The De Rochemont brochure — its full title beginning Wat hebben partijschappen — was the polemical brochure published by the gepensioneerd luitenant-kolonel de Rochemont in defence of generaal van Swieten’s conduct of the second expedition against Atjeh and of the afwachtende houding (wait-and-see posture) that followed the fall of the Kraton. The brochure was cited by van Swieten’s defenders as the source of the text of van Swieten’s verbal instruction to generaal Pel — “zooveel mogelijk vechten weinig, eene zuiver afwachtende houding bewaren” (fight as little as possible, keep a purely wait-and-see posture) — and as evidence that Pel had merely carried out van Swieten’s programme. Borel uses de Rochemont’s own quotations to demolish the claim: the brochure’s own text proves, in Borel’s reading, that Pel reversed van Swieten’s programme at every point.
The Polemic
The De Rochemont brochure was, in Borel’s account, a contribution to the public controversy that followed van Swieten’s departure from Atjeh on 26 April 1874 and the crisis of May–June 1874 that nearly cost the Dutch the entire vestiging. The controversy — conducted in the press, in pamphlets and in the parliamentary enquête — turned on the question of whether van Swieten’s conduct of the war had been sound. De Rochemont, a retired lieutenant-colonel, took van Swieten’s side. The brochure’s title — Wat hebben partijschappen (“What have partisan divisions…”) — announced its thesis: that the criticism of van Swieten was the product of partisan spirit rather than of military judgement. The brochure cited, as documentary evidence of van Swieten’s strategic foresight, the text of his verbal instruction to Pel, and Pel’s private letter attributing his success to van Swieten’s beleid. Both documents, de Rochemont argued, proved that Pel had merely executed van Swieten’s programme.
Borel’s Refutation
Borel’s refutation is documentary. He uses de Rochemont’s own quotations — drawn from the brochure itself — to demolish the claim that Pel merely executed van Swieten’s programme. The verbal instruction that Pel had received — “zooveel mogelijk vechten weinig, eene zuiver afwachtende houding bewaren” — was, de Rochemont’s brochure itself acknowledged, the instruction that Pel had received and had then disregarded. Pel’s reversal of the instruction was a matter of public record: the daily bombardment of kampongs from 28 April 1874, the establishment of the Oeleh Leh post in early May 1874, the cutting of standing padi, the burning of kampongs from which the Dutch were fired on, the battle of Lampoeloe of 20 June 1874, the battle of Garouw of 28 June 1874, the battle of Soerian of 26 July 1874 — all were acts that van Swieten had refused to undertake and that Pel had undertaken as soon as he inherited the command. The strategische driehoek Kwala Atjeh–Kota Radja–Oeleh Leh — which van Swieten’s defenders had attributed to van Swieten — was, Borel clarifies, Pel’s work, not van Swieten’s. The brochure’s own text, in Borel’s reading, supplied the documentary proof of Pel’s independence of van Swieten’s programme.
The Significance
The De Rochemont brochure is, in Borel’s account, a small but significant document of the public controversy over the Atjeh-oorlog. It represents the public defence of van Swieten’s conduct of the war — the case for the afwachtende houding and against the aanvallende tactiek that Pel and Borel himself advocated. It is also a document of the documentary methods of the controversy: de Rochemont cited van Swieten’s verbal instruction and Pel’s letter as evidence; Borel uses the same documents, supplemented by the public record of Pel’s actual conduct, to refute de Rochemont’s case. The brochure thus functions in Onze vestiging in Atjeh as both a source and a target — the document from which Borel extracts the text of van Swieten’s instruction, and the document whose central claim he refutes by close reading. The De Rochemont brochure is also one of the few documents in Borel’s account that records the verbal instruction to Pel in its exact form; without it, Borel’s indictment of van Swieten’s afwachtende houding would lack the documentary anchor on which it rests.
See Also
- Luitenant-kolonel de Rochemont
- Jan van Swieten
- Generaal Pel
- Pel’s letter to Jan van Swieten
- Afwachtende houding
- Aanvallende tactiek in Atjeh
- Strategische driehoek (Atjeh)
- Atjeh-enquête
- Van Swieten’s afscheidsrede (1874)
- 1874
Source
Onze vestiging in Atjeh, critisch beschreven, by G. F. W. Borel, Kapitein der Artillerie. ‘s-Gravenhage: D. A. Thieme, 1878. pp. 87, 117–119, 121–122, 127–128, 276–280, 286, 294, 304.