The Quarantine at Lampanas of 23 August – 2 September 1879 was the ten days of isolation imposed on the column of Luitenant-Kolonel Gerlach after its evacuation of the smallpox-stricken valley of Lamtoba, followed, on 2–4 September 1879, by the repatriation of the whole force to Oleh-leh aboard the steamer Graaf van Bijland. It is narrated on pp. 67–77 of W. Cool and G. B. Hooijer’s Eene schoone bladzijde uit Atjeh’s geschiedenis (1889) — the counting, in barracks and statistics, of what the six weeks in the mountains had cost.
The building of the quarantine camp, 24–25 August
On 24 August 1879, while the coolies and dwangarbeiders brought up the materials from the beach, the soldiers — the native soldiers, the book observes, “for also now the Europeans accomplished little of it” — built the barracks. For every company a bamboo shed was made, forty metres long for the European companies, which had suffered most, fifty metres for the native companies, which were still the strongest; all five metres wide, three metres high at the ridge and 1.80 at the sides. With the help of the Mineurs, privates for officers and men, officers’ bathrooms and a wholly new ambulance for fifty sick were made, the last placed circularly around a few shady trees. The coolies and dwangarbeiders made great barracks for themselves, the Mineurs cutting and working the bamboo growing in the neighbourhood and using wild wood, since the materials brought up did not suffice. In the evening of 25 August all troops, coolies and dwangarbeiders were under roof, and the sick lay in the ambulance on balé-balés.
The bivouac had been laid out as spaciously as possible, for, with friendly kampongs near by, little danger was to be feared and the demands of hygiene could stand in the foreground. By day posts stood at the kali where the water was fetched, with express orders to prevent every fouling; at every privy dwangarbeiders were allotted to cast earth on the ordure morning and afternoon and wholly to renew the pits every three days; the paths of the bivouac were given drainage-gutters and covered with gravel; every morning a corvée was held and the filth burned; the offal of the slaughter-cattle was carefully removed; and the bodies of the dead were buried at a great distance and very deep. The chief of the staff W. Cool himself continually watched over all these works, and every morning the doctor held a careful inspection over the bivouac.
The statistics of one month
Nevertheless the sick-rate rose strongly from day to day — attributable, the eyewitnesses judge, for a great part to the reaction after the heavy fatigues, exertions and emotions of the past tocht, but also, certainly, to the prolonged stay on the beach bivouac itself, where the temperature climbed by day in the shade to a hundred degrees and at night changed to a damp cold, against which the open sheds offered little shelter. One month after the column had marched out — at a strength of 46 officers, 490 European soldiers, 614 native soldiers, 365 coolies and 719 dwangarbeiders (including those later brought in), together 2,234 men — the register stood:
- Died: 39 — 4 Europeans, 10 coolies, 25 dwangarbeiders.
- Evacuated: 346 — 2 officers, 119 European and 62 native soldiers, 54 coolies, 109 dwangarbeiders (among them already some for beri-beri).
- In the ambulance as seriously ill: 127 — 50 European and 20 native soldiers, 6 coolies, 51 dwangarbeiders.
- Quarter-sick: 267 — 9 officers, 46 European and 74 native soldiers, 28 coolies, 110 dwangarbeiders.
That is 769 of 2,234 men — more than a third — dead, evacuated, or for a longer or shorter time unfit for service: of the officers 24%, of the European soldiers 45%, of the native soldiers 25%, of the coolies 27%, of the dwangarbeiders 41%. Not without tension, whether among the many sick in the ambulance smallpox-sufferers would appear — whereby the monotonous and unhealthy stay on the sweltering coast might be prolonged who knew how long — were the last days of August passed. The troops were at the disposal of their corps- and detachment-commanders, who spent the time in bringing weapons, clothing and equipment into the best possible order, and otherwise granted the soldier the so highly needful rest.
The return of Panglima Banten
One thing remained to be related: the return of Panglima Banten, who had escaped from the bivouac at Lamtoba in the hour of departure. A letter had been received from him in which he gave as the reason of his flight that in the bivouac at Lamtoba a sum of money had been stolen from him by one of the guides; fearing that nothing would come of this if he followed the column to Lampanas, he had fled in order to conduct the investigation himself. To the summons to come over he at last complied in the afternoon of 1 September. “But now le secret de la comédie, the true reason of his return? Here too it held: Cherchez la femme. The mother of the little boy — who would rather see Panglima Banten than her little darling depart with the strange troops — had brought him to it… The column-commandant’s measures had hit their mark.”
As punishment for his running away the Rijksbestierder was placed in secure custody in a provoost-cell quickly erected by the Mineurs. Believing that his last hour had struck, he behaved terribly that night, until the column-commandant at last reassured him the next day. His fear of the sea, however, he had to overcome: as hostage he went with the troops to Kota Radja.
The repatriation, 2–4 September
Though the sick-rate kept rising to the last day, the column was happily spared the trial of a prolonged quarantine. On 2 September the isolation came to an end: the crews of the war-steamers, which had had to keep at a great distance from the soldiers and coolies, might approach them again, and no longer needed to lay letters and packages down on the beach and row away when an officer or a private came to receive them. The Militaire Bevelhebber had determined that the carrying back of the troops should take place exclusively with the Graaf van Bijland, and the column-commandant was to settle the arrangement with the senior sea-officer present on the roadstead of Lampanas. In consultation, therefore, with Kapitein-Luitenant Greve, commandant of the warship Merapi, it was fixed that the embarkation should take place in three divisions, beginning at six o’clock in the morning; the Bijland, having debarked the troops at Oleh-leh in the afternoon, would at once set course again for Lampanas, so that the embarkation could be continued undisturbed at the same hour on both following days.
