The Gli Taroem night ambush (8–9 August 1876) was a Dutch night operation in the mountain pass of Gli Taroem, between the IV and IX Moekims, in which a 120-man force under First Lieutenant H. Krüll — guided by the young First Lieutenant-adjutant J. B. Van Heutsz, who commanded the forward party — lay in ambush to cut the enemy’s night transports of rice through the pass. It ended in a tragic friendly-fire incident and the abandonment of the ambush. It was described by H. F. Meijer in Atjeh van 26 December 1875 tot 4 September 1876 (1883).
The plan
Reports from spies and a captured Atjeher had established that the enemy of the XXII Moekims bought up large quantities of rice in the IV and VI Moekims and carried it at night through the pass of Gli Taroem and other mountain passes towards the hungry districts of the XXII Moekims — where rice scarcity was severe. On 8 August word came that an important enemy transport would most probably pass that very night; the state of the moon would favour the enemy’s march. Lieutenant-Colonel of Infantry Haus, commander of the western line, saw that a good chance of surprising an enemy convoy should not be missed, and detailed a detachment of 3 officers and 120 non-commissioned officers and men drawn from the garrisons of Djempit, Ketapan Doewa and Boekit Daroe — his written intention being that the posts should each send an officer and 40 bayonets to unite at the ravine, with Van Heutsz receiving all orders.
The Gli Taroem pass
The pass, Meijer explained, had earlier often wrongly been called a ravine (kloof): it was a mountain path forming the regular communication between the IX and IV Moekims. The saddle, room 100 metres long, lies about 95 metres above sea level. On the eastern side the path begins just west of Boekit Terin — where the Dutch kept their watch post — very steep, washed out of the stony mountain and strongly uneven; from the saddle it descends more gently westward into the IV Moekims. The slopes carry light undergrowth; the saddle goes through tall grass between shrubs.
The laying of the ambush
Captain Marckert, post commander at Boekit Daroe, did not judge himself justified in leaving his post by night — the garrison having fallen to 1 officer and 40 bayonets — and entrusted the force to the eldest of the officers, First Lieutenant H. Krüll. The party left Boekit Daroe at dark: Van Heutsz with the advance guard — 2 officers in all and 40 European and African non-commissioned officers and men — Krüll following with 80 musket-bearers and one other officer (Lieutenant Tulleken), guided by an African fusilier of Boekit Daroe. At the start of the mountain path the advance guard met 3 Atjehers coming down with rice; they were shot down. Then the steep path was climbed with the greatest care, so slowly that Krüll, finding no position on the eastern slope, decided to take position on the saddle itself.
The arrangement, aimed at a convoy expected from the west, was: Van Heutsz with the advance guard, slightly north of the path in the undergrowth, in two ranks facing southeast, with orders to let enemies coming from the IV Moekims pass in silence and to fire only at the blast of a tirailleur-whistle by Krüll; Krüll with the rest, 120 metres farther east, also in two ranks north of the path facing southwest — a cross-fire into which the enemy convoy would walk. For protection from the east, 1 corporal and 6 fusiliers, all Europeans, were posted on the path itself facing east; Krüll and Tulleken posted themselves before their men, to keep the badly trained native soldiers from firing before the word.
The friendly-fire tragedy
For a long time all lay quiet in the deep darkness; then life was heard in the east. Krüll made his men aware of it by signs; the detached corporal and his 6 Europeans were on the alert. Suddenly, at the detached post, a wild yell: 4 or 5 Atjehers, laden with tobacco and sirih (betel), wanting to descend into the IV Moekims, walked into the post, which fired at once; the Atjehers plunged into the ravine south of the path.
Unluckily, at that firing the native fusiliers posted behind lieutenants Krüll and Tulleken faced to the right-about and began — before the officers could stop them — to fire wildly in the direction of the 7 European soldiers of the detached post, whose position they had forgotten. The signal “cease firing” was useless; at last the two officers were obliged, stooping, to place themselves bodily in front of the new front of the firing native soldiers, and only thus at last stopped the fire. When Krüll came to the seven Europeans to see what had happened: one fusilier lay dead, the corporal and another fusilier were wounded — as later proved, by the fire of their own native comrades.
The withdrawal
By this regrettable end the whole enterprise was as good as lost: the alarm and firing would have warned all enemy parties on the move, and the ambush had to be abandoned. Krüll gathered his men, had the dead fusilier buried, and withdrew to Boekit Daroe, reached at half past four in the morning; on the way back the advance guard shot one more Atjeher. With this event, Meijer wrote, the chapter closes and the history of this war enters another period, when on 4 September 1876 a part of the troops marched into the XXVI Moekims to complete Pel’s plan.
The cause
Meijer put the principal cause of the failure at the bad quality of the soldiers — particularly of the native soldiers, who for the greater part belonged to the 1st Garrison Battalion of Atjeh then being raised, composed chiefly of just-drilled recruits who had never seen the enemy. Turned nervous, they had fired on their own comrades. One of them had thrown away his rifle and hidden in the undergrowth; found by Krüll before the return march and rebuked, he gave the characteristic answer: “Pigi mana toewan, djangan marah, saja lagi orang baroe” — “What shall I say to you, sir, don’t be angry, I am still but a recruit (orang baroe, a greenhorn).”
Significance
The event is notable in the history of Van Heutsz, the later conqueror of Atjeh, as one of his first field appearances in the war: the orders of the western line expressly gave the 25-year-old lieutenant-adjutant the accompanying role in the operation. And Meijer’s conclusion in this chapter — characteristically broad — was that the guerilla had, in the short space described, brought very heavy blows to the Dutch troops, against very great advantages won by those troops in their own offensive operations; and that careless or unconcentrated troops on Atjehnese ground were, particularly by night and particularly in broken terrain, always in danger of such reverses.
See Also
- Joannes Benedictus van Heutsz
- H. Krüll
- Tulleken
- Marckert
- Glitaroem
- Boekit Terin
- Boekit Daroe
- Guerilla warfare in Groot-Atjeh
- Atjeh van 26 December 1875 tot 4 September 1876
Source
Atjeh van 26 December 1875 tot 4 September 1876, door H. F. Meijer (Breda: P. B. Nieuwenhuijs, 1883), chapter VII, pp. 252–259; sketches no. 8 (situation of the Gli Taroem pass and battlefield in the night of 8–9 August 1876).