Colijn’s march from Medan to Sigli was the celebrated march of a hundred and sixty days, made by Hendrikus Colijn — the later minister and, in 1913, ex-Minister of War — from Medan on the East Coast of Sumatra over the high mountains and the primeval forest to Sigli on the north coast of Atjeh, midden door het toen nog vijandelijk land (right through the then still hostile country). The account given by Moens in the Reisindrukken van Atjeh — where it was brought up at the table of majoor Veldman at Sigli in November 1913 — does not date the march; it belongs to the years of the Atjeh-oorlog preceding the definitive pacificatie.
The hardships of the march
The tradition preserved at Sigli pictured the march as one of the utmost exertion. The koelies (coolies) who carried the provisions fled, so that the sick and severely wounded of the column had themselves to be carried by the troops; the soldiers subsisted at one point with the greatest difficulty and passed, it was said, forty-four hours between one meal and the next; trees were at night the only roof. When the story was called to mind at Veldman’s dinner, the company — which counted three bearers of the higher classes of the Militaire Willemsorde and an eresabel (sword of honour) — regarded it as one of the great memories of the war.
Significance
Colijn’s march from Medan to Sigli is significant in the colonial memory of the Atjeh war as the type of the long-distance penetration march by which the Dutch columns demonstrated that no part of the country was closed to them: a hundred and sixty days through mountain and virgin forest in enemy country. It is not to be confused with the famine march known at court circles as the beruchtste hongertocht van Atjeh of 1913; the march remembered at Sigli was recounted to Moens and his companions as belonging to the war-time career of the ex-Minister whom the chiefs of Samalanga now greeted as toewan Colijn, the eerste raadsman van de Koningin, speciaal voor oorlogszaken — the first counsellor of the Queen, specially for matters of war.
See Also
- Hendrikus Colijn
- Sigli
- Th. J. Veltman
- Beruchtste hongertocht van Atjeh (1913)
- Militaire Willemsorde
- Aceh War
- Moens’ journey through Atjeh (November 1913)
Source
Reisindrukken van Atjeh, door W. Moens, oud-luitenant ter zee (Amsterdam: Jacob van Campen, 1914), p. 31. OCR-filename: 20260716_140310_DLP-99-Reisindrukken_van_Atjeh_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt.