The second harbor closure of 5 July 1879 — the tweede sluiting der havens (second closure of the harbours) ordered by Generaal van der Heijden on his eigen persoonlijke verantwoordelijkheid (own personal responsibility) — his own personal responsibility — and announced by telegram to the Gouverneur-Generaal on 5 July 1879 — is, in Van Heutsz’s 1893 tract De onderwerping van Atjeh, the action the author calls “karakter”: character. The closure was the second of Van der Heijden’s two unilateral haven-sluitingen (harbour-closures) — the sequel to the first harbor closure of 1878, which the Gouverneur-Generaal had revoked by letter of 7 February 1879 — and was, in Van Heutsz’s reading, “geen daad van militaire willekeur” — not an act of military arbitrariness — but “een krachtige door het gezond verstand geboden dwangmaatregel” — a forceful coercive measure enjoined by common sense. The closure was reluctantly tolerated by the Gouverneur-Generaal, who wrote — in the qualification Van Heutsz preserves verbatim — that he “slechts in den maatregel berustte onder uitdrukkelijk voorbehoud, dat daaraan het karakter van een zeer tijdelijken oorlogsmaatregel niet mocht worden ontnomen”.
The 5 July 1879 telegram
The closure was announced to the Gouverneur-Generaal (Governor-General) by telegram of 5 July 1879 — the formal notification by which the General informed Batavia that the havens had been closed again, this time on his own personal responsibility. Van Heutsz reproduces the telegram’s substance:
“hij sloot ze ten tweedemale en gaf bij telegram d.d. 5 Juli 1879 aan den Gouv. Generaal te kennen: «Dat de havens opnieuw door hem waren gesloten, ditmaal op zijne persoonlijke verantwoordelijkheid»”.
The eigen persoonlijke verantwoordelijkheid formula (own personal responsibility) — the General’s own personal responsibility — was, in Van Heutsz’s reading, the operational inversion of the Gouverneur-Generaal’s objection to the first harbor closure of 1878. The Gouverneur-Generaal had, in the 7 February 1879 revocation letter, cited the Van Raders of Suriname precedent — the deposition of a Dutch colonial governor for an eigenmachtig (on-one’s-own-authority) act against a foreign ship — as the warning the General should heed. Van der Heijden’s response, in the 5 July 1879 telegram, was to accept the responsibility the Gouverneur-Generaal had warned him against: the closure would be on his eigen persoonlijke verantwoordelijkheid, and any consequences — diplomatic, constitutional, or political — would fall on him personally, not on the Regeering (Government).
The “eigen persoonlijke verantwoordelijkheid” formula
The eigen persoonlijke verantwoordelijkheid formula was, in Van Heutsz’s reading, the General’s constitutional answer to the Gouverneur-Generaal’s eigenmachtig objection. The closure of 1878 had been disallowed because it had been ordered eigenmachtig — on the General’s own authority, without prior authorisation from Batavia. The closure of 5 July 1879 was ordered op zijne persoonlijke verantwoordelijkheid — on his personal responsibility — which was a different category of act: not an unauthorised assumption of the Regeering’s authority, but a personal acceptance of the consequences of an act the General judged operationally necessary. The formula thus shifted the constitutional question from the General’s authority to the General’s responsibility — from whether he could to whether he would answer for it — and, in Van Heutsz’s reading, established the precedent that the krachtige individualiteit (forceful individuality) of the bevelhebber (commander) was, in the colony’s Atjeh circumstances, the only effective instrument of policy.
Van Heutsz’s praise: “Dat was karakter”
Van Heutsz’s verdict on the closure is, in the 1893 tract, the highest praise he accords any single act of Van der Heijden’s governorship:
“Dat was karakter; terecht was gezegd: de krachtige individualiteit van den bevelhebber gaf den doorslag. Het was geen daad van militaire willekeur, het was een krachtige door het gezond verstand geboden dwangmaatregel, het was een maatregel in de richting, die ons in staat zou gesteld hebben de kroon op het werk te zetten”.
The karakter verdict (character) — character — is the General’s personal quality that, in Van Heutsz’s reading, made the closure possible. The phrase “de krachtige individualiteit van den bevelhebber gaf den doorslag” — the powerful individuality of the commander made the decision — is the same phrase Van Heutsz would later use, in his day-order of 5 September 1879 commentary, to describe the General’s krachtige individualiteit as the operational cause of the XXII and XXVI Moekims victories. The closure is, in Van Heutsz’s reading, the political equivalent of those military victories: an act of karakter that the Gouverneur-Generaal’s verzoeningspolitiek (politics of conciliation) could not have produced.
