The grass-fire attack on Lamprit (8 February 1876) was an attempt of the Atjehnese enemy to destroy the Dutch post at Lamprit, north of the Atjeh River, by setting fire to the dry alang-alang (tall grass, Imperata cylindrica) that surrounded it. The garrison saved the work only by cutting a fire-break through the blazing plain. The event was described by H. F. Meijer in Atjeh van 26 December 1875 tot 4 September 1876 (1883).
Fire as a weapon of the guerilla
The dry monsoon begins in Atjeh in December. In January and February the wet sawahs turn to hard clay masses and the alang-alang and tall grass become highly inflammable; in February and March the thermometer often rises to 96–100 degrees Fahrenheit, and from about ten in the morning a cold, sometimes violent east wind blows for hours — dangerous to men and murderous for works built of bamboo and atap (palm-leaf thatch). A few sparks thrown into the dry grass sufficed to turn a large surface of ground into a pool of fire within a short time. The enemy, Meijer wrote, knew the advantage of this weapon and used it from time to time against the Dutch works.
The attack
In the morning of 8 February 1876, at a temperature of 96 degrees Fahrenheit and with the wind against them, the Atjehers set fire to the alang-alang that surrounded the Dutch work at Lamprit on the north and east. The post commander — warned by the cry of brand! (fire!) of the watch — at once saw that the work itself, with its two-metre palisade, two bastions on the east face and belt of bamboo-thorn abatis, was storm-proof against any assault; the real danger was the fire. He left about ten men on the faces and bastions and divided the remaining forty into two parties: one collected every vat and pot inside the work, filled them with water and posted itself at the buildings most threatened; the other went out with sappers’ tools to cut off the fire.
The pioneers failed to reach the ditch on the far side of the work; they were driven back by the heavy smoke. In the last hour, however, they managed, at a short distance from the east face, to cut a strip of alang-alang three to four metres wide and to turn the soil over for a breadth of half to two metres. The fire came within twenty to thirty metres; the smoke became so unbearable that the pioneers had to lie flat on the ground for minutes at a time; but, encouraged by the example of their officers, all held to their posts. At last the fire reached the boundary they had laid out — and did not cross it. When the wind laid down, the danger was virtually over by four in the afternoon.
The night that followed
The enemy had no intention of letting the garrison rest. At seven in the evening he lit his watch-fires along the whole edge of kampong Pinang, later extended to near the northern face of the work. At nine he attempted to creep up on the rear face through the swamp at the end of the Kroeëng Titi Pandjang, in moonlight, but was stopped by the vigilance of a double post some hundred paces north of that face. The jumping of the limber of one of the guns of the work prevented the enemy from being sharply punished. At eleven he put out his watch-fires, but a rising night wind rekindled the still-smouldering sawah plain near the work, so that part of the garrison again had to turn out to extinguish it. Only in the morning of 9 February could the defenders be given their well-earned rest.
Assessment
Meijer presented the fire attack on Lamprit as proof that the enemy’s war was not limited to bullet and blade: arson, flood, hunger and sleeplessness were his instruments as well. The same combination of grass fire, alarm and attempted surprise in one twenty-four-hour period illustrated better than any general description what daily service in an Atjeh post meant in 1876.
See Also
- Lamprit
- Attack on Lemboeq N.O. (23-24 January 1876)
- Night attack on Lamprit (21-22 April 1876)
- 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 VI, pp. 107–110.