The Tactische aanbevelingen en wenken (“Tactical recommendations and pointers for the second campaign against Atjeh”) was the booklet printed and distributed by the Departement van Oorlog in Indië to the officers of the second Dutch expedition against Atjeh in 1873. Borel cites the booklet as the source of the gulden regel — the golden rule — that “Slechts eene krachtige vervolging kan de overwinning vruchtbaar maken” (only a vigorous pursuit can make victory fruitful), and as the authoritative statement of the principle whose neglect by generaal van Swieten after the fall of the Kraton on 24 January 1874 is the central indictment of Onze vestiging in Atjeh.
Contents and the Gulden Regel
The Tactische aanbevelingen en wenken was, in Borel’s account, an attempt by the Departement van Oorlog to distil the lessons of the failed first expedition under generaal Köhler and of earlier Indische campaigns into a set of practical recommendations for the officers of the second. Its central maxim — quoted by Borel as the gulden regel — was that “Het einddoel, dat is eene beslissende zege, ligt slechts in een energiek aangrijpen en volhouden, na goede voorbereiding” (The final goal, that is a decisive victory, lies only in an energetic grasping and persevering, after good preparation). The booklet also prescribed that “In onze Indische veldtochten wordt somtijds niet genoeg partij getrokken van behaalde voordeelen” (in our Indian campaigns the advantages gained are sometimes not sufficiently exploited), and that victories must be pursued with force if they are to yield lasting results. The maxim was, Borel judged, unimpeachable — and its non-application by van Swieten, who after 15 February 1874 “stak het zwaard voor goed in de scheede” and applied the afwachtende houding (wait-and-see posture), is the original sin of the second expedition.
Distribution and Reception
The booklet was distributed to the officers of the second expedition before their departure from Java in November 1873. The audience included generaal van Swieten himself, his tweede bevelhebber generaal Verspijck, the brigade commander kolonel Pel, and the battalion and company officers who would lead the assaults on the Mesigit and the Kraton. The reception of the booklet is not recorded in detail in Borel’s account, but its maxims were clearly available to be cited by Borel against the very commanders to whom they had been addressed. The booklet’s authority — as a Department of War document — was precisely the kind that Borel invokes to demolish the claim that the afwachtende houding was a defensible strategic choice: van Swieten had been officially instructed in the necessity of energetic pursuit, and had disregarded the instruction. The Tactische aanbevelingen en wenken thus functions in Borel’s argument as documentary proof of the gap between Dutch military theory and Dutch military practice in Atjeh.
The Foreign Analogues
The principle of energetic pursuit that the Tactische aanbevelingen en wenken prescribed was, Borel notes, the lesson of the European campaigns of the mid-nineteenth century — most famously the German pursuit after Sédan in 1870, which Borel cites repeatedly as the model of what should have been done after the fall of the Kraton. The booklet’s maxim is, in effect, the Indische equivalent of the European strategic common sense of the age: that a defeated enemy must be pursued and broken before he can reorganise. Borel’s complaint is that van Swieten — having the maxim in his hands, having the hoofdmacht at his disposal, and having the Atjehnese hoofdmacht in full retreat from the Kraton — chose instead to recall the vesting-artillerie and the achterlaadkanonnen to Java, to send back the Javaansche hulptroepen of Mangkoe Negoro and Pakoe Alam, to permit padi-snijden on the Langkroek sawah, and to declare in his afscheidsrede of 23 April 1874 that “Ik beschouw den oorlog met Atjeh als geëindigd.” The Tactische aanbevelingen en wenken thus stands in Borel’s account as the documentary measure of the gap between what the Dutch knew they ought to do and what they did.
See Also
- Second Aceh Expedition (1873–1874)
- First Aceh Expedition (April 1873)
- Jan van Swieten
- Generaal Verspijck
- Generaal Pel
- Van Swieten’s afscheidsrede (1874)
- Fall of the Kraton (24 January 1874)
- Afwachtende houding
- Aanvallende tactiek in Atjeh
- 1873
- 1874
Source
Onze vestiging in Atjeh, critisch beschreven, by G. F. W. Borel, Kapitein der Artillerie. ‘s-Gravenhage: D. A. Thieme, 1878. pp. 12, 48, 54, 364.