Een vaderlandsch belang (“A national interest”) is the three-part article published by kapitein der artillerie G. F. W. Borel in Het Vaderland on 1, 2 and 3 March 1878, proposing the formation in the Netherlands of an expeditionnaire krijgsmacht of 3 000–4 000 man — the Indische Brigade — to be sent directly to Atjeh and to end the Atjeh-oorlog by force. Borel amplified the proposal in De Militaire Spectator, No. 7, jaargang 1878, and recapitulated it in the closing chapters of Onze vestiging in Atjeh, finished at ‘s-Gravenhage on 27 August 1878.
The Argument
The article’s title — Een vaderlandsch belang, “a national interest” — announced its claim: that the conduct of the Atjeh-oorlog was no longer a colonial question but a metropolitan one, on which the honour and the finances of the Netherlands depended. Borel argued that the war, already in its sixth year by 1878, could not be ended by the Indische leger alone. The army was “in geen gunstigen toestand”: manschappen onvoldoende geoefend, kaders in treurige staat, many sick or unfit, with a groot gebrek aan officieren, especially in the artillerie. The stelling-Pel from the Kroeng Raba to the Kwala Gigieng — completed by generaal Pel in May 1875 and extended to the Kroeng Tjoet in February 1876 — had been left “nagenoeg onveranderd” under generaal Wiggers van Kerchem’s long command, and the afwachtende houding (wait-and-see posture) had once again become Dutch strategy. The XXII Moekims — “de kern van Atjeh’s weerstandsvermogen,” the densest-populated Sagi containing the Sultan’s voorraadschuren and the most hostile chiefs — had never been permanently occupied; only repeated tuchtigingen by fresh troops would reduce them. Borel’s proposal was that the Netherlands should raise, equip and despatch to Atjeh a force adequate to the task: 3 000–4 000 men, infantry, artillery and engineers, raised from Dutch vrijwilligers and sent directly — not via Java’s “ongezonde garnizoenen.”
The Brigade
The Indische Brigade was specified in detail. The force was to comprise 150 officers and 3 000 men — infantry, artillery and mineurs — raised in the Netherlands from Dutch vrijwilligers, not from the inlandsche or European troops of the regular Indische leger. The volunteers were to be attracted with premies: ƒ 250–300 handgeld at enlistment, ƒ 1 per day soldij in Atjeh, and an equal premie on return. They were to be bound to a strict two-year maximum verbintenis, after which they would be released with the premie and the option of settling in the Indies. They were to be armed with steel achterlaadkanonnen with schokbuis — the modern materieel whose absence Borel had indicted throughout his book. The estimated cost was ƒ 6 000 000 for the first year and ƒ 10–15 million for the whole two years, to be raised as an oorlogsleening (war loan) and ultimately repaid, Borel suggested, in Acehnese pepper. The brigade’s members were to be promised the Militaire Willemsorde for distinguished conduct. The proposal was, in Borel’s argument, no more than a fraction of what the war was already costing in demurrage (the Indische Stoomboot-maatschappij’s ƒ 1,200 per day per ship), in reinforcements, and in the slow attrition of the Indische leger — and would, by ending the war, eliminate the very demand for such expenditures.
Reception and the Closing of the Book
The article was amplified in De Militaire Spectator, No. 7, jaargang 1878, where Borel elaborated the proposal in greater technical detail. The book Onze vestiging in Atjeh — finished on 27 August 1878 — recapitulated the proposal as its prescriptive closing, with the wish that, if the Indische Brigade were adopted, the words of Camille Rousset on the 1830 French expedition against Algiers — which departed France on 25 May 1830 with 36 000 soldiers — might apply to the Dutch in Atjeh: “rien n’avait été négligé pour le succès de l’expédition.” The example of kolonel van der Heijden’s two expeditions against Gedoeng in June 1878 — after the second of which the chief laid down bestuur and his son came to submit — and the submission of Pasangan after naval bombardment on 15 August 1878 confirmed, Borel argued, the aanvallende stelsel and the necessity of overwhelming force. The Indische Brigade proposal — though never adopted in Borel’s exact form — anticipated the later metropolitan reinforcements and the maréchaussée system associated with van Heutsz that finally brought the Atjeh-oorlog to a close in the early twentieth century.
See Also
- G. F. W. Borel
- Indische Brigade (proposed)
- Onze vestiging in Atjeh (Borel, 1878)
- Aanvallende tactiek in Atjeh
- Afwachtende houding
- Mobiele colonnes (Borel)
- Militaire Willemsorde
- Generaal Pel
- Generaal Wiggers van Kerchem
- 1878
Source
Onze vestiging in Atjeh, critisch beschreven, by G. F. W. Borel, Kapitein der Artillerie. ‘s-Gravenhage: D. A. Thieme, 1878. pp. 336–337, 354–357, 360, 364, 366, 369.