The Acehnese Attack on Penajoeng Bivouak (13 January 1874) was the daylight raid carried out by a “bende woestelingen” (band of wild men) on the Dutch bivouak of Penajoeng on the afternoon of 13 January 1874, in which a body of Atjehneezen, armed only with the blanke klewang and “met de bloote klewang in de vuist,” burst in from the north side near the veekraal, threw the nearest veldwacht overhoop, overran the ambulances, and pushed so deep into the legerplaats that they reached “zelfs tot dicht bij de tent van den opperbevelhebber” — the very tent of generaal van Swieten himself — before they were stopped by troops rushing from all sides and “voor het grootste gedeelte nedergeschoten.” The raid exposed the inexcusable weakness with which the second expedition had laid out its forward camp.
The Bivouak
Since the landing of 6 December 1873 the main Dutch bivouak had occupied the right bank of the Atjeh-rivier at Penajoeng, a bare 1200 passen from the great fortified Mesigit that guarded the northern face of the Kraton. The camp had been thrown up against the boschrand without the proper kappen-en-branden clearance that military prudence required; the costly reconnaissances at Lemboe of 25–26 December 1873 had driven the Atjehneezen out of the open sawahs but had not cleared the palm groves and bamboo clumps that fringed the camp. On 6 January 1874 the frontal storm of the Mesigit had cost the Dutch 220 dood en gekwetsten; the survivors, bivouacked within easy carbine range of an alert enemy, were understandably tense. A week later they would be tested.
The Raid
At two o’clock in the afternoon of 13 January 1874 — klaarlichten dag, in full daylight — a body of Atjehneezen burst from the boschrand on the north side of the camp, near the veekraal. They came “met de bloote klewang in de vuist,” the naked sword in the fist, with no firearms to slow them. The nearest veldwacht was thrown overhoop before it could fire a volley. Pushing on past the ambulances, the attackers reached the very heart of the legerplaats — the tent of the opperbevelhebber himself. Only the rush of Dutch troops from every side brought the penetration to a halt. The attackers, Borel writes, were “voor het grootste gedeelte nedergeschoten” — for the most part shot down — where they stood.
Borel’s Critique
The butcher’s bill was modest by the standards of the Mesigit — one officer killed, with “eenige dooden en gekwetsten” among the rank and file — but the moral effect was severe. The lesson Borel draws is institutional: a bivouak pitched against an uncleared boschrand, with its veldwachten placed within a few rod of the trees, is not a bivouak but a death-trap. The fault lay with the general staff that had laid out the camp in December 1873 and then neglected to clear the ground in the weeks of stalemate that followed. The same pattern would, in coming weeks, recur in the massed daylight attack of 11 April 1874, when a body of four or five hundred Atjehneezen, reinforced by Pedir hulptroepen, would again approach the omheining — only to be stopped this time by the Dutch artillerie. Borel treats the raid as the first clear warning that the afwachtende houding was already, before the Kraton had even fallen, surrendering the initiative to the enemy.
See Also
- Second Aceh Expedition (1873–1874)
- Penajoeng
- Storming of the Mesigit (6 January 1874)
- Acehnese attack on Penajoeng (11 April 1874)
- Klewang
- Jan van Swieten
- Afwachtende houding
- 1874
Source
Onze vestiging in Atjeh, critisch beschreven, by G. F. W. Borel, Kapitein der Artillerie. ‘s-Gravenhage: D. A. Thieme, 1878. pp. 31, 37.