2 September. The embarkation began, in the first place, with the sick — the 137 nursed in the ambulance; the other quarter-sick would remain allotted to their corps as long as possible. “A short farewell on the beach from their comrades still staying behind, with whom they had shared so many weeks of joy and sorrow… for many also the last handclasp… and quickly the sloops bore them from the so dangerous coast.” Favoured by a very calm sea, the whole ambulance with its coolie personnel was on board an hour later; in long rows the sick were laid on deck under the awnings, and “a sigh of relief escaped many a panting breast, now that the heavy glowing atmosphere had given place to the strengthening sea breeze.” Two hours later the 6e Bataljon Infanterie with its ammunition, cook-gear and dwangarbeiders was also embarked, seven marine sloops being employed, the largest holding twenty armed men or thirty coolies, the smaller fifteen; a marine officer and the chief of the staff regulated the embarkation on the beach. At nine o’clock the Bijland went under steam for Oleh-leh.
The debarkation did not go so quickly. The sick — whose number on board had increased by a further 52 — were lowered into the boats and rowed over the rolling water to the pier built out into the sea. The train had brought from Kota Radja a number of bultzakken (coir matting-bags), which were spread out joined together on the pier, and on these the sick were laid as they were brought up from the rocking boats: “under the piercing sunbeams and the sharp warm wind that howled over the roadstead, there lay non-commissioned officers and soldiers, Europeans and natives, coolies and chain-gangers pell-mell, many raving wildly, tearing the scanty clothing from the glowing body, or, insensible to the busy surroundings, ceaselessly shivering,” awaiting their turn to be lifted with sack and all and shoved into the wagon. It was already evening before the last sick were brought ashore, and night before all were taken into the hospital. Against the cheerful homecomings of troops in the motherland the book sets the sombre counter-image: “no one and nothing on the roadstead of Oleh-leh! No friendly tones, no word of welcome… The grateful Fatherland!?” By received order the 6e Bataljon, on arriving at Kota Radja, at once continued its march to Toengkoep, to form the permanent garrison of that post; many could no longer complete that march and remained lying on the way, and within a few days a great part of the already so thinned corps was again taken into the hospital.
3 September. Back at Lampanas, the Mineurs had made a gangway with steps reaching from the beach to the floating raft, so that the artillery horses could pass directly on to the raft; the calm sea allowed the raft to be brought close in, and the steam-barkas towed it each time to the Bijland. The loading of the vivres into the boats and sloops had begun at six in the morning and took three and a half hours of all boats’ time — for although fresh meat had been issued to the troops since the march to Selimoen, the Intendance, the book remarks critically, had kept forwarding great quantities of salt meat, which now had to be embarked again, together with all the chests of biscuit and sacks of rice still stacked high in the vivres magazine. At ten o’clock the artillery and the coolies were also on board. After the debarkation at Oleh-leh the section of cannon and one mortar section marched to Toengkoep, the other section to Lambaroe; several men had, however, to remain sick at Panteh-Perak.
4 September. On the last day a calm sea again favoured the embarkation. First the three companies of the 9e Bataljon Infanterie, the staff and the hostages were brought over; one company remained behind at Lampanas until the Mineurs and dwangarbeiders had salvaged the last materials still worth the cost of embarkation; then the Mineurs with a platoon and the ammunition, then the remaining 250 dwangarbeiders, and finally the last platoon were embarked. In accordance with the stipulation of the commandant of the Marine everything was finished at ten o’clock, and the Bijland steamed to Oleh-leh, while the warships Merapi and Amboina, stationed on the roadstead of Lampanas during the troops’ stay, returned to their station before Pedir.
The book closes the tocht with the empty coast: “The bustle and movement that had so long reigned on the roadstead and the coast of Lampanas had vanished for good… Even as before, as though nothing had happened, the white foaming surf beat the lonely strand, the strip of dark green trees and the glittering bare chalk hills behind it glowed and trembled in the fierce midday sun, and on the horizon, in the dense violet layers of air, faded the green-grey silhouette of the for ever abandoned Selawa Djanten!”
Significance
The quarantine and the repatriation are the book’s reckoning: on 5 September 1879, at Kota Radja, Generaal van der Heijden would declare in his day-order the whole of Groot-Atjeh subdued; the numbers read out on the Lampanas beach — 39 dead, 346 evacuated, 769 of 2,234 men hors de combat — are what the conquest cost the column that made it. The contrast the eyewitnesses draw between the official triumph and the ungreeted landing of the sick on the Oleh-leh pier is the deliberate moral of Eene schoone bladzijde.
See Also
- Evacuation of the Lamtoba valley (21–23 August 1879)
- Lampanas
- Panglima Banten
- Graaf van Bijland (stoomschip)
- Merapi (Z.M. stoomschip)
- Amboina (Z.M. stoomschip)
- Kapitein-Luitenant Greve
- Toengkoep
- Panteh-Perak
- Lambaroe
- Van der Heijden’s day-order of 5 September 1879
- 1879
Source
Eene schoone bladzijde uit Atjeh’s geschiedenis, door W. Cool en G. B. Hooijer (‘s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1889), pp. 67-77. OCR-filename: 20260720_115822_DLP-135-Eene_schoone_bladzijde_uit_Atjeh_s_geschiedenis_Nemotron_OCR_v2_OCR.txt.