Pel’s Buitenzorg planning session (1875) was the series of conversations held in July 1875 at Buitenzorg in Java between generaal Pel — there to recover his health — the newly appointed gouverneur-generaal van Lansberge and the commandant van het leger, in which Pel laid out his conviction that the afwachtende stelsel was useless and proposed instead an offensive to extend the Dutch linie from the mouth of the Kroeng Raba on the west coast to the mouth of the Kroeng Raya on the north coast, isolating Atjeh from the sea and reducing it to a binnenstaat.
The plan
While recovering at Buitenzorg, Pel explained to Borel and to the newly appointed Gouverneur-Generaal van Lansberge his conviction that the afwachtende stelsel was useless. His plan was, as soon as the good moesson returned, to resume offensives; to push the post at Soerian forward; to invade Toekoe Nanta’s VI Moekims; to occupy Sinangri and sweep the western bank of Kwala Tjangkoel; to break the strong enemy line at Doewa; to seize kampongs and rijstvelden (rice fields); and, later, to extend the linie from the mouth of the Kroeng Raba on the west coast to the mouth of the Kroeng Raya on the north coast, isolating Atjeh from the sea and reducing it to a binnenstaat (inland state).
Van Lansberge’s endorsement
The Gouverneur-Generaal agreed. He decided “to wage the war with Atjeh in the most decisive manner” and promised ample reinforcements. The government, Borel adds, approved Pel’s plan in the second half of 1875. Pel’s secret intention — to seal Atjeh off from the sea by the Kroeng Raba–Kroeng Raya line — he never communicated officially, not even to his chief of staff; nothing about it was found in his archive after his death on 24 February 1876.
Borel’s verdict
Borel, who heard the plan from Pel’s own mouth at Buitenzorg, treats it as the unifying strategic conception of the war. The plan would be partly executed in Pel’s great December 1875–February 1876 offensive through the VI, IV and IX Moekims, and the closure of the Kroeng Tjoet mouth by lt.-kol. Engel on 26 February 1876. The full Kroeng Raba–Kroeng Raya line, however, was never completed: the sea-expedition to Kroeng Raya under kolonel van der Heijden, during generaal Diemont’s administration, fought bravely but achieved no satisfactory result and did not link up with the Tongah–Kwala Gigieng line.
See Also
- Generaal Pel
- Gouverneur-Generaal van Lansberge
- Stelling-Pel
- Afwachtende houding
- VI Moekims
- IV Moekims
- IX Moekims
- Kroeng Raba
- Kroeng Raya
- Kroeng Tjoet
- Kwala Tjangkoel
- Kwala Gigieng
- Sinangri
- Soerian
- Toekoe Nanta
- Karel van der Heijden
- Generaal Diemont
- Luitenant-kolonel Engel
- Pel’s offensive against the VI, IV and IX Moekims (1875–1876)
- Death of Generaal Pel (24 February 1876)
- 1875
Source
Onze vestiging in Atjeh, critisch beschreven, by G. F. W. Borel, Kapitein der Artillerie. ‘s-Gravenhage: D. A. Thieme, 1878. pp. 264–265, 304, 322.