The Lamkoenjit ambush (17 February 1876) was an attack by an overwhelmingly superior Atjehnese force on a small Dutch detachment marching between the posts of Biloel and Boekit Daroe in the IX Moekims. It was described by H. F. Meijer in Atjeh van 26 December 1875 tot 4 September 1876 (1883).
The march
In the early morning of 17 February a detachment of 12 soldiers under a non-commissioned officer left the post at Biloel with service letters and archive pieces for the posts of Boekit Daroe and Atoeh. A European corporal joined it at Boekit Daroe, so that on the return march the party counted 13 musket-carriers. The detachment reached Boekit Daroe unmolested, rested and ate there, and then began its march back.
The ambush
Unmolested it crossed the sawah until, a few hundred paces from a narrow footpath in the kampong Lamkoenjit, it was suddenly fired upon by an overwhelming enemy force; a European fusilier was mortally wounded at the first discharge. The detachment commander quickly rallied his men, took a favourable position and replaced the ammunition-wasting rapid fire with a regular platoon fire (salvovuur), by which he kept the enemy off without, however, seeing any chance of leaving the thickly wooded kampong towards Biloel. He therefore decided to withdraw over the sawah in the direction of Boekit Daroe, leaving the dead fusilier behind.
The relief parties
At one o’clock a few rifle shots had been heard by the posts of Biloel and Atoeh changing into regular volleys, whereupon the post commander of Biloel sent a detachment of 15 musket-bearers and that of Atoeh 3 officers and 50 men towards Lamkoenjit. From Atoeh a crowd of Atjehers was seen hurrying across the sawah towards the kampong; the canister shots sent after them could not stop their advance. The Biloel party reached Lamkoenjit first; when the Atoeh party arrived it found neither the enemy nor the Biloel party, and marched back via Biloel. Meanwhile the attacked detachment had been informed of the help on the way, the enemy broke off the action, mangled the body of the fallen European fusilier, took his weapons and let the Biloel relief march on unhindered after the meeting of the detachments. Both parties then went to Boekit Daroe to bring two wounded — a corporal and a fusilier, both Europeans — to safety, and returned to Biloel in the late afternoon without meeting the enemy again.
Assessment
Meijer cited the event as typical of the daily danger on the roads between the posts in the first months of 1876: even in broad daylight, a detachment of thirteen could be overwhelmed on ground the enemy knew intimately, and the enemy always withdrew before superior help could arrive. It was this experience that soon made the road between Biloel and Boekit Daroe too unsafe for any but strong, escorted transports, and that led to the order to communicate by the longer route along Kajoe-Lē and Lamsajoeng.
See Also
- Lamkoenjit
- Biloel
- Boekit Daroe
- Atoeh
- Ambush of the Buijs detachment (4 March 1876)
- 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 VI, pp. 110–112.