Pidië Expedition

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tagsevent, war, military, colonial, dutch, aceh, knil, 19th-century, campaign, aceh-war, 1898, pidie, marechaussee, jubilee
aliasesPidië-expeditie (1897–1898), Van Heutsz's Pidië campaign, Van Heutsz's Pidië campaign (1898), Pidië campaign 1898, onderwerping van Pidië, Garot 1898, Tangsé 1898, conquest of Pidië

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The Pidië Expedition of 1897–1898 was one of the great successes of the glorious period of Van Heutsz in the Aceh War — a military expedition under Van Heutsz that ended the existence of the two Pidiësche federations, Pidië-Ndjöng and Keumangan, which had divided the Pidiësche landschappen. It is the first-named of the expeditions and excursions that Musket lists in Oost-Indisch Journael by Merac (1947), and represents the offensive phase of Dutch consolidation over Atjèh during the Atjèh-oorlog.

The Pidië federations before the expedition

Before the expedition, the Pidië region was divided between two federations of landschappen:

  1. Pidië-Ndjöng — a federation headed by the Pakèh-geslacht of Pidië and the Ndjöng landschap
  2. Keumangan — a federation headed by the Béntara of Keumangan, which led a six-Oelèëbalang federation against the Pidië-Ndjöng federation

The Pidië region had been briefly a sultanate before c. 1521, then governed by the Sultan of Atjèh’s stedehouders (lieutenants). The federation of XII Moekim’s was headed by the Pakèh-geslacht.

The great successes of the glorious period

In Merac’s framing, the Pidië Expedition opens the catalogue of Van Heutsz’s “great successes”: “the time also of our great successes! The Pidië expedition, the expeditions in Idi and Peusangan, the Pasé expedition, the Samalanga expedition, the expeditions to the Gayo and Alas lands, the action in the Tangsé and Geumpang area and on the North Coast of Atjeh, the patrol actions on the always restless West Coast, and finally the Battle of Batèë-Ilië, by which the organised, general resistance in Atjeh was broken for good.” The Pidië Expedition is the first-named of these — the first of the expeditions and excursions of the glorious period of Van Heutsz.

The expedition

The expedition under Van Heutsz in 1897–1898 broke the power of both federations. This was part of Van Heutsz’s broader strategy, developed in consultation with Dr. Snouck Hurgronje, of using military force to consolidate Dutch control while replacing the earlier 6- and 18-article declarations with the new three-article korte Atjèhverklaring. The expedition followed the defection of Teukoe Oemar on 29 March 1896, which had opened the way for an all-out Dutch offensive in Pidië.

Consequences

The end of the Pidiësche federations paved the way for the extension of Dutch direct rule over the Pidië region. The Pakèh of Pidië, T. Radja Pakèh Moehamat Ali, came under the voogdij (guardianship) of his uncle in 1896 and became self-governing after 1914. The expedition also cleared the way for the construction of the Atjèh-tram mountain line from Seulimeum to Padang Tidji, which crossed the watershed into the Pidië plain.

Significance

The Pidië Expedition is significant in Oost-Indisch Journael as the first-named of the great successes of the glorious period of Van Heutsz. The book’s argument — that the great successes of the glorious period were the expeditions and excursions by which the organised, general resistance in Atjeh was broken for good — is the frame for the offensive phase of the Aceh War. In Kreemer’s account, the expedition is also the moment at which the indigenous federations of Pidië — which had structured the region’s politics since before the Sultanate’s absorption of Pidië in the early sixteenth century — were finally dissolved and replaced by Dutch direct rule. The Pidië Expedition is therefore the book’s — and the colonial memory’s — first great success of the glorious period.

Background: the flight to Pidië

In his column area, the sagi of the XXII Moekims — the two other columns operating from Lho’ Nga and Tjòt Mantjang, van Heutsz himself from Indrapoeri — van Heutsz attacked the positions of the great resistance leader Panglima Pòlém, the sagi-head, and drove him to Pidië. The column at Lho’ Nga attacked Teukoe Oemar and drove him from Leupoeëng, but his bands returned repeatedly, so that it lasted until 1898 before T. Oemar likewise withdrew to Pidië and joined Panglima Pòlém and the pretender-sultan Toeankoe Mochamad Dawot. From that moment Pidië was the hearth of the resistance.

The new course

From the first day van Heutsz set the new course with a firm hand. On 1 June 1898 he entered the Pidië district at the head of a force of four battalions with auxiliary arms. On that same day, after a bold storm — “The whole line forward!” — the resistance centre Garot fell, where the pretender-sultan, Teukoe Oemar, Panglima Pòlém and also Teungkoe di Tjòt Plieng, head of the oelama party, had gathered. From that moment their rest and their plans were finished: they were attacked, hunted and surprised everywhere.

The attackers now fought in a wholly different manner. “Seek cover and above all take no wounded” had had its day; the offensive and the klewang came to the fore, the bulletproof little forts were demolished, the parapets of posts and bivouacs were replaced by barbed wire, patrols and ambushes prevented the nocturnal shootings; “thuis brengen” became far too dangerous against so mobile and aggressive a force, and base and line of operations became obsolete concepts.

