The Atoeh catastrophe (13 February 1876) was the destruction, on a drassige sawah (marshy rice paddy) south of Lamsajoeng, of a detachment of 47 armed and 13 unarmed men under Captain J. M. E. Van Swieten (the younger), marching from Kota Radja to reinforce the post at Atoë, which was attacked almost within sight of its destination by a body of about 300 Atjehers. It was one of the heaviest single blows of the Aceh War and is described both in Borel’s Onze vestiging in Atjeh (1878) and in H. F. Meijer’s Atjeh van 26 December 1875 tot 4 September 1876 (1883).
The march (Borel and Meijer)
Pel, having granted his troops only a couple of days’ rest at K. Radja after the conquest of the XXV Moekims, advanced on 13 February with three colonnes against the XXVI Moekims: the right colonne (13th battalion with part of the barisan and a section of artillery) under Major B. E. Mekern on the left bank, the middle under Major Jeltes on the right bank, the left under Major Diepenheim. Pango was conquered and a post established; Mekern’s column reached kampong Pagar-Ajer opposite Pango towards evening.
The same day Captain J. M. E. Van Swieten marched from Kota Radja with 2 officers, 47 armed and 13 unarmed men to reinforce Atoë. The armed party was largely made up of newcomers and convalescents returning to the left half of the 6th battalion, and Meijer stressed how little cohesion the small troop possessed.
The massacre
Unmolested the detachment passed the post of Mesigit Pagar Ajer; about 1,200 to 1,500 paces beyond it, on the open sawah between North-Atoë, Tjot Bēhēl and Kajoe Lē — some 1,600 to 2,000 paces south of Lamsajoeng — it was attacked by an enemy estimated at about 300 men gathered in the nipah bush opposite Lamsajoeng. As the captain apparently thought Atoë was close, he quickened the march and tried to keep the enemy off by volleys while pressing on. The cohesion of the troop was lost; First Lieutenant J. Bosman repeatedly had to call after his captain “not so hard at the front of the march.” Then the enemy closed with the naked weapon: the klewang attack took place on the sawah plain between Atoë and Tjot Bēhēl, and panic finished the rout. Only some thirteen men, with First Lieutenant Bosman, reached the post at Atoë by flight.
The inquiry (Meijer’s account)
Meijer printed the essentials of Major Mekern’s report, based on the terrain inquiry and on the information obtained from Lieutenant Bosman. The detachment had been sighted and hotly fired upon soon after leaving Mesigit Pagar-Ajer; the captain, probably wishing to keep out of action because of the weakness of his detachment, had pushed on too fast; the cohesion of the troop was lost; and the enemy, gathering in force, found no difficulty in cutting up a troop thus pulled apart. Repeatedly the march had made right-about-face to give volleys. The klewang attack, according to Meijer’s correction of the first reports, took place more than 2,000 paces south (not west) of Lamsajoeng, in the middle of the sawah; afterwards the troop fled in panic, and the bodies of the slain were found scattered along the whole road back — some as late as days afterwards near Lambaroe. Bosman’s state of mind was so shaken by the event that no value could be attached to his answers, and before a second interrogation could take place he died of cholera during the following night. The survivors knew only that they had been continually fired upon and had fled at the klewang attack.
On hearing the news, Major Mekern changed route, marched on Atoch, zuiverde (cleared) the terrain and recovered the bodies of van Swieten’s detachment, which were preserved from desecration and buried with due honour.
Consequences and dispositions
The disaster — showing that the enemy stood in great force on the borders of the XXV and XXII Moekims, ready to cut the Dutch communications — at once changed Pel’s dispositions. On 14 February Major Mekern was ordered to march his whole column along Mesigit Pagar-Ajer to Atoë, to clear the area, and to take a stand on the northeast edge of kampong Kajoe Lē, keeping the road safe by strong patrols; at Kajoe-Lē and at Lambaroe fortifications were to be built at once, each garrisoned by a company of the right half of the 6th battalion. This began the closer holding of the south-east line, the later composition of the Zuidoosterlinie. The following weeks, however, cost the line the lives of Captain Van der Pauwert (killed at patrol on 15 February), Second Lieutenant L. H. Kooy (wounded 18 February) and Captain Jhr. Witewaall van Stoetwege (mortally wounded 27 February), and saw the ambush of 4 March and the cutting of the road between Kajoe-Lē and Kota Radja, answered by the storming of Lambaroe.
Borel asks how a fairly strong, breechloader-armed detachment could be surprised on open terrain in broad daylight: his answer recalls the disaster of 31 December 1874 — a march over a soaked sawah, where all order is lost, exposes troops to exactly such a charge, the enemy rushing in “like a wild, unexpected cavalry charge.” Meijer’s judgment was colder: the detachment marched carelessly, the men one behind another on the dikes of the sawah with more than necessary intervals. “To that the whole disaster is to be ascribed.”
See Also
- Jan van Swieten (Kapitein)
- J. Bosman
- Atoeh
- Lamsajoen
- Pango
- Majoor B. E. Mekern
- Majoor Jeltes
- Majoor Diepenheim
- Ambush of the Buijs detachment (4 March 1876)
- Storming of Lambaroe (7 March 1876)
- Sawah
- Klewang
- Zuidoosterlinie
- Pel’s offensive against the VI, IV and IX Moekims (1875-1876)
- 1876
Sources
Onze vestiging in Atjeh, critisch beschreven, by G. F. W. Borel, Kapitein der Artillerie (‘s-Gravenhage: D. A. Thieme, 1878), pp. 317–318; and Atjeh van 26 December 1875 tot 4 September 1876, door H. F. Meijer, Kolonel van den Generalen Staf (Breda: P. B. Nieuwenhuijs, Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen, 1883), chapter VI, pp. 112–116.