the sultan was “of nearly no authority and influence, besides nearly reduced to poverty.”
- The chiefs had not wanted a sultan in 1874 and had chosen Toeankoe Mohamad Daoed only in 1878 under the influence of Toeankoe Haschim and Habib Abdoer Rachman — and then chose a child who could not govern, clearly indicating that each chief wished to hold the reins in his own territory.
- The restoration would create an authority the coastal chiefs did not want above them, and would compel them to support that authority financially against the Dutch.
- The chiefs of the principal coastal states — particularly Pedir — had explicitly stated that they did not want a sultan under Dutch protection, because such a sultan would wield indirect influence over the dependencies and draw income from them.
The Proposed Strategy
Van Heutsz’s proposed strategy for the complete subjugation of Atjeh rested on two pillars: the scheepvaartregeling on the coasts, and a combination of political pressure and limited military action in Groot-Atjeh. The prescriptive section occupies pp. 78–115 of the brochure; here Van Heutsz works systematically through the four-point plan that Resident Scherer had set out in his lecture of 20 January 1891 to the Indisch Genootschap (smokkelbestrijding; bondgenootschap with the weak coastal statelets; isolatie van Groot-Atjeh; pacificatie with or without a sultan), rejects each, and substitutes his own programme. The three pillars of the prescription are marine-enforced closure of the entire coast, a rigorous scheepvaartregeling on the ports retained under Dutch control, and the assumption of the hatsil with the abrogation of the sultanate-idea.
Marine-enforced closure of the entire coast
Van Heutsz insists that the closure of the Noord- en Westkust which Generaal van Teijn had introduced in stages from January 1888 and completed in the beginning of 1890 must be extended across the entire coast, “van Tamiang op de Oostkust tot Troemon op de Westkust”. This was the measure Demmeni had been ordered to apply in 1884 but had refused to carry through, and which Staatsblad No. 105 van 1884 had authorised but Staatsblad No. 85 van 1885 had withdrawn.
The Scheepvaartregeling on the Coasts
All trade — import and export — on the entire coast of Atjeh, from Tamiang on the East Coast to Troemon on the West Coast, should pass through a few designated places under Dutch control, where Dutch establishments with military garrisons, administrative officials, customs, postal, telegraphic, police, and harbour personnel would supervise all movements. The remaining coastal places would be closed to foreign trade. Van Heutsz endorsed Van Teijn’s selection of Edi, Telok Semawé, and Segli on the East and North Coasts, and Telok Kroet (with the establishment on Poeloe Raja), Melaboeh, and Tampat Toean on the West Coast, with Oleh-leh as the free port for Groot-Atjeh itself. Van Heutsz quotes Scherer’s own warning that “eene scheepvaartregeling zonder of met eene onvoldoende marine is als een leger zonder of met gebrekkige wapenen” (a scheepvaartregeling without or with an inadequate navy is like an army without or with defective weapons).
The scheepvaartregeling was not merely a system of trade regulation; it was an instrument of compulsion. The Dutch would sit on the money-chest of Atjeh — “plaatse ons in den volsten zin des woords op de geldkist van Atjeh”. Fixed revenues would come from the hatsil (the Sultan’s share, now the Dutch’s by right of succession under the 18 artikelen sworn by each submitting statelet), import duties on luxury goods, and the opium farm or regie. In 1890 a European firm had offered to farm the opium-pacht at f 250,000 per month for the first year, rising to f 400,000; the existing licentie-system and the retail margin made the offer plausible, and Van Heutsz treats the figure as proof that the revenue-yield of the closed coast could meet the cost of the war. Variable revenues — fines — would be imposed on statelets that did not comply with Dutch instructions, deducted from the proceeds of their export products. Van Heutsz concludes the prescription: “Het aangewezen middel was toen scheepvaartregeling, wat Scherer wilde” (the indicated means was then the scheepvaartregeling, as Scherer wanted it) — but applied, as Scherer had failed to apply it, with a marine force adequate to make the closure real. The hatsil, the tractates, and the abrogation of the sultanate-idea together form the third pillar: Van Heutsz rejects both the cajoleering-policy of paying chiefs “traktement” and the sultanaat-restoration policy, insisting that the Dutch should themselves exercise the fiscal rights formerly reserved to the sultan.
