The Beruchtste hongertocht van Atjeh (1913) — the most notorious hunger-patrol of Aceh — was a K.N.I.L. patrouille sent towards Pameuë in 1913 that became lost in the deeply inland, “zeer moeilijk te bereiken” valley and perished in numbers, with the survivors found only after “vier weken was het eten reeds op” — four weeks without food — by a relief patrouille uitgerukt to find them. The hongertocht is one of the set-piece disasters of the late-colonial Aceh counter-insurgency, and the book’s clearest example of the lethality of the Acehnese rimboe even after the formal end of the Aceh War.
The valley of Pameuë
“Om een tocht te maken naar Pameuë en daar de toestand na te gaan. Het was een prachtige vallei, diep in het binnenland en zeer moeilijk te bereiken.” Schmidt was ordered to make a tocht to Pameuë to assess the toestand. The valley was “prachtige” — beautiful — but “diep in het binnenland en zeer moeilijk te bereiken” — deep in the interior and very difficult to reach. Schmidt’s experienced woudlopers came along the gevaarlijke rivier and “hadden eerst minder eten en dan drie dagen geen eten” — first reduced rations, then three days with no food at all. After arriving at Pameuë they found a bijzondere soort rijst, “extra lekker,” and ate too much of it.
The hongertocht itself
The hongertocht of 1913 — which Dames distinguishes from Schmidt’s earlier tocht to Pameuë — was a separate patrouille that became lost in the same valley. “In 1913 werd daarheen de beruchtste ‘hongertocht’ van Atjeh gehouden, een patrouille waarbij velen zijn omgekomen.” “Vier weken was het eten reeds op, toen de overlevenden werden gevonden door een patrouille, uitgerukt om hen op te sporen.” Others were jarenlang ziek afterwards — for years ill from the privations.
Significance
The beruchtste hongertocht is significant in Oom Ambon van het K.N.I.L. as the book’s clearest example of the lethality of the Acehnese rimboe even in peacetime. The Aceh War had formally ended with the handover of 1918 (though in the book’s argument it ended militarily with the colonne Schmidt of 1911), but the rimboe continued to kill soldiers. The hongertocht is therefore the book’s quiet counter-weight to its portraits of the decorated heroes of the Aceh War: the same rimboe that gave Nussy and Thijs de Fretes their skills also killed, by starvation, the soldiers who could not find their way out of it.
See Also
- Pameuë
- Schmidt
- Atjeh-oorlog
- Colonne Schmidt campaign against the Tiriō Teungkoes (1910-1911)
- Handover of Aceh to a civil Gouverneur (1918)
- Rimboe
- 1913
Source
Oom Ambon van het K.N.I.L., by G. W. T. Dames, Maj. Inf. K.N.I.L. b.d. (‘s-Gravenhage: Koninklijke Bibliotheek, 1954), chapter “De colonne Schmidt” and chapter “De patrouille.”