The night attack on Atoë Noord (22–23 March 1876) was the enemy’s answer to the founding of the new Dutch intermediate post of Atoë Noord between the posts of Atoë and Kajoe-Lē in the south-east line, begun the previous morning after the disastrous convoy ambush of 21 March. The event was described by H. F. Meijer in Atjeh van 26 December 1875 tot 4 September 1876 (1883).
The founding of the post
The ambush of 21 March — in which a convoy with sick men, free coolies, forced-labourers and soldiers’ wives had been attacked midway between Atoë and Kajoe-Lē — made it necessary to carry out, at once, the order already issued on 10 March to erect an intermediate post on that stretch. On the morning of 22 March, at first light, three companies of the right half of the 13th Infantry Battalion, protected and supported by one section of 8 cM. mountain artillery, began the fortification work on the northern edge of kampong Atoë, on the spot selected with the aid of the chief of the survey brigade, Captain F. C. E. Meijer — although the work was ultimately planted about 500 metres too far to the west. Not a single shot was fired during the day: the ground was found unoccupied. The commander of the 12th Infantry Battalion, acting under orders of the civil and military commander, had meanwhile moved out of Kota Radja with part of his corps and one company of the barisan of Pamekassan to screen the work.
The night of alarms
The enemy had watched everything. On the night of 22–23 March he appeared in great numbers to alarm the posts of Atoë and Kajoe-Lē and the new bivouac at Atoë Noord continuously. In that bivouac the Dutch troops still lay largely unprotected, on ground not yet properly cleared, which allowed the enemy to approach on three sides. The night’s losses at the bivouac were: killed — 3 non-commissioned officers and men, 1 officer’s servant and 4 forced-labourers; wounded — 1 officer (First Lieutenant Baron Van Heeckeren van Molecaten, who had also been wounded in the ambush two days before), 3 non-commissioned officers and men, 1 mandoer (overseer) of the forced-labourers and 1 native woman. At Kajoe-Lē one soldier was wounded.
Assessment
The attack confirmed what Meijer called the law of the Atjeh night: any new work could expect to be visited before it had been made storm-proof. Atoë Noord was nevertheless completed, garrisoned at strength of one company, and received its armament; together with the roads and clearings then being made along the whole south-east line under Colonel K. van der Heyden, it helped make the stretch between Atoë and Kajoe-Lē — the wettest and most ambush-ridden of the whole line — passable for regular transport. Later in the year, however, the June flood struck the post hard: water stood 0.2 to 0.3 metres high inside the work, and the post commander suspected that the enemy had dammed one of the small channels nearby to direct the flood against it.
See Also
- Atoeh
- Kajoe-Lē
- Convoy ambush near Atoë (21 March 1876)
- Van Heeckeren van Molecaten
- Majoor J. Visser
- Zuidoosterlinie
- 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. 147–152, 196.