Oleh-leh as Free Port and the Poeloe Waij Plan
Van Heutsz argued that Oleh-leh should be a free port — free of import duties except on opium — so that the valley of Groot-Atjeh, where the representative of the Dutch government resided, would become a centre of trade and prosperity. He also supported the plan for Poeloe Waij — an island on the great shipping route from Europe to China, Japan, and Australia — to be developed as a major maritime station with a free port, a direct steam connection with the Netherlands, and all the facilities that trade and shipping had hitherto found only at Singapore.
Political Pressure in Groot-Atjeh
In Groot-Atjeh, Van Heutsz argued, the scheepvaartregeling alone would not produce submission without some use of military force. The resistance bands, led by fanatical priests and composed of adventurers from various regions, would not disperse merely because trade was controlled. The correct approach was a combination of: (a) the prohibition of export from the Dutch line; (b) the payment of monthly allowances to chiefs who rendered genuine service, with the cancellation of allowances as an instrument of pressure; (c) the imposition of heavy fines on chiefs who harboured resistance bands or permitted shooting at Dutch posts; and (d) swift, limited military expeditions to deliver “bloody blows” when necessary, followed by immediate return to the line.
The Naval Requirement
Van Heutsz emphasised that the scheepvaartregeling required a strong and fast navy for its enforcement. Smuggling would be attempted on the extensive coastline; war contraband and opium would be the most profitable smuggled goods; armed prahus would blockade each other’s harbours. A scheepvaartregeling without or with an inadequate navy was “like an army without or with defective weapons.”
The Most Cited Passage
The most frequently cited passage of the brochure — quoted by Van Deventer in the 1908 Tweede Kamer debate on Van Heutsz’s June 1908 report — is:
“Wij zitten niet in Atjeh om vliegen te vangen en maar steeds onze millioenen weg te werpen; Atjeh moet onderworpen worden, dat is de zaak, en om dit resultaat na al ons morsen en knoeien nog te erlangen moet Atjeh zelf betalen wat daarvoor voortaan nog aan dit land wordt ten koste gelegd.”
— “We are not in Atjeh to catch flies and to keep throwing away our millions; Atjeh must be subjugated, that is the point, and to obtain this result after all our messing and botching Atjeh itself must pay what is henceforth to be spent on this land.”
The passage is preserved by Vermeulen with the citation: “J. B. van Heutsz, De onderwerping van Atjeh, blz. 79.”
The 1908 Parliamentary Debate on the Brochure
Van Deventer suspected that Governor-General Van Heutsz had permitted Van Daalen to act in accordance with the 1893 view set out in the brochure, and had only abandoned him when the December 1907 inspection tour had made the unworkability of “this harsh and grasping policy” plain. The June 1908 report — with its emphasis on the restoration of the hoofden (chiefs) and on “tactvolle omgang” (tactful dealings) — was, on this reading, the repudiation of the 1893 brochure’s doctrine that Atjeh itself must pay for its own subjugation.
IJzerman replied that it was unfair to pursue Van Heutsz with a brochure fifteen years old. “Hebben dan alleen de grote mannen in Nederland het recht om er oude plunje op na te houden?” — Have then only the great men in the Netherlands the right to keep old clothes in the closet? Idenburg — Minister of Colonies — endorsed the IJzerman view: it was Van Heutsz’s greatest merit that he had put an end to the Dutch feeling of impotence with respect to the Buitenbezittingen.
Significance
The brochure De onderwerping van Atjeh is the first published statement of the strategic doctrine that Van Heutsz would carry into execution from 1898 onward. Its argument for the scheepvaartregeling as the principal instrument of subjugation — supplemented by limited military action and the systematic exploitation of economic leverage — anticipates the combination of blockade, controlled trade, and mobile offensives that eventually ended the Atjeh-oorlog. The Concentratiestelsel — the defensive perimeter around Kota-Radja from which Van Heutsz in the 1890s was still recoiling — was, in his Governorship, transformed into a forward base; the scheepvaartregeling he prescribed in 1893 became the fiscal instrument of his pacification; and the marine-enforced closure he demanded in 1893 became the blokkade of the 1898–1903 campaigns. Its detailed knowledge of Atjehnese political structures, family connections, and regional interests reflects Van Heutsz’s service as Chief of Staff and his close familiarity with the territory. The 1908 parliamentary exchange between Van Deventer and IJzerman on the continuing authority of the brochure is the canonical exchange on the relation between the Van Heutsz of 1893 (the conqueror) and the Van Heutsz of 1908 (the pacificator). The brochure is also the principal source on the policy debates of 1873–1892: Van Heutsz quotes at length from Kielstra’s Beschrijving van den Atjeh-oorlog, from the dagorder of 5 September 1879 (the Dagorder of 5 September 1879), from Scherer’s lecture of 20 January 1891, from the Indisch Militair Tijdschrift and the Indische Gids, and from Van Teijn’s warning letter of 23 November 1891. It is the only place where the policy oscillations of eleven Governors are narrated in a single sustained argument by an author who had himself been a witness.
