The Bombardment of the Kraton (January 1874) was the sustained artillery fire maintained by the second Aceh expedition against the Kraton of Atjeh for nineteen days — from the fall of the Mesigit on 6 January 1874 to the omtrekkende beweging of 24 January — during which a kanonbatterij built into the eastern face of the Mesigit, supported by mortieren of 20 c.M., battered the earthen walls of the Kraton “met meer of minder kracht,” and which Borel credits, alone among the arms of the expedition, with actually driving the Atjehneezen out of the works. Yet the same bombardment, he insists, was mismanaged in its planning, miscalculated in its munitie, and — most damning of all — its authors, the vesting-artillerie, were “met geen wapen op meer stiefmoederlijke wijze bedeeld” when the decorations were distributed.
The Batteries
Once the Mesigit had been carried on 6 January 1874, the engineers and the artillerie set to work. A kanonbatterij was built into the eastern face of the captured voorwerk, with embrasures opened through the borstwering toward the Kraton. Heavy mortieren of 20 c.M. — large enough to throw their schrapnel and granaten over the walls into the interior — were brought up by hand from the beach at Penajoeng and emplaced behind the Mesigit. From these batteries a continuous fire was maintained against the Kraton for the next nineteen days, varying in intensity with the munitie supply, the weather, and the perceived effect on the enemy. Half of the 12 c.M. puntgranaten fired by the voorlaad-kanonnen failed to explode — a defect Borel, an artilleryman himself, treats as scandalous — and the better achterlaadkanonnen of 12 c.M. were used sparingly, for fear of expending their harder-to-replace munitie.
The Misjudgement
The Dutch had over-estimated the construction of the Kraton. They had believed the walls to be of thick stone, against which only sustained, deliberate fire could prevail. In fact, as Borel would discover on entering the works on 24 January 1874, the borstwering was an aarden wall — a mere earthen rampart — hidden under a thick crust of bamboe-doeri. Against such a target the lichte veldgeschut, had it been properly served, could have made short work; the elaborate mortar bombardment was, in retrospect, largely wasted. The munitie calculations, Borel adds, had not foreseen a sustained fire of nineteen days, and the batteries were repeatedly forced to slacken their rate for want of shells.
Outcome
Despite these mismanagements, Borel’s verdict is clear: it was the artillerie — and the artillerie alone — that drove the Atjehneezen out of the Kraton. The infantry assaults of 6 January had failed at a cost of 220 dood en gekwetsten; the easy capture of Kota Goenoengan on 12 January had been ignored; the omtrekkende beweging of 23–24 January 1874 would find the works already deserted, “op een grijsaard en een zieken Atjehnees na.” It was the nineteen days of mortar fire, landing schrapnel and granaten among the dwellings and the mosques of the interior, that broke the enemy’s grip. Yet when the belooningen were distributed, the vesting-artillerie — the very arm that had carried the Kraton — was treated, Borel writes, “met geen wapen op meer stiefmoederlijke wijze” — with no arm more step-motherly. Within weeks van Swieten would ship the vesting-artillerie and the achterlaadkanonnen back to Java, depriving the bezettingskorps of the very geschut that had just proved its worth.
See Also
- Second Aceh Expedition (1873–1874)
- Kraton of Atjeh
- Storming of the Mesigit (6 January 1874)
- Capture of Kota Goenoengan (12 January 1874)
- Fall of the Kraton (24 January 1874)
- Vesting-artillerie in Atjeh
- Achterlaadkanonnen van 12 c.M.
- Voorlaadkanonnen in Atjeh
- Bamboe-doeri versperringen
- Jan van Swieten
- 1874
Source
Onze vestiging in Atjeh, critisch beschreven, by G. F. W. Borel, Kapitein der Artillerie. ‘s-Gravenhage: D. A. Thieme, 1878. pp. 24–29, 118.