The first harbor closure of 1878 — the eerste sluiting der havens (first closure of the harbours) ordered by Generaal van der Heijden in 1878 upon the resumption of the krijgsoperatiën in de XXII Moekims (military operations in the XXII Moekims) — was the closure of all havens of Atjeh and the Onderhoorigheden (Dependencies), with the exception of Olehleh and Edi, for the invoerhandel (import trade). The closure was, in Van Heutsz’s 1893 tract De onderwerping van Atjeh, the first of Van der Heijden’s two unilateral haven-sluitingen (harbour-closures) — the structural precedent for the second harbor closure of 5 July 1879 that would, in Van Heutsz’s reading, prove the General’s karakter (character) — and the first Dutch attempt to apply, on the General’s own authority, the afsluiting (closure) of the Atjeh coast that Generaal Pel had prescribed in his letter of 30 April 1875. The closure was disallowed by the Governor-General as an eigenmachtig (on-one’s-own-authority) measure — a measure taken on the General’s own authority — and revoked by G.-G. van Lansberge’s letter of 7 February 1879, which cited the case of Generaal van Raders of Suriname as a precedent for the consequences the Governor-General feared.
The 1878 closure decision
The closure was ordered by Van der Heijden “Reeds in 1878, na hervatting van de krijgsoperatiën in de XXII Moekims” — already in 1878, after the resumption of military operations in the XXII Moekims. The XXII Moekims campaign had opened in July 1878 in response to the June 1878 incursion of Habib Abdoel Rachman into the Dutch-occupied area — the bekende inval (well-known incursion) that had triggered the op Groot-Atjeh geheel veranderen van stelsel (the complete change of system on Groot-Atjeh). The closure was, in Van Heutsz’s narrative, the General’s own operational decision to close the havens of Atjeh and the Onderhoorigheden — with the exception of Olehleh on the Noordkust and Edi on the Oostkust — for the import trade, in order to seal the interior off from external supply:
“Reeds in 1878, na hervatting van de krijgsoperatiën in de XXII Moekims, liet hij daarom alle havens van Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden, met uitzondering van Olehleh en Edi, voor den invoerhandel sluiten”.
The closure was, in operational terms, the General’s attempt to translate the strategic logic of Pel’s plan of 30 April 1875 — the afsluiting van Groot-Atjeh van de zee (closure of Groot-Atjeh from the sea) through the occupation of the five kwala’s (river-mouths) — into a temporary wartime measure: rather than occupying the kwala’s, Van der Heijden closed the havens; rather than building posts along the entire coast, he imposed a sluiting (closure) that would starve the resistance of its external supply.
The Governor-General’s disapproval
The closure was disallowed by the Governor-General as an eigenmachtig genomen willekeurig maatregel (an arbitrary measure taken on his own authority) — an arbitrary measure taken on the General’s own authority. Van Heutsz’s account:
“doch de Gouverneur-Generaal wilde dezen, eigenmachtig genomen willekeurig maatregel niet goedkeuren, gelastte daarom bij brief van 7 Februari 1879 dien maatregel onverwijld in te trekken”.
The Gouverneur-Generaal’s (Governor-General’s) letter of 7 February 1879 ordered the General to “ongeverwijld” — without delay — withdraw the measure. The grounds for the disapproval were constitutional: the closure had been ordered by the General on his own authority — eigenmachtig — without prior authorisation from the Governor-General or the Regeering (Government) at Batavia. The closure thus raised, in the Gouverneur-Generaal’s reading, the question of the boundary between the Governor’s operational authority and the Regeering’s strategic authority — the same question that would recur in the second harbor closure of 5 July 1879, when Van der Heijden would close the havens again, on his eigen persoonlijke verantwoordelijkheid (own personal responsibility) — his own personal responsibility.
