Vetter's Farewell Parade (27 June 1896)

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tagsevent, dutch, colonial, military, diplomacy
aliasesVetter's Farewell Parade, Parade of 27 June 1896, Afscheidsparade Vetter, 27 June 1896

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Vetter’s Farewell Parade (27 June 1896) was the large military parade held on the drill-ground near Petjoct for all the troops at Koeta-Radja and Oleh-leh on the eve of the departure of Lt.-Gen. Vetter as Regeeringscommissaris — the ceremonial close of the Vetter interregnum and of the first semester of the Atjeh-oorlog in 1896. The participants comprised eight battalions of infantry, the korps maréchaussée, one squadron of cavalry, two bergbatterijen, one company of genietroepen, and one company of vestingartillerie. Vetter, in his capacity as Regeeringscommissaris, inspected the troops and addressed each commander with words of farewell and thanks for the difficult period. The same day, by commandementsorder from the Army Commander, commanders were ordered to remind their subordinates of Title VII of the Crimineel Wetboek voor het krijgsvolk te lande — the Dutch Military Criminal Code — regarding “geweldenarijen en strooperijen” (violence and poaching). Strict prohibition on robbing and plundering, and on taking poultry, goats, sheep, or rams — Articles 174, 176, 177, 181, 184. Burning was only allowed when ordered by the Chefs.

Background

By the last week of June 1896 the Regeeringscommissaris had accomplished the mission for which he had been dispatched to Atjeh three months earlier. The defection of 29 March 1896 had been answered; the buitenlinie had been evacuated and the Dutch forces concentrated; the three-day offensive of 23–25 May had broken Teungkoe Oemar’s stelling at Lam-Pisang and had destroyed his house; the tuchtiging of Lam-Krak and the tuchtiging of the V Moekims Montassik had reduced the principal Achehnese redoubts; the Ladoeng landing had completed the operational cycle. The political realignment was under way: Panglima Bintang had submitted on 20 June 1896, and the disarmament of the buitenlinie chiefs was in progress.

Vetter — having accomplished his mission — was preparing to depart for Batavia on 28 June 1896 aboard the stoomschip Coen. Before his departure, however, he wished to take formal leave of the troops who had carried the burden of the spring campaign. A parade was ordered on the drill-ground near Petjoct — the open ground outside Koeta-Radja that had long served as the principal parade-ground of the Atjeh garrison.

The Parade

The parade was held on 27 June 1896. The participants comprised a substantial portion of the Dutch forces in Atjeh: eight battalions of infantry (drawn from the 3e, 5e, 6e, 7e, 9e, 12e, 14e, and 15de Bataljons — the same battalions that had carried the principal burden of the fighting of May and June); the the elite corps that had been first into many engagements — Senelop, Tjot Tjako, Baha, Kroeng-Kali; one squadron of cavalry; two mountain artillery batteries; one company of engineers; and one company of fortress artillery. The parade was, in this sense, a comprehensive display of the Dutch forces that had fought the spring campaign.

Vetter — in his capacity as Regeeringscommissaris and as Army Commander — inspected the troops. He addressed each commander with words of farewell and thanks for the difficult period — a personal gesture that acknowledged the burden that the spring campaign had imposed on officers and men alike. The parade was, in its way, the ceremonial close of the Vetter interregnum: a public acknowledgment by the Regeeringscommissaris that the mission had been accomplished and that the troops had done their duty.

The Commandementsorder on Military Discipline

The same day — 27 June 1896 — by commandementsorder from the Army Commander — i.e., from Vetter himself, commanders were ordered to remind their subordinates of Title VII of the Crimineel Wetboek voor het krijgsvolk te lande — the Dutch Military Criminal Code — regarding “geweldenarijen en strooperijen” (violence and poaching). The order imposed a strict prohibition on robbing and plundering, and on taking poultry, goats, sheep, or rams — Articles 174, 176, 177, 181, 184 of the Code. Burning was only allowed when ordered by the Chefs.

The commandementsorder was, in its way, as significant as the parade itself. The spring campaign had been marked by extensive tuchtiging — the systematic burning of Achehnese kampongs as a punitive measure. The verbranding of Anak-Paja, Djirat, Lho-Nga, Lam-Caboes, Lam-Paja, Mantjang, Lam-Baroe, Lamlon, and Noesa on 25 May 1896; the razing of Lam-Asan of 30 May–2 June 1896; the burning of the Lam-Krak kampongs on 10 June 1896; the burning of versterkingen in the line boon-Adjé–Lam-Soet on 17 June 1896 — each of these had been an act of deliberate destruction, ordered by the Chefs but executed by the troops. The commandementsorder of 27 June 1896 was an attempt to re-impose discipline on the practice: to confine tuchtiging to authorised operations, to prohibit the informal plundering that had attended the burning, and to remind the troops that the Crimineel Wetboek applied in Atjeh as it did elsewhere in the Indies. The order was, in this sense, both a moral injunction and a legal one — a recognition that the spring campaign had pushed the liprovided that of what the Dutch military code permitted, and a declaration that the liprovided that would henceforth be enforced.

Significance

Vetter’s Farewell Parade of 27 June 1896 was the ceremonial close of the Vetter interregnum and of the first semester of the Atjeh-oorlog in 1896. The parade itself was a public acknowledgment by the Regeeringscommissaris that the mission had been accomplished and that the troops had done their duty. The commandementsorder on military discipline — issued the same day — was, however, of equal or greater significance: it was a recognition that the tuchtiging campaigns of May and June had pushed the liprovided that of what the Dutch military code permitted, and a declaration that the liprovided that would henceforth be enforced. The juxtaposition of the two acts — the parade of thanks and the order of restraint — captured, in microcosm, the dual character of the Vetter interregnum: a period of military recovery that had restored the strategic initiative, but that had also imposed considerable hardship on the Achehnese civilian population. The next day — 28 June 1896 — Vetter would depart for Batavia, the office of Civiel en Militair Gouvernur would be restored under Kol. Stemfoort, and the first semester of 1896 would be brought to its formal close.

See Also

Source

ATJEH ‘96, door A. Kruisheer, Kapitein der Infanterie O.I.L., met 2 kaarten en 4 portretten (Weltevreden: N.V. Boekhandel Visser & Co, 1913). Instituut Kern, Leiden. OCR-filename: 20260715_163243_DLP-89-Atjeh_96_Met_2_kaarten_en4_DOORA_KRUISHEER_Kapiteinder_Infanterie_nemoretriever-ocr-v1_OCR.txt, p. 332.

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