Lamster described the consequence: independent columns could now operate at full strength against the enemy for days at a time, up to a full week, without having to fritter away part of their force on a normally idle line of operations. Later, the days a column acted uninterruptedly became weeks and the weeks months. Provisions were taken for only five or six days and the rest bought on the way or, in wholly hostile territory, foraged. When Van Daalen, the unsurpassed marechaussée leader of those days, finally undertook his famous march into the unknown interior of the Gajò and Alas country, he marched with a column of 200 marechaussées provided with only six days’ provisions over the passes of the Barisan ranges, and although he met extremely vigorous and fanatical resistance he operated with his numerically small column for five and a half months almost entirely independently.

Through Pidië

Van Heutsz crossed and re-crossed Pidië. The stubbornly defended bentengs Koeta Poetoih of Teungkoe di Tjòt Plieng were taken; the bands of the other resistance leaders were relentlessly hunted; T. Oemar had to withdraw to the mountains and chose as his residence the unreachable Tangsé.

But for van Heutsz and his men nothing was unreachable. First they settled accounts with Teungkoe Tapa’, a religious zealot from the Gajòland who had thrown the east coast into commotion — accomplished, to the Teungkoe’s detriment, in a few days, and so conclusively that this religious leader could reach the safer west coast only with great difficulty and with a mere handful of followers.

Then came Tangsé’s turn, protected by the strongly fortified and apparently impregnable gorge in the Kroeëng Beuniët. That produced the famous turning movement to the left through the impassable terrain around the gorge, through downpours, primeval forest and ravines, “towards the unreachable unknown.” It was a gamble, a specimen of daring and unshakeable self-confidence, and it succeeded: Tangsé was reached and occupied, and Teukoe Oemar too took his threatened body and his followers to the west coast.

It cost van Heutsz his shoes: he returned barefoot to Sigli on 28 August 1898, held a reception at Koeta Radja on 31 August, returned to Pidië and had one of the most dangerous of his opponents, Teukoe Béntara Gloempang Pajoeng, lifted by the marechaussée. “In the space of four months Pidië was subjected.”

Significance (du Croo, 1943)

The Pidië campaign was the demonstration in the field of the doctrine van Heutsz had argued in De onderwerping van Atjeh and Snouck Hurgronje in his report: that a freedom-loving, warlike people submits only under compulsion, and that only he who shows he has the power to make his will respected will bring Atjeh to submission. It established the operational method — self-contained, fast-moving, independent columns living off the country — that the marechaussée would use throughout the pacification years under H. N. A. Swart.

Account from the Maréchaussée Jubileum-nummer (1930)

the 1930 jubilee number of Het Nieuws van den Dag voor Nederlandsch-Indië treats the Pidië expedition as the first fruit of the period of “strenge actie” that followed the abandonment of the concentratie system. It records that “de Pidië-expeditie onder opperbevel van den kolonel der Infanterie J. B. van Heutsz in 1898 zou daarvan de inzet zijn; het daarbij behaalde succes was wederom voor een belangrijk deel te danken aan de Maréchaussée” — the Pidië expedition under the supreme command of the colonel of infantry J. B. van Heutsz in 1898 was to be the opening of it; the success achieved there was again in important part due to the Maréchaussée.

The editors set this in a wider judgement: “Het heeft lang geduurd, voordat algemeen ingezien en erkend werd, dat de krijgshaftige Atjeher zich slechts door geweld van wapenen zou onderwerpen, en lankmoedigheid plaats moest maken voor een straf regime” — it took long before it was generally seen and acknowledged that the warlike Atjehnese would submit only to force of arms, and that forbearance had to give way to a severe regime.

The corps “had zich ook doen gelden bij de onderwerping van Peusangan en Pasé in 1899,” an expedition likewise under the supreme command of Van Heutsz, by then promoted major-general. The jubilee number treated the whole period 1898–1906 as marked by “bijzonder-opvallende krijgsdaden.

See Also

Source

Atjèh. Algemeen samenvattend overzicht van land en volk van Atjèh en onderhoorigheden, door J. Kreemer, Archivaris van het Atjèh Instituut. Tweede Deel. Leiden: N.V. Boekhandel en Drukkerij voorheen E.J. Brill, 1923. Identifier: Delpher MMKB02B:000001798; PPN 395084288. Koninklijke Bibliotheek.

Oost-Indisch Journael: Palaver om de tafel met het gat, by Merac, Toekan-Serie no. 2, ed. G. L. Tichelman (Haarlem: De Gulden Pers, 1947), the chapter on den zieleherder.

Generaal Swart, Pacificator van Atjeh (“General Swart, Pacifier of Atjeh”), by M. H. du Croo, Colonel K.N.I.L. (retired), with the collaboration of H. J. Schmidt, Titular Colonel K.N.I.L. (retired), with a foreword by His Excellency Lieutenant-General K.N.I.L. (retired) G. K. Dijkstra (Maastricht: N.V. Leiter-Nypels, 1943), Chapter III, pp. 18–19.

Het Korps Maréchaussée in Atjeh: De Atjehsche Garde, 1890 - 2 April 1930 (“The Corps of Maréchaussée in Atjeh: The Atjehnese Guard”), Extra Jubileum-nummer of Het Nieuws van den Dag voor Nederlandsch-Indië issued for the fortieth anniversary of the corps (1930), pp. 1-16. Offprint DLP-143, Bibliotheek KITLV, accession 621 116 794.

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