The Koewala Pantjoer patrol ambush (7 April 1876) was the surprise attack of a band of klewang-armed Atjehers, near the kampong Lambaroe in the VI Moekims, on a Dutch patrol of 14 armed and unarmed men returning from a search at the beach of Koewala Pantjoer for the mortal remains of the Italian general Nino Bixio, who had died of cholera on the Aceh roadstead in 1873. Five of the six wounded men died within a few hours. The event — and the punitive column that followed it — was described by H. F. Meijer in Atjeh van 26 December 1875 tot 4 September 1876 (1883).
The ambush
The post commander of Lampagar had sent a detachment of 14 men, armed and unarmed, to the sea beach at Koewala Pantjoer to look for traces of the grave of Nino Bixio — whose burial place had been the object of earlier rumour and investigation after the desecration of a grave in the VI Moekims had been reported. On the return march, at the end of the kampong Lambaroe, the little column was suddenly set upon by a number of klewang-armed Atjehers. Six non-commissioned officers and men, Europeans and natives, were severely wounded before the enemy disappeared; a patrol sent out from Lampagar found only one Atjeher in the kampong, who was captured. Within a few hours five of the six wounded were dead.
The punitive column
The civil and military commander decided that the incident demanded a sharp answer. On 9 April the 12th Infantry Battalion and one company of the barisan of Pamekassan, under Major Jeltes, were sent from Olehleh over Sinangri into the VI Moekims to scour the district; the column was accompanied by the controleur (controller, a civil official) Michielsen, who was charged with a strict investigation of what had happened in kampong Lambaroe. The investigation produced — as usual, in Meijer’s words — nothing but conjectures; the only certainty obtained was that a certain Hadji Aboe of that kampong had taken part in the ambush. He had naturally made himself scarce; the only punishment that reached him was that his house was given to the flames. On 11 April the Jeltes column returned to Kota Radja.
After-effects
The event had grave consequences for the trust between the Dutch and the “friendly” population of the VI Moekims. Two kampong heads of the neighbourhood — Hadji Soliman, head of Lampagar, and Toekoe Amat — later told the officers at Lampagar that they suspected Hadji Aboe of wishing to avenge the burning of his house on the post itself, and that he was gathering the refugees of his kampong for that purpose. These warnings were prelude to the terrible night attack on the Lampagar camp of 2–3 May, in the preparation of which, as later became known from a wounded prisoner, Panglima Moeda of Piëng of Rēdeb in the XXII Moekims took the leading part together with elements the population itself had sheltered.
Assessment
Meijer recorded the affair as characteristic of the war: a small unescorted party murdered by men who vanished at once into the kampongs; an official investigation that brought only guesses; a punishment that fell on a house instead of the perpetrators; and a population between two fires — punished by the Dutch for enmity, punished by their hostile countrymen for friendship.
See Also
- Lampagar
- Night attack on Lampagar (2-3 May 1876)
- Hadji Aboe of Lambaroe
- Hadji Soliman of Lampagar
- Majoor Jeltes
- Nino Bixio
- VI Moekims
- Guerilla warfare in Groot-Atjeh
Source
Atjeh van 26 December 1875 tot 4 September 1876, door H. F. Meijer (Breda: P. B. Nieuwenhuijs, 1883), chapter VII, pp. 154–156, 176–178.