The Voigt expedition to the IV Moekims (1–3 June 1876) was a Dutch column march under Major of Infantry Voigt from Kota Radja through the IV Moekims, intended to find and capture the notorious chief Toekoe Tjihiq Lamngga and his band of a hundred men at Oedjong Blang Ganing. The band was not found; the resistance of the terrain was the true opponent, and Toekoe Tjihiq escaped again. The expedition was described by H. F. Meijer in Atjeh van 26 December 1875 tot 4 September 1876 (1883).
The target
In the last days of May 1876 rumour spread that the notorious Toekoe Tjihiq Lamngga had settled with a band of about 100 men at Oedjong Blang Ganing, at the foot of the mountains south of the post of Boekit Seboen. The civil and military commander, General Wiggers van Kerchem, sent a column under Major Voigt into the IV Moekims with orders to seek out the band and, if possible, to take its leader.
The column and the march
The column — strong in infantry: 5 European and 8 Madurese officers, 70 European and Ambonese and 200 Madurese non-commissioned officers and men of the 1e Bataljon Barisan van Bangkallang, plus 2 12 cM. mortars with crews, a medical officer, and the controleur D’Engelbronner with some guides — left Kota Radja at four in the afternoon of 1 June. At half past five it reached Pakan Badak; then the wretched state of the ground — the stretch of 3,600 metres took three hours — meant that it was half past eight before the column reached Boekit Seboen. The troops passed the night in the fortification.
At midnight the Atjehnese head expected with guides arrived, fetched from his house by a patrol: Toekoe Tjihiq Lamngga, he said, was no longer at Oedjong Blang Ganing but had withdrawn to the farther kampong Naga Oembang, and his band was now 200 men, partly armed with rifles. When Voigt told the guide the troops would march at four in the morning, the head asked leave to return home — refused, he proposed instead that they march at once for a better chance of success. Voigt rejected a night march: on these narrow dikes between drowned sawahs, a night confusion would have been the certain ally of the guerilla, and the bulk of the column was Madurese barisan, the least drilled and disciplined of all the infantry. Meijer expressly approved the major’s refusal.
The fruitless search
The march at first light again fought the mud: men and horses sank deep, great delay followed, and only when day broke did the pace quicken. At about eight the column reached a small kampong at the foot of the mountains, whose people reported that Toekoe Tjihiq Lamngga had left with his band at half past six that morning — whither, no one knew: presumably to the mountains. Further along, another kampong was indicated by the guides as his last resting place; a reconnoitring company of Ambonese found only two empty houses, recently abandoned. Voigt wished to burn the houses as future enemy hiding-places; at D’Engelbronner’s request he desisted. Small parties sent into the neighbouring kampongs found nothing: everyone could tell the strength of the band, but to the question where it had gone the invariable answer came — naar het gebergte (to the mountains). And that mountain, with its steep rock walls, ravines and hiding places, was closed to day-marches of formed troops.
Voigt returned with his column to Boekit Seboen, and on to Kota Radja by evening. In his report, quoted by Meijer, he wrote:
“Although the population in the IV Moekims ostensibly inspires confidence, and even made a favourable impression on me by the wholly voluntary giving up of cocoanuts to the soldiers, I do not believe that too much importance may be attached to it. Above all the ambiguous attitude of the head who accompanied us, and his evident fear, have fixed in me the certainty that we were deliberately misled in the search for Toekoe Tjihiq Lamngga. Fear of him and of his following, I presume, is the cause of it.”
A report received on 3 June — that on the day before Atjehers had been seen coming through the pass of Gli Taroem out of the IV Moekims and moving along the slopes towards the XXII Moekims — suggested that this had indeed been the band, warned in time by its friends. Prompting in Meijer the standing conclusion: no patrol, no column, could find an enemy who did not wish to be found on his own ground, and only permanent posts could restrain him — the argument that led, five weeks later, to the July sweep and the founding of the post of Kroeëng Raba.
See Also
- Majoor Voigt
- Toekoe Tjihiq Lamngga
- 1e Bataljon Barisan van Bangkallang
- Boekit Seboen
- IV Moekims
- Sweep of the IV and VI Moekims (8-15 July 1876)
- Guerilla warfare in Groot-Atjeh
Source
Atjeh van 26 December 1875 tot 4 September 1876, door H. F. Meijer (Breda: P. B. Nieuwenhuijs, 1883), chapter VII, pp. 204–209.