The Handover of Aceh to a civil Gouverneur (1918) was the formal transfer of the gewest (province) of Aceh from military to civilian administration by Generaal Swart in 1918, marking the end of what Dames calls “de slepende ziekte: de Atjeh-oorlog” — the lingering disease of the Aceh War — forty-five years after the Eerste Atjeh-expeditie of 1873 and seven years after the colonne Schmidt had destroyed the last organised Acehnese armed resistance. The handover is the political closure of the Aceh War in Oom Ambon van het K.N.I.L..
The precondition: the colonne Schmidt
“Daardoor kon Generaal Swart in 1918 eindelijk een rustig gebied overdragen aan een civiel Gouverneur.” The daardoor — thereby — refers to the cumulative effect of the colonne Schmidt (1910-1911), the killing of the last Tiriō leaders, and the steady pressure of the patrouilles. With the last organised armed resistance destroyed, the country was rustig — quiet — enough to be handed over to a civilian Gouverneur.
The end of the slepende ziekte
“Er was een eind aan de slepende ziekte: de Atjeh-oorlog.” The phrase slepende ziekte — lingering disease — is the book’s quiet judgement on the forty-five-year war. The Aceh War had begun with the Eerste Atjeh-expeditie of 1873; it had been pronounced over several times before; it had been the subject of political controversy in the Netherlands; it had made the reputation of Van Heutsz. By 1918 it was, finally, over — not by victory in a single battle, but by the cumulative attrition of the colonnes and the patrouilles, and by the political closure represented by the surrender of Panglima Prang Polim to kapitein Colijn.
Significance
The handover is significant in Oom Ambon van het K.N.I.L. as the political closure of the Aceh War. It is the moment at which the colonial army’s forty-five-year war in Aceh was, formally, ended. The book’s quiet point is that the handover was the consequence not of a single decisive battle but of the patient, methodical work of the colonnes — the colonne Schmidt above all — and of the political closure represented by the surrender of the Sultan’s former army commander. The handover is therefore the book’s argument for the colonne method: the slow, expensive, morally taxing method that actually finished the war, as against the demarcatielijnen and the schiettent method that, in the book’s account, had failed.
Account from Vijftig jaren economische staatkunde in Atjeh (1923)
The separation of civil and military authority in Atjeh — the definitive split accomplished in September 1918, when A. G. H. van Sluys took office on 27 September as the first civilian governor — crowned the gradual process begun by Governor Swart in 1911 and redeemed, in author Joh. Langhout’s phrase, the premature civil experiment of 1881–1884: “Thans in 1918 zou ‘de kroon’ beter op ‘t werk passen” (“now in 1918 ‘the crown’ would better fit the work”).
The gradual preparation
The long road ran from the uniting of both powers in one hand (September 1884) through the period of civil- and military governors — Demmeni, Van Teijn, Pompe van Meerdervoort, Deykerhoff, Van Heutsz, Van der Wyck, Van Daalen and Swart. In connection with the ever more favourably changing political state, General Swart had worked since 1911 at a gradual separation of the civil and military authority: wherever possible, the functions of department- and sub-department-chiefs were entrusted more and more to civilian administrative officials; several bivouacs and posts were abolished and garrisons withdrawn in the years 1908–1918, and in 1915 the civil and military governor could already make the proposal of returning the 3rd field-battalion to Java (for want of lodgings there, only two companies could leave).
The definitive split of 1918
“In September 1918 is dan eindelijk de definitieve scheiding tusschen burgerlijk en militair gezag tot stand gekomen” — “In September 1918 the definitive separation between civil and military authority was finally accomplished.” “Toen eerst was het psychologisch moment, dat men reeds in het begin van de tachtig jaren meende te hebben bereikt, aangebroken” — only then had the psychological moment arrived, which one had thought to have reached already in the beginning of the eighties (see Introduction of civil government in Atjeh (1881)). Now, in 1918, the crown would better fit the work; now the walls of the building would prove more firmly joined than in 1882. The first civilian governor, the heer A. G. H. van Sluys, took office on 27 September 1918 and — remaining in charge as the book appeared — declared in his accession speech that what the Atjehnese population needed first of all was rest, and that the military “must always remain means, never become goal” (see A. G. H. van Sluys).
Reception
It had repeatedly been thought that the separation must lead to clashes between the civil and military authorities, since it brought with it a ceding of powers by the one and an accepting of a greater responsibility by the other. Van Sluys, questioned at the end of 1921 by the Bataviaasch Nieuwsblad on the supposed “animosity”, answered: “Dat is allemaal onzin!” — it was only human and intelligible that here and there a difference of opinion arose upon the redistribution of competences, but it had never come to expression; and he enumerated examples proving that cooperation between the civil and military authorities in Atjeh indeed existed (see A. G. H. van Sluys).
See Also
- Generaal Swart
- Colonne Schmidt campaign against the Tiriō Teungkoes (1910-1911)
- Panglima Prang Polim
- Kapitein Colijn
- Atjeh-oorlog
- Eerste Atjeh-expeditie (1873)
- Gouverneur-Generaal Van Heutsz
- 1918
- A. G. H. van Sluys
- Introduction of civil government in Atjeh (1881)
- Government of Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden
Source
Oom Ambon van het K.N.I.L., by G. W. T. Dames, Maj. Inf. K.N.I.L. b.d. (‘s-Gravenhage: Koninklijke Bibliotheek, 1954), chapter “De colonne Schmidt.”
Vijftig jaren economische staatkunde in Atjeh, by Joh. Langhout (The Hague: N.V. Boekhandel v/h W. P. van Stockum & Zoon, 1923), pp. 113–116.