Nieuwenhuizen’s mission to Atjeh of March 1873 was the last diplomatic act before the Acheh War: the Vice-President of the Council of India, sent to demand explanation of the Sultan’s suspected dealings with foreign powers, received only the Sultan’s evasive reply — “Ware het ook niet zoo naar den wensch van het gouvernement, het is twee-maal mijn wensch!” — whereupon, on 26 March 1873, war was declared on the Sultan of Atjeh on behalf of the Netherlands Government (see also First Dutch Attack on Acheh).
The road to the mission
After the refusal of the Atjehnese chiefs’ requests for Dutch supremacy and the replacement of the London treaty by the Sumatra treaty of 20 November 1871 — which lifted the reservation of Atjeh’s absolute independence and gave the Netherlands its hands free — the controller Krayenhoff, by order of the Government, held an investigation in Atjeh in 1871, finding that it was the internal strife, sometimes violent, which had caused the desire for Dutch supremacy to awaken. In 1872 a commission was appointed to confer with the Sultan of Atjeh; mutual negotiations were opened, and proposals of agreement presented and approved on both sides — when word came from the Consul-General at Singapore that an envoy of the Sultan had departed for France and that another Atjehnese deputation sought help against the Dutch government with America and Italy. In how far those reports were exaggerated was never clearly brought to light; but the Indian Government considered the time come for a more resolute action.
The mission
Government Commissioner Nieuwenhuizen departed from Batavia on 7 March 1873 and, after stops at Riouw, Singapore and Penang, arrived on 22 March with four warships in the roadstead of Atjeh. Forthwith the interpreter Sidi Tahil — the same who had interpreted at former visits of men-of-war — was sent ashore with a letter, conveyed by a prauw stopped at sea (the temper in Atjeh making the use of Dutch sloops inadvisable). The letter set out the grievances of the Netherlands Indian government and demanded explanation of the equivocal actions of the Sultan; the Commissioner proposed, once that explanation had been given, to confer with the Sultan on the regulation of their relations. Within the term of 24 hours set for an answer, the interpreter on the evening of 23 March put the Sultan’s reply in Nieuwenhuizen’s hands: the Sultan wrote only, “Ware het ook niet zoo naar den wensch van het gouvernement, het is twee-maal mijn wensch!” (“Even were it not wholly the Government’s wish, it is twice my wish!”) — “of any explanation not a trace was to be found”. Once more the Commissioner tried to bring the Sultan to reason; when the second letter too was answered insufficiently, Nieuwenhuizen, acting on behalf of the Netherlands Indian Government, declared war on the Sultan of Atjeh.
The first shot, 27 March
Hope flickered once more: on the morning of 27 March, as the flotilla accompanying the Government Commissioner made ready to open fire on the bentengs (earthworks) thrown up on the sea-strand, a further letter arrived from the Sultan proposing two days’ delay. The Commissioner granted the request on condition that all war preparations on the Atjehnese coast should immediately cease. When it became clear in the course of the day that the throwing up of bentengs continued — the condition unfulfilled — “then, toward the evening of 27 March 1873, the first shot was fired by our side!” Hostilities began on 6 April. On his way to Atjeh Nieuwenhuizen had declared at Singapore that the “regular trade” between British India and Atjeh would not be prejudiced by the state of war — a declaration overtaken when a strict blockade proved necessary (see Blockade of the Atjeh coast (1873-1874)).
In the almanac
For Joh. Langhout the date marked the beginning of his fifty years: he had found it, unemphatically, in an old Leyden almanac’s Korte Kronyk: “1873. 26 Maart is namens de Nederlandsche Regeering, na herhaalde pogingen tot minnelijke schikking, aan den Sultan van Atjeh de oorlog verklaard en 6 April met de krijgsverrichtingen begonnen” — “It stood there so very ordinary!”, between events of more or less world-shaking kind.
See Also
- F. N. Nieuwenhuizen
- Sidi Tahil
- Sultan Machmoed Sjah
- Blockade of the Atjeh coast (1873-1874)
- First Dutch Attack on Acheh
- Atjehnese offer of sovereignty to the Sultan of Turkey (1868)
- 1873
Source
Vijftig jaren economische staatkunde in Atjeh, by Joh. Langhout (The Hague: N.V. Boekhandel v/h W. P. van Stockum & Zoon, 1923), pp. 1–2, 19–21, 27.