Capture of Lemboe was a tactical military engagement fought in early 1874 during the Second Aceh Expedition, in which columns of the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army under General J. van Swieten captured the fortified Acehnese redoubt of Lemboe near the Baiturrahman Grand Mosque.
Narrative of the Assault
As Dutch forces advanced from coastal beachhead toward Kraton of Aceh, Acehnese defenders concentrated their forces at the fortification of Lemboe, which commanded the western approaches to the mosque and royal palace.
In January 1874, General J. van Swieten deployed infantry battalions supported by field artillery to assault the position.
In his 1876 defense of Van Swieten’s generalship, the anonymous author of Atjeh gedurende de tweede expeditie en later emphasized that when Dutch troops stormed Lemboe and the Mesigiet, they discovered that the fortifications would not have been found in a defensive state had the army arrived even a few days earlier, validating Van Swieten’s deliberate operational timing.
See Also
Source
Atjeh gedurende de tweede expeditie en later, Een Oud Officier, Batavia: Ogilvie & Co., 1876, pp. 19-23.