Account in du Croo’s Generaal Swart (1943)
Its motto ran: “The Atjeh war gnaws at our colonial possession. It must end; let us at last show the civilised world that we are capable of ending it!” Its two principal conclusions ran wholly parallel to Snouck Hurgronje’s argument: “a freedom-loving, warlike people submits only under compulsion,” and “only he who shows that he possesses the power to make his will respected will bring Atjeh to submission.” Van Heutsz still held in it to a scheepvaartregeling, and his aim was not so absolute as the scholar’s, “but in spite of that, this brochure at last brought the new, strong and correct note. It was accordingly regarded by many either with disapproval or as not serious — only many younger men understood and endorsed it.”
Sources
De Atjeh-Oorlog: Kort Overzicht van Oorsprong, Verloop en Gevolg, door J. A. Kruijt. ‘s-Gravenhage: Loman & Funke, 1896. Chapter VII, “Scheepvaartregeling.” OCR-filename: 20260716_140310_DLP-101-De_Atjeh_oorlog_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt, p. 37.
See Also
- J. B. van Heutsz
- Joannes Benedictus van Heutsz
- Scheepvaartregeling
- Concentratie-stelsel (1884-1896)
- Concentratiestelsel
- Blokkade
- Aceh War
- K. van der Heijden
- General van Teijn
- Jan van Swieten
- J. L. J. H. Pel
- Scherer
- Herstel van het sultanaat
- Djenamoe Atjeh
- Sultan Alaïdin Achmad Sjah
- Toeankoe Mohamad Daoed
- Toeankoe Haschim
- Poeloe Waij
- Oleh-leh
- Nota of 19 April 1880
- Day-order of 5 September 1879
- Van Teijn’s warning letter (23 November 1891)
- Scherer’s lecture of 20 January 1891
- De Gebroeders van Cleef
- G. Kolff & Co.
- C. Th. van Deventer
- G. C. E. van Daalen
- A. W. F. Idenburg
- Van Heutsz’s report on Atjeh (June 1908)
- Pacificatie van Atjeh
- Buitenbezittingen
- Kota Radja
- Groot-Atjeh
- 1893
- H. N. A. Swart
- General Swart, Pacifier of Atjeh (1943)
- Atjeh
- Onderhoorigheden
- Defection of Teuku Umar (March 1896)
- Vetter
- De Atjeh-Oorlog (Kruijt, 1896)
- Civiel en Militair Gouvernur
- Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden
- Atjeh-oorlog
- 1896
- 1898
- 1899
- 1904
Source
De onderwerping van Atjeh, by J. B. van Heutsz, Majoor der Infanterie, gewezen Chef van den Staf in Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden. ‘s-Gravenhage: De Gebroeders van Cleef; Batavia: G. Kolff en Co., 1893. Gedrukt bij de Typ. Zuidholl. Boek- en Handelsdrukkerij. OCR-filename: 20260718_105749_DLP-107-De_onderwerping_van_Atjeh_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt.
Schets eener parlementaire geschiedenis van Nederland van 1849 tot 1901, by Mr W. J. van Welderen baron Rengers, 4th rev. ed., Vol. IV: Oost-Indië 1891-1918 by Dr W. H. Vermeulen (‘s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1955), pp. 273-275.
Generaal Swart, Pacificator van Atjeh (“General Swart, Pacifier of Atjeh”), by M. H. du Croo, Colonel K.N.I.L. (retired), with the collaboration of H. J. Schmidt, Titular Colonel K.N.I.L. (retired), with a foreword by His Excellency Lieutenant-General K.N.I.L. (retired) G. K. Dijkstra (Maastricht: N.V. Leiter-Nypels, 1943), Chapter III; List of works consulted.