The Punitive expedition against Kepaja Doewa in the first days of August 1879 was the chastisement of the mountain kampong Kepaja Doewa — the kampong high in the mountains south of the Lamtoba valley that had given shelter to the fugitive chiefs of the XXVI Moekims — by a flying column of the Lamtoba column of Luitenant-Kolonel Gerlach, which burned its thirty houses and partly cut down its fruit-trees. The tocht is narrated on pp. 25–29 of W. Cool and G. B. Hooijer’s Eene schoone bladzijde uit Atjeh’s geschiedenis (1889); the eyewitnesses name only “den zen Augustus” (the day-digit illegible in the OCR), while other accounts of the campaign, such as De Bruyne’s De geschiedenis van Nederland in onzen tijd, date the punishment of the hostile Kepaja Doewa to 1 August 1879.
The decision and the march
The occupation of the Lamtoba valley had brought the submission of the Iman, but one of the wakils sent up to summon the chiefs who had fled to Kepaja Doewa to offer their submission in the bivouac returned without success. It was therefore decided to march against the kampong. Since one of the two companies left behind at the beach bivouac — the 3rd of the 9e Bataljon Infanterie — had been called up to Lamtoba, and two companies were judged necessary for the guard of the bivouac, five companies of infantry could be employed against Kepaya Doewa; with them went the section of mountain cannon under 1e Luitenant Van Heutz, the detachment of Mineurs and an ambulance of twenty-five tandoes, while the second mortar section remained behind for the safety of the bivouac. As the goal was hoped to be reached within a few hours, no provisions or water were carried, so that the pace could be quickened. The voorhoede was commanded by Majoor Coblijn, the hoofdtroep by Kapitein Du Bus de Valempré, and the guard of the bivouac was entrusted to Majoor Ducroo.
At six o’clock in the morning the tocht began. The way led at first through the sawahs of the Lamtoba valley, which, though dry, offered the spasmed artillery much trouble by the great difference in height of the parts rising amphitheatrically in terraces, so that the Mineurs had constantly to dig away the high rims and use the excavated earth to make ramps; at last the differences grew too great and the guns had to be unyoked and dragged up by hand. At a few points passed on the way there reigned a horrible stench: karbouws — presumably also dead of the rinderpest — were found rotting there. Having crossed the boundary river at the end of the valley, the troops marched on over an almost constantly climbing path through very broken and at first thickly wooded country; three times a deep ravine with steep walls had to be crossed, the guns being wholly taken apart, and once the pieces had to be got up a steep hill of more than eighteen degrees’ slope and several hundred metres’ length. The utmost was demanded of the horses, the gunners and the Mineurs. Since leaving the valley not a drop of water was found — the brooks and rivulets in the depths of the ravines were all dried up — while higher and higher the sun rose in the cloudless sky, “as if she would punish them who dared to defy her at midday in the burning-hot mountains.”
The kampong taken and burned
With the exception of a single shot fired in the distance, the column met no resistance on the way, and after covering six palen it arrived in the early afternoon before the kampong Kepaja Doewa, lying high in the mountains. It seemed deserted; but the enemy had hidden himself behind the adjoining hills, whence he suddenly opened fire on the column and maintained it fairly regularly. The hills right and left were soon occupied by a few platoons, while the artillery came into battery against the most dominating hill lying ahead. For a moment the enemy showed himself there — among them some hadjis clothed in white were remarked — but, standing out sharply against the horizon, he formed a very exposed target, and after some eight shrapnel shells (granaatkartetsen) bursting in the right place the artillery succeeded in driving him from it.
Meanwhile two companies had rushed into the kampong itself; with them were the chief of the staff with the Mineurs detachment, and 1e Luitenant Popelier, who during the march had held himself with the guides at the point. The kampong proved to consist of one fairly large with two smaller outlying kampongs, together counting some thirty houses. These were burned — as punishment for the resistance offered and the hospitality given to the chiefs of the XXVI Moekims — and the fruit-trees partly cut down.
The chief of staff cut off by the fire
Busied with this work, the men dissolved more and more into the thickly overgrown kampong, so that at a given moment the chief of the staff — Cool himself — had with him only a couple of men, among them a bugler, and his servant who followed him everywhere. In vain the signal “assemble” was given again and again: the impenetrable tropical plant-growth smothered every sound except that of the crackling shots of the burning bamboo dwellings — a sound, the book explains in a footnote, caused by the heat expanding the air in the hollow bamboo until the partition-walls between the joints spring. In vain he tried again to push through along the winding kampong-path; vainly, too, to withdraw by the same way, for the retreat was barred by the burning houses that stood along it. There remained nothing but to wait amid the glowing heat until the fire had burnt out. “Thus a time of tension was passed, relatively short, but seeming very long… Would the way back presently be free?… Might not the enemy, recovered from his fright and perhaps hidden near by, dare a reconnaissance into his kampong, remark the little band of men, and…?” The chief of staff had the bugler cease his signals. To the torment of thirst, now doubly felt, relief was brought by some young coconut-trees quickly felled, the native servant bringing his master the cool water from the nut. After an hour, when the fire had raged itself out and the way back was free, the good path was found, and — “o beautiful sight” — the troops stood drawn up at some distance from the kampong’s edge, awaiting the return of the detached parties.
The return and the aftermath
The way back was taken without delay, lest the difficult road be traversed wholly in the dark and the men, tormented by thirst, suffer the longer; the column was followed by a few enemies, who now and then had to be kept at a respectful distance by some volleys. Utterly exhausted, the voorhoede reached the bivouac at half past six and the achterhoede at seven o’clock in the darkness.
Great fright was spread by the chastisement of Kepaya Doewa, also among the population of the Lamtoba valley, so that a part of the inhabitants who had already returned again withdrew to the mountains — among them the Rijksbestierder Panglima Banten. This was by no means to the column-commandant’s liking; strict orders for his return were given, and as punishment for his flight soldiers and dwangarbeiders were sent to the neighbouring kampong Lambada — owned by the Rijksbestierder — to break down some houses and cut pinang-trees so far as the improvement of the bivouac required. The measure did not miss its effect: a few days later, on 6 August 1879, Panglima Banten appeared again in the bivouac with a numerous retinue of wakils and kampong-heads.
Significance
The punishment of Kepaja Doewa was the first offensive stroke delivered from the occupied Lamtoba valley and, in the wording of the general narratives of the campaign, “appeared to have made an impression on the enemy”: it scattered the assembled refugee leadership of the XXVI Moekims once more — this time towards Selimoen — and it taught the valley that hospitality to the outlaws would be answered with fire. Yet the burning of the kampong also drove a part of the already returned inhabitants of Lamtoba back into the mountains, a counter-effect the commandant had then to undo by reprisal and negotiation. When, eleven days later, the column marched past the ruined kampong towards Selimoen, the Atjehers were back behind a strong field-fortification on the same ground — the ground that the artillery had twice to win.
See Also
- Occupation of the Lamtoba valley (July–August 1879)
- Reconnaissance to Kroeng Raija (12 August 1879)
- Kepaja Doewa
- Lamtoba
- Lambada
- W. A. Coblijn
- Du Bus de Valempré
- Majoor Ducroo
- Van Heutz (artillerie)
- A. G. Popelier
- Panglima Banten
- Lamtoba column (1879)
- Tuchtiging
- 1879
Source
Eene schoone bladzijde uit Atjeh’s geschiedenis, door W. Cool en G. B. Hooijer (‘s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1889), pp. 25-29. OCR-filename: 20260720_115822_DLP-135-Eene_schoone_bladzijde_uit_Atjeh_s_geschiedenis_Nemotron_OCR_v2_OCR.txt.