Occupation of the Lamtoba valley (July

The Occupation of the Lamtoba valley of 29 July – 12 August 1879 was the fortnight during which the column of Luitenant-Kolonel Gerlach lay encamped at the kampong Lambada in the valley of Lamtoba, imposing submission on its chiefs, punishing the mountain kampong Kepaja Doewa, capturing refugees of the XXVI Moekims — in whose midst it discovered smallpox — and preparing, under mounting sickness, for the march to Selimoen. The fifteen days are narrated on pp. 22–36 of W. Cool and G. B. Hooijer’s Eene schoone bladzijde uit Atjeh’s geschiedenis (1889).

The submission of the Iman

Shortly after the column had reached its bivouac ground at Lambada in the early afternoon of 29 July, the Iman of Lamtoba with some chiefs presented himself to the column-commandant. Gerlach addressed him very gravely: first on his late appearance — which he excused by pointing to the great distance — but above all on his conduct towards the chiefs and people of the XXVI Moekims, whom he had received into his kampongs. The Iman was told that the Militaire Bevelhebber of Atjeh, Generaal van der Heijden, was highly incensed at this and had given orders to burn all the kampongs of the valley, but that this might yet be altered should he exactly obey all orders given. He was thereupon commanded to hand in immediately all rifles, powder and cartridges from his kampongs and to have the building-materials for the column’s huts brought to the bivouac; and as a pledge of proper execution it was signified to him that he had better remain permanently near the column-commandant — to which, after initial objections, he consented.

It soon appeared, however, that even with the best possible disposition he could not properly fulfil these orders, the greater part of the population having fled the kampongs. In councils repeatedly held with the chiefs of the valley, to bring them to return and to gain intelligence of the XXVI fugitives, it was learned that Toekoe Moeda Baij, Toekoe Nja Hoessin, Toekoe Paya and other chiefs with some two hundred notables of the XXVI Moekims had arrived at Lamtoba and had settled in the valley — not in the kampongs but outside them in small encampments which the population had not dared to prevent, the materials having been taken from the kampongs; and that on the approach of the troops they had for the most part withdrawn higher up, to the mountain kampong Kepaja Doewa or to Selimoen, three day-marches further in the Atjeh valley.

Of the government of the country it appeared that beside the Iman stood a Rijksbestierder (chief administrator) named Panglima Banten, assisted by four wakils who each governed two kampongs, every kampong possessing its own head. The eight kampongs together counted some 180 large and 50 smaller houses, of a poorish appearance in contrast with the dwellings of the Padangsche Bovenlanden and even of many houses of Groot-Atjeh. The rinderpest then raging in many places had heavily ravaged these regions too: where the population had formerly possessed numerous herds of karbouws, these had now become rare, and the hope that the country itself would supply fresh meat for the troops — for which reason no slaughter-cattle had been given to the column — proved vain; only a few karbouws were offered at such high prices that they were declined, and on the column-commandant’s request the Zeemeeuw, which provisioned the column at Lampanas from Oleh-leh, presently brought slaughter-cattle as well.

The bivouac and the sick

The fifteen days the main force spent in the valley were used for the continual improvement of the bivouac and for extended reconnaissances in the surrounding hill- and mountain-country, while the unceasing forwarding of provisions from the bivouac at Lampanas demanded much of the strength of the coolies and dwangarbeiders and of the covering troops — for which a company was constantly employed, the connecting road having been fired upon but once. Where the troops had lain at first on the ground under low shelters of branches and leaves, baleh-balehs gradually arose, and the leafy huts were replaced by attap roofs resting on bamboo and wooden posts; privates and washing-places were made and constantly renewed; the two banks of the rivulet were joined within the bivouac by a jukbrug of pinang stems; a provoost for prisoners was built and an ambulance raised, the Mineurs being faithfully assisted in all these works by the native soldiers, while the Europeans’ hands, the book remarks, stood altogether the wrong way for them.

Yet under all this, and in spite of the strictness with which the prescribed hygienic measures were maintained, the number of sick grew from hand to hand. Among the troops it was chiefly the Europeans who suffered most, so that the 1st Company of the 9e Bataljon — that battalion’s only European company — was on the advice of the first officier van gezondheid sent back to Lampanas and the 4th Company of the same battalion called up from Lampanas in replacement; and besides this exchange, already by 10 August five per cent of the rank and file had been sent down to Lampanas and evacuated thence by the steamer Graaf van Bijland to the hospital at Panteh-Perak. Harder still than the soldiers the coolies and chain-gang convicts had to answer for it: laden almost daily and en route on the difficult connecting road Lampanas–Lamtoba for the transport of vivres that were consumed almost as fast as they were brought up, they too furnished a considerable contingent of sick and required repeated replenishment.

The punishment of Kepaja Doewa and its aftermath

When one of the wakils, sent to announce to the chiefs fled to Kepaya Doewa that they should come and offer their submission in the bivouac at Lamtoba, returned without success, it was decided in the first days of August to march against that kampong; the punitive expedition against Kepaja Doewa burned its thirty-odd houses and cut down part of its fruit-trees. Great fright was spread by the chastisement, also among the population of the Lamtoba valley, so that part of the inhabitants who had already returned again withdrew to the mountains — among them the Rijksbestierder Panglima Banten himself. Strict orders for his return were given, and as punishment for his withdrawal soldiers and dwangarbeiders were sent to the neighbouring kampong Lambada — the Rijksbestierder’s own property — to break down some houses and cut pinang-trees so far as was needed for the improvement of the bivouac. This did not miss its effect: a few days later, on 6 August, Panglima Banten appeared again in the bivouac with a numerous retinue of wakils and kampong-heads, was most sharply addressed on his conduct, and was ordered to remain near the column for the better execution of the given orders. Of the chiefs complete obedience and the surrender of weapons and ammunition was once more demanded; the obligations they had taken upon themselves by their submission to the Militaire Bevelhebber were again brought before their eyes; and they were charged to see to it that the population no longer ran away from the kampongs. To lend these orders greater force, expeditions into the mountains were undertaken daily.

The night march and the discovery of smallpox

It was on one of these expeditions that for the first time the prevalence of smallpox in this region was established — a circumstance which, albeit indirectly, later exercised so baneful an influence on the state of health of the column. And, experience having shown that the encampments of the XXVI people were discovered again and again but the people themselves always made off in time, an expedition was undertaken in the dark. Marching out at four o’clock at night, the troops were at break of day at the desired point; the kampong where refugees were reported to be was surrounded in all silence; no one escaped and no resistance was offered; and, with the exception of the sick found in different houses, the whole population, sixty-seven in number, was disarmed and led to the bivouac, which was reached at ten o’clock.

The prisoners, brought at once before the column-commandant, looked on the whole dirty and worn-out, especially the women and children, though among the men were some powerful figures. Several being covered with eruption, the first officier van gezondheid Lowe was requested to examine it: it proved to be smallpox, and those affected were immediately removed from the bivouac. Through the mediation of Panglima Banten the persons belonging to the XXVI Moekims were now pointed out; after undergoing a hearing, the eldest received a pass with orders to return directly, which, so far as could be ascertained, was obeyed. The others — belonging to the population of the valley that had fled — were punished for not having obeyed the repeated summons of their chiefs to return, by the taking of three of the slaughter-oxen they had with them, which were given to the soldiers, while their sabres and klewangs, which they would in any case have had to surrender, and their further weapons remained with the company — the name, the book notes in a footnote, under which among the natives the memory of the days of the O.I. Compagnie still lives on.

The occurrence of smallpox in the valley was reported without delay to the Militaire Bevelhebber; and from him word had meanwhile been received that, in view of the peaceful submission of the population, the previously decreed punishment of burning was abandoned, and in its stead the payment of a waarborgsom (surety) prescribed — the Hok gantjing — fixed at ten dollars for every wooden house and three dollars for every bamboo house. All of this was communicated to the chiefs.

The evenings and Gelsdorp

Thus the days passed in exertion and restless work. The officers, busied from early morning till noon, sought rest and shade in the afternoons under their bamboo or attap huts while the whole valley was filled with the heat brooding over the chalk hills; in the evening they gathered on the sawah just outside the bivouac, sitting a while on the galangans in cheerful talk — but when the sun had set and the outlines of hill and mountain flowed together into one gigantic dark wall that enclosed the plain like a prison-wall, one after another sought the bivouac again, instinctively withdrawing from the melancholy which the sudden falling of the darkness brought on.

“The last of these” was always the book’s friend Gelsdorp, the luitenant-adjudant of the 6e Bataljon. As beside the Goudberg the sky grew lighter and lighter, the starlight paled before the not yet visible rising moon, and the darkness within the ring of mountains was compressed until all outlines melted into it, his thoughts drifted from the monotonous present to silver-lit images of the past — to the friendly little house with his young wife and three little children, bathing in the fierce sunlight in which he had last beheld it on Java. “Did perhaps with the cold shiver which the treacherous Indies night-air sends through the limbs the germ of the sickness enter his blood that dragged him to the grave a month later? His ashes rest in peace in the overcrowded cemetery of Petjoet, amid the many who like him fell as sacrifices of our colonial existence.”

Significance

The fortnight at Lamtoba turned a military raid into an occupation: the valley’s government was taken into custody, its weapons called in, its refugees gathered and identified, the waarborgsom substituted for the threatened burning, and the ground prepared — through reconnaissances such as that to Kroeng Raija and the coolie-calculations of the chief of staff — for the Selimoen tocht. But the same fortnight also revealed the price: the discovery of smallpox, the daily-growing sick-list, the first evacuations to Panteh-Perak — the beginning of the attrition that would in the end send back to Kota Radja a column of which more than a third was dead, evacuated or unfit for service.

Source

Eene schoone bladzijde uit Atjeh’s geschiedenis, door W. Cool en G. B. Hooijer (‘s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1889), pp. 22-36. OCR-filename: 20260720_115822_DLP-135-Eene_schoone_bladzijde_uit_Atjeh_s_geschiedenis_Nemotron_OCR_v2_OCR.txt.

tags	event, military, occupation, dutch, colonial, aceh-war, 1879
aliases	Bezetting van de Lamtoba-vallei, the fifteen days at Lamtoba, Bivak te Lamtoba 1879

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Occupation of the Lamtoba valley (July–August 1879)