The denial — “Het was geen daad van militaire willekeur” — is Van Heutsz’s direct response to the Gouverneur-Generaal’s eigenmachtig genomen willekeurig maatregel objection of 7 February 1879. The closure of 5 July 1879 was not, in Van Heutsz’s reading, willekeur (arbitrariness) — arbitrariness — but “een krachtige door het gezond verstand geboden dwangmaatregel” — a forceful coercive measure enjoined by common sense. The closure was “een maatregel in de richting, die ons in staat zou gesteld hebben de kroon op het werk te zetten” — a measure in the direction that would have enabled us to crown the work — that is, to complete the conquest of Groot-Atjeh that the day-order of 5 September 1879 would, two months later, declare accomplished.
The Governor-General’s reluctant tolerance
The closure was reluctantly tolerated by the Gouverneur-Generaal, who wrote — in the qualification Van Heutsz preserves verbatim — that he “slechts in den maatregel berustte onder uitdrukkelijk voorbehoud, dat daaraan het karakter van een zeer tijdelijken oorlogsmaatregel niet mocht worden ontnomen”:
“Ware de Generaal v. d. Heijden in deze richting niet nader gedwarsboomd geworden door de onverzettelijkheid van den G. G., die schreef: «Dat hij slechts in den maatregel berustte onder uitdrukkelijk voorbehoud, dat daaraan het karakter van een zeer tijdelijken oorlogsmaatregel niet mocht worden ontnomen»”.
The Gouverneur-Generaal’s voorbehoud (reservation) — reservation — was that the closure must remain a zeer tijdelijken oorlogsmaatregel (very temporary war-measure) — a very temporary war-measure — and must not acquire the character of a permanent colonial policy. The reservation was, in Van Heutsz’s reading, the Gouverneur-Generaal’s attempt to confine the closure to the operational sphere and prevent it from becoming the stelsel (system) that the scheepvaartregeling (shipping regulation) of Scherer and Laging Tobias would later generalise. Van Heutsz’s counter-factual — “Ware de Generaal v. d. Heijden in deze richting niet nader gedwarsboomd geworden” — is the rhetorical frame within which the entire post-1881 decade is judged: had the General not been thwarted in this direction by the Gouverneur-Generaal’s onverzettelijkheid (obstinacy), the closure would have been the kroon op het werk (crown on the work) — the crown on the work — that the day-order of 5 September 1879 would declare accomplished, and the scheepvaartregeling that the General would have prescribed in his Nota of 19 April 1880 would have been the durable form of the temporary dwangmaatregel (coercive measure) the Gouverneur-Generaal had reluctantly tolerated.
Significance
The second harbor closure of 5 July 1879 is, in Van Heutsz’s narrative, the act the author calls “karakter” — character — and the precedent that established the eigen persoonlijke verantwoordelijkheid formula as the General’s constitutional answer to the Gouverneur-Generaal’s eigenmachtig objection. Its significance in the Aceh Wiki History record lies in four things. First, it was the operational complement of the XXVI Moekims campaign — the General’s attempt to seal the coast against external supply at the moment of his decisive campaign against the second Sagi of Groot-Atjeh — and the dwangmaatregel that would, in Van Heutsz’s reading, have enabled the colony to “de kroon op het werk te zetten” — to crown the work — that the day-order of 5 September 1879 would, two months later, declare accomplished. Second, it was the constitutional inversion of the first harbor closure of 1878 — the General’s eigen persoonlijke verantwoordelijkheid answer to the Gouverneur-Generaal’s eigenmachtig objection, and the precedent that established the krachtige individualiteit of the bevelhebber as the colony’s only effective instrument of policy. Third, it was the act Van Heutsz names “karakter” — character — and the act he describes as “geen daad van militaire willekeur” but “een krachtige door het gezond verstand geboden dwangmaatregel”: the direct response to the Gouverneur-Generaal’s eigenmachtig genomen willekeurig maatregel objection of 7 February 1879. Fourth, it was the act the Gouverneur-Generaal reluctantly tolerated under the voorbehoud that it “slechts in den maatregel berustte onder uitdrukkelijk voorbehoud, dat daaraan het karakter van een zeer tijdelijken oorlogsmaatregel niet mocht worden ontnomen” — the qualification that confined the closure to the operational sphere and prevented it from becoming the stelsel that the scheepvaartregeling of Scherer and Laging Tobias would later generalise.
See Also
- Van der Heijden
- Van Lansberge
- First harbor closure (1878)
- XXVI Moekims campaign (1879)
- Day-order of 5 September 1879
- Blokkade
- Scheepvaartregeling
- Van Raders
- Scherer
- Laging Tobias
- Groot-Atjeh
- De onderwerping van Atjeh (Van Heutsz, 1893)
- 1879
Source
De onderwerping van Atjeh, door J. B. van Heutsz, Majoor der Infanterie, gewezen Chef van den Staf in Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden. ‘s-Gravenhage: De Gebroeders Van Cleef; Batavia: G. Kolff en Co., 1893, esp. pp. 21, 25. OCR-filename: 20260718_105749_DLP-107-De_onderwerping_van_Atjeh_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt.