The night attack on Lamprit (21–22 April 1876) was a carefully prepared midnight assault of the Atjehnese enemy on the Dutch post at Lamprit, in which the attackers massacred most of the fifteen forced-labourers who were allowed to sleep in the kitchen shed outside the work, and then — after being repulsed — returned at half past four in the morning for a second attempt. It was described by H. F. Meijer in Atjeh van 26 December 1875 tot 4 September 1876 (1883).
The post and its weak point
Lamprit was protected by a palisade 1.5 metres high, a gate barrier of 2 metres, and a broad belt of obstacles — bamboo-thorn, randjoes (sharp bamboo spikes) and broken glass — around the whole work. Fifteen paces from the west face stood two open sheds: the kitchen and the serving shed, deliberately left without walls so that they could not shelter an enemy at night, and themselves ringed by the obstacle belt. Four sentries watched at night in the sheds and at the southwest salient, within sight of one another. The post commander had allowed the fifteen forced-labourers detached to his post for the clearing of the terrain to sleep in the kitchen shed at night, on the understanding that at the alarm they would run into the work through the gate; and the strictest orders had been given to the watch on the west face not to fire before the word was given, because of the men outside.
The warning of the gong
At about ten in the evening the watch commander was told that a gong was being beaten at the edge of kampong Pinang — a signal the troops had learned to know during the war as the call by which the enemy gathered. The post commander made his round, judged the sound to be far off among the eastern kampongs where it had been heard before, but nevertheless ordered the greatest vigilance. At eleven the watches were relieved without anything more being heard; at midnight the watch turned out for the relief again, and the sentry struck the bell.
The massacre in the kitchen shed
Hardly had the first bell-stroke sounded when a blunderbuss was fired on the narrow ground between the kitchen shed and the palisade — not more than ten or twelve paces away. At the same instant the sentry in the kitchen shouted his challenge, fired his shot, and then the Atjehers’ war-cry: the enemy, running past that sentry, stormed into the kitchen shed and cut down the sleeping forced-labourers at lightning speed. The kitchen sentry himself ran into the work with five klewang cuts in the back; the sentry in the other shed, together with three forced-labourers, reached the gate unhurt.
The assault was made with the utmost boldness. Immediately after the first shot — the customary signal for the attack — one Atjeher raced, without troubling about bamboo-thorn or glass, straight at the low palisade, tried to vault over it, was struck on the head with a rifle by a European fusilier, fell inside the work and took a second butt-stroke from another fusilier, and was left for dead.
The repulse and second attack
The post commander, who had not gone to sleep that night, was at hand at once and hurried to the threatened west face, already partially manned by the watch; from the southwest salient he opened fire on the enemy gathered behind the kitchen, and then went to the gate to ask whether the outside sentries and the labourers had come in. Answered that both sentries but only such labourers as had been able to save themselves were inside, he let the whole west-face detachment — reinforced by part of the reserve — open fire. Standing near the guardhouse, he suddenly saw a figure rise close to him: it was the Atjeher whose skull two butt-strokes had failed to finish, who now ran for the north face, mounted the banquette, and jumped outside over the palisade.
Whether because its purpose — the murder in the shed — had been achieved, or because the fire of the west and part of the south face showed that a surprise of the post itself was impossible, the enemy soon withdrew southward over the sawah, raising a loud yell, and then eastward towards kampong Pinang. And he did not stop at one attempt: counting on the garrison of Lamprit being less watchful at early dawn after the repulse, he again stood very close, this time before the north face, at half past four — was discovered, and again driven off.
Losses
The night cost the Dutch 5 forced-labourers killed, among them one mandoer, and 6 wounded: 1 native fusilier and 5 forced-labourers. The scale and losses of the enemy remained unknown, as usual; the post commander’s guess that he was 200 strong, Meijer remarks dryly, had the same value as fifty. The field search next morning found 2 dead, 1 dying and 1 severely wounded Atjeher, with 5 blunderbusses, 2 lances, 3 klewangs and 1 badeh-badeh (shield).
Assessment
Meijer drew from the event his standing lesson for post service: the enemy always had to be assumed to be watching, from a few metres away, every fatigue party and every outside sentries’ position; even the most innocent arrangements — the sleep of fifteen labourers in a shed fifteen paces from the gate — could produce a massacre on the first night attack. Both at Lamprit and, weeks later, at Lampagar, the care of garrisons for non-combatants outside their works exacted the war’s heaviest toll from those non-combatants themselves.
See Also
- Lamprit
- Grass-fire attack on Lamprit (8 February 1876)
- Dwangarbeiders
- Guerilla warfare in Groot-Atjeh
- Atjeh van 26 December 1875 tot 4 September 1876
Source
Atjeh van 26 December 1875 tot 4 September 1876, door H. F. Meijer (Breda: P. B. Nieuwenhuijs, 1883), chapter VII, pp. 157–161.