The Van Raders of Suriname precedent
To reinforce the disapproval — and to make the consequences of eigenmachtig action explicit — the Gouverneur-Generaal cited the case of Generaal van Raders, formerly Governor of Suriname, whose willekeurige daad (arbitrary act) against an Austrian ship had led to his deposition. Van Heutsz reproduces the Gouverneur-Generaal’s warning:
“Eene willekeurige daad van Generaal van Raders, Gouverneur van Suriname, tegenover een Oostenrijksch schip, gaf aanleiding tot eene aanklacht der Oostenrijksche Regeering, die de afzetting van Generaal Raders tengevolge had. Ik vrees zeer, dat de tegenwoordige Regeering denzelfden weg zou opgaan”.
The Van Raders precedent (precedent) — the deposition of a Dutch colonial governor for an eigenmachtig act against a foreign ship — was, in the Gouverneur-Generaal’s reading, the warning the General should heed: the closure of the havens, by interfering with the trade of foreign ships, exposed the colony to the same diplomatic consequences that had undone Van Raders. The Gouverneur-Generaal’s fear — “Ik vrees zeer, dat de tegenwoordige Regeering denzelfden weg zou opgaan” — was the fear that the sitting colonial government would, like the government that had deposed Van Raders, depose Van der Heijden for the same kind of eigenmachtig act. The reference to Suriname — a Dutch colony in the Caribbean — placed the Atjeh case within a wider colonial-constitutional frame: the eigenmachtig closure of harbours was, in the Gouverneur-Generaal’s reading, an act that crossed the boundary between operational military authority and the colony’s international obligations.
Significance
The first harbor closure of 1878 is, in Van Heutsz’s narrative, the structural precedent for the second harbor closure of 5 July 1879 and the first Dutch attempt to apply, on the General’s own authority, the afsluiting (closure) of the Atjeh coast that Pel’s plan of 30 April 1875 had prescribed. Its significance in the Aceh Wiki History record lies in three things. First, it was the operational complement of the XXII Moekims campaign — the General’s attempt to translate the afsluiting van Groot-Atjeh van de zee that Pel had prescribed through occupation into a temporary wartime sluiting imposed through the closure of the havens. Second, it was the first Dutch attempt to apply, on the General’s own authority, the blokkade (blockade) that would become the structural instrument of the Atjeh-oorlog for the next decade — and the disallowance of which, by the Gouverneur-Generaal, was the first Dutch refusal of the afsluiting that Van Heutsz would, in the 1893 tract, prescribe as the colony’s central strategic instrument. Third, it was the occasion for the Gouverneur-Generaal’s invocation of the Van Raders of Suriname precedent — the warning that the eigenmachtig closure of harbours, by interfering with the trade of foreign ships, exposed the colony to the same diplomatic consequences that had undone Van Raders — which Van der Heijden would, in the second harbor closure of 5 July 1879, override by closing the havens on his eigen persoonlijke verantwoordelijkheid. The closure’s disallowance is, in Van Heutsz’s narrative, the moment at which the colony first refused the afsluiting that the General’s krachtige individualiteit (forceful individuality) would have imposed — and the moment at which the Gouverneur-Generaal’s verzoeningspolitiek (politics of conciliation) of March 1877 reasserted itself against the General’s operational logic.
See Also
- Van der Heijden
- Van Lansberge
- XXII Moekims campaign (1878)
- Second harbor closure (5 Juli 1879)
- Blokkade
- Scheepvaartregeling
- Olehleh
- Edi
- Van Raders
- Pel’s Plan (30 April 1875)
- Habib Abdoel Rachman
- Groot-Atjeh
- Onderhoorigheden
- De onderwerping van Atjeh (Van Heutsz, 1893)
- 1878
- 1879
Source
De onderwerping van Atjeh, door J. B. van Heutsz, Majoor der Infanterie, gewezen Chef van den Staf in Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden. ‘s-Gravenhage: De Gebroeders van Cleef; Batavia: G. Kolff en Co., 1893, esp. pp. 21, 25. OCR-filename: 20260718_105749_DLP-107-De_onderwerping_van_Atjeh_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt.