The offer of Atjeh’s sovereignty to the Sultan of Turkey was the attempt of the Sultan of Atjeh in 1868 to place his lands under the sovereignty of his religious head, “den Beheerscher aller Geloovigen” — the Commander of the Faithful — as a means of preserving Acehnese independence against Dutch encroachment.
The event as recounted in 1897
H. van Kol narrated it to the Tweede Kamer on 16 November 1897 as the natural consequence of a generation of Dutch expansion. Having recounted the occupation of Baros in 1839 and Singkel in 1840, the Tractaat van 1857, the Siak treaty, the extension of Dutch sovereignty to the northern boundary of Tamian, the subjugation of Assahan by the expedition of 1865 and thereby of the whole East Coast, and the expeditions to Nias in 1863 and to Singkel in 1865, he continued:
“het is dus niet te bevreemden, dat de Sultan van Atjeh steun zocht tegen onze overweldiging, en zelfs in 1868 de Soevereiniteit zijner landen aanbood aan zijn godsdienstig Opperhoofd, den Beheerscher aller Geloovigen, aan den Sultan van Turkije. Eene alleszins begrijpelijke poging, om zijne onafhankelijkheid te bewaren.” — it is therefore not surprising that the Sultan of Atjeh sought support against our overwhelming, and even in 1868 offered the Sovereignty of his lands to his religious Head, the Commander of all the Faithful, to the Sultan of Turkey.
The Dutch counter-measures
Van Kol set the offer against the Dutch diplomacy of the following years: by abolishing the differential duties in Siak English trade was satisfied; by throwing a piece of the coast of Guinea to the English government that government was satisfied; and in November 1871 the treaty with England was concluded which left the Dutch a free hand on Sumatra, that is against Atjeh. Use was made of it “met al te veel gretigheid,” and already on 26 March 1873 war was declared.
The government’s reading
The Minister of Colonies Cremer treated the same approaches as evidence for the justice of the war rather than against it, holding that in judging that justice one might not overlook “de pogingen van Atjeh om zich onder de suzereiniteit te stellen van Turkije, van Amerika en van Frankrijk,” — the attempts of Atjeh to place itself under the suzerainty of Turkey, of America and of France, concerning which the Minister of Foreign Affairs Gericke van Herwijnen had said in the comité-generaal: “Ik heb de bewijzen hier voor mij liggen.”
Van Kol answered that the alleged Acehnese verraad had consisted in “enkele heel of half verdichte samenspraken van twijfelachtige personen en avonturiers met handels-consuls van Italië en N.-Amerika, die niet de minste macht uitoefenden en reeds dadelijk door hunne Regeeringen werden gedésavoueerd,” — a few wholly or half invented conversations of doubtful persons and adventurers with trade consuls of Italy and North America, who exercised not the least power and were immediately disavowed by their Governments. and that the sultan, as an independent prince, had the fullest right to seek support — indeed that it was for him “een eisch van zelfbehoud.”
Account from Vijftig jaren economische staatkunde in Atjeh (1923)
The Atjehnese offer of sovereignty to the Sultan of Turkey in 1868 was the step by which the chiefs of Atjeh, in the anarchy of their realm and in apprehension of Dutch expansion, tendered the sovereignty of their country to the Ottoman Sultan — “die echter voor de eer stichtelijk bedankte” (“who, however, piously declined the honour”) — while, in the same years, the chiefs of several Atjehnese coast states themselves asked to be placed under Dutch authority.
The offers of 1868
“Nadat in 1868 de hoofden van Atjeh de souvereiniteit van hun land hadden aangeboden aan den sultan van Turkije (die echter voor de eer stichtelijk bedankte!), verzochten de bestuurders van onderscheidene kuststaten, de anarchie in het Rijk moede, om onder ons gezag te mogen worden geplaatst” — writes author Joh. Langhout: after the chiefs of Atjeh had offered the sovereignty of their country to the Sultan of Turkey, the rulers of several coast states, weary of the anarchy in the realm, requested to be placed under the Dutch authority. For the time being the Government deemed it right not to accede, partly because by the London treaty of 17 March 1824 was established that the Government would take care that the relations with Atjeh would be so regulated that this native state, without losing anything of its independence, would not disturb the safety of trade and shipping. Even after the Sumatra treaty of 20 November 1871 had set the Netherlands free, the Government did not directly grant the like request of some Atjehnese chiefs: a similar request of the Sultan of Deli was declined, and the offers of the Radja of Troemoen to mediate for the acceptance of Dutch supremacy were equally not accepted.
Significance
The twin offers of 1868 — to Constantinople and, by the coast chiefs, to the Dutch — showed both poles of Atjeh’s political distress on the eve of intervention; Langhout cites them as the last phase of the decay of “zelfbestuur” (self-government) that prepared the Krayenhoff investigation (1871) and the mission of Nieuwenhuizen (March 1873).
See Also
- Sultan of Atjeh
- Sultan of Turkey
- H. van Kol
- J. T. Cremer
- Gericke van Herwijnen
- Sumatra Tractaat (1871)
- Van Kol’s refutation of the causes of the Atjeh-oorlog (1897)
- Comité-generaal van 1874
- 1868
- 1871
- Nieuwenhuizen’s mission to Atjeh and the declaration of war (March 1873)
- Dutch expedition to the North-East Coast of Sumatra (1865)
- Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824
- Treaty of 1871
- Acheh War
Source
Atjeh in de Tweede Kamer: Debatten bij de behandeling der begrooting van Nederlandsch-Indië voor 1898, uitgave van de Sociaaldemokratische Arbeiderspartij in Nederland (Amsterdam: J. A. Fortuijn, 1897). Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen, Br P95-178, pp. 7–8, 48–49.
Acknowledgement of sources. The material in this article derives from Atjeh in de Tweede Kamer: Debatten bij de behandeling der begrooting van Nederlandsch-Indië voor 1898 (Amsterdam: J. A. Fortuijn, 1897). Dutch passages are quoted in the original with an English rendering.
Vijftig jaren economische staatkunde in Atjeh, by Joh. Langhout (The Hague: N.V. Boekhandel v/h W. P. van Stockum & Zoon, 1923), pp. 17–19.