Korps Marechaussee van Atjeh en Onderhorigen

The Korps Marechaussee van Atjeh en Onderhorigen was the elite Marechaussee (military police / light infantry) corps of the K.N.I.L. raised for counter-insurgency work in Aceh and its dependencies — the corps whose soldiers were known to themselves and to the Acehnese as Manisee or Marsosé, whose Marechausseelied and korpslied were composed by Dominee Thenu, and whose dardanellen (point-men), bekas (spoorzoekers) and bivak (camp) culture are the principal subject of Oom Ambon van het K.N.I.L.. The corps was the instrument by which the Aceh War was militarily finished — by the method of small, highly trained patrouilles operating with local intelligence against a religiously motivated resistance — and the institutional home of the book’s named Ambonese soldiers: Nussy, Thijs de Fretes, Tanamal, Salawono and the rest.

Formation and the Manisee name

The corps was formed for the Aceh war. Its soldiers were known as Manisee (also Manisé) or Marsosé — names that resounded in the Marechausseelied: “Manisee-Manisee! ‘t Is terlaloe Manisee!” The refrein of the Marechausseelied — “Manisee-Manisee! ‘t Is terlaloe Manisee!” — was the soldiers’ own identification. The corps was renamed Korps Marechaussee van Atjeh en Celebes when its theatre was extended to Celebes in the early 20th century; the older name Atjeh en Onderhorigen is the one used in Oom Ambon van het K.N.I.L. for the Aceh era.

The method: small patrouilles and the dardanellen

The corps’s method was the small patrouille — a brigade or two, with dardanellen (point-men) at the front, bekas (spoorzoekers) reading the footprints, and a bivak (camp) built each night with klewang as the only tool. The colonne — a small force of forty-odd militairen with dwangarbeiders as dragers — was the operational unit; the colonne Schmidt of 1910-1911 is the book’s set-piece example. The method had been developed in the Van Heutsz era and was brought to its perfection by officers like Schmidt and patrouillecommandanten like Vastenou and Dersjant.

The dardanellen|dardanel — the point-man — was the key figure. Nussy “was dardanel geweest bij Vastenou en Dersjant, vermaarde patrouillecommandanten, die schitterende resultaten hadden geboekt.” The dardanel went ahead, alone or in pairs, and shot first; his was the most dangerous post in the corps, and the most decorated.

The brigade hierarchy

On Aceh the brigade hierarchy was: the baas (the brigadecommandant, a European sergeant or sergeant 1e kl); the pang (the sergeant 2e kl, so called on Aceh); the keutjhi (the korporaal). The brigade was divided in three groepen accordingly. The soldiers divided themselves into kongsis by bangsa — Ambonezen + Timorezen together; Menadonezen; Javanen + Soendanezen + Madoerezen together — for gezamenlijk koken and other huishoudelijke bezigheden on patrouille.

The songs and the dominee

The corps’s Marechausseelied and korpslied were composed by Dominee Thenu. The Marechausseelied — with its refrein “Manisee-Manisee! ‘t Is terlaloe Manisee!” and its third regel “Hari-hari naik goenoeng” or “Satoe mati ganti sepoeloeh” — was the soldiers’ own identification. The korpslied — with its refrein “Hai marsosé, hai marsosé… memboeroeh moesoeh th’ tjapé-é, naik-toeroen goenoeng, masoek-kaloear rimba, memtjari bekas dani anak marsosé!” — narrated the daden of the corps vanaf de oprichting.

The decorations

The corps was the great nursery of M.W.O. ridders in the colonial army. Salawono (Ridder 3e klas) earned his 4e klas at the storming of Limboer and his 3e klas on Celebes. Nussy became Ridder 3e klas for the colonne Schmidt. Schmidt received the Eresabel for 1910 and the M.W.O. 3e klas for 1911. The four retired M.W.O.-ridders who acted as slippendragers at the funeral of Dominee Thenu — Salawono (3e kl.), Pattiasina, Kazen and Pattipuluhu — were all old Marechaussees.

Significance

The Korps Marechaussee van Atjeh en Onderhorigen is the institutional hero of Oom Ambon van het K.N.I.L.. The book’s argument is that the corps — through its method of small patrouilles, its dardanellen|dardanel system, its bekas spoorzoekers, and its songs — was the instrument by which the Aceh War was actually finished. The corps is also the book’s principal theatre of Oom Ambon: the Ambonese soldier of the Marechaussee is the figure through whom Dames makes his argument about what the colonial army was and what was lost in its dissolution.

Account from In Memoriam Maurice Henri du Croo (1951) — Marechaussee in Atjeh

The Marechaussee in Aceh was the Korps Marechaussee te voet (Foot Marechaussee Corps), an elite military police unit of the K.N.I.L. specifically deployed in the Aceh War to conduct counter-guerrilla patrols in the rimboe (jungle). Its members became known for their gruelling long-range patrols and intimate knowledge of the Acehnese terrain. The corps was central to the Dutch effort to pacify Atjeh after 1873, and in the 1920s the Marechaussee continued to mount patrols deep into the jungle.

Maurice Henri du Croo, who served in Atjeh from 1925 at his own request, encountered members of the Marechaussee and later co-authored the book Marechaussée in Atjeh with Kolonel Schmidt to document their experiences. Du Croo himself knew individuals who had become “grote namen in de geschiedenis” (great names in history) through their service in the corps. The life of the Marechaussee soldier was also sketched in du Croo’s Sergeant Weers en de Zijnen, which depicted the bivouac life, inspections, and the small field hospitals typical of the Acehnese campaigns.

Source: In Memoriam Maurice Henri du Croo (1951), references to “Marechaussée in Atjeh” and du Croo’s service with the corps, pp. 5, 6, 10, 20.

Account from Atjeh by H.C. Zentgraff (1938)

Formation: the djaksa’s advice

Zentgraff records the founding of the Korps Maréchaussée as beginning with the advice of hoofddjaksa Mohamad Arif of Koetaradja, whose overzicht for the 2 April 1930 jubilee was prepared by Kapitein Struijvenberg: that the colonial troops were on the wrong road, that the Atjeher would never be won by a defensive geconcentreerde linie, and that the only remedy was a number of soldiers chosen for personal courage and self-trust, armed like the resistance with the blanke wapen, organised in mobile detachments that would go and seek the Atjeher instead of waiting for him. The advice met with the onverdeelde afkeuring of professor Snouck Hurgronje, who in his Verslag over de politiek-religieuze toestanden in Atjeh tore both the hoofdpenghoeloe Hadji Abdoelah and the hoofddjaksa to pieces. Despite Snouck’s felle critiek, Mohamad Arif’s advice prevailed; the korps was formed in 1890 and kapitein Notten became its first commander.

The mixtum weapon

The young korps carried een mixtum van Westersche en Oostersche dingen — underofficers and men the karabijn, but also a klewang and an Atjehsche rentjong. Een opmerkelijk verschijnsel: even the Javanese maréchaussée’s droegen schoenen, in days when the Inlandsche infantry went barefoot. A brigade was small: hoogstens één baas met achttien karabijnen en klewangs — one European sergeant (baas) with eighteen Ambonese, Menadonese or Javanese maréchaussée’s. Their war-cry was Potong kepala! — cut the head!

The geconcentreerde-linie period

In the slappe periode der geconcentreerde linie the korps was held back; three letters of the governor of 10 September, 26 October, and 21 December 1892 forbade offensief optreden in het voorterrein door hinderlagen of patrouilles van Uw korps. After the overloopen van Teukoe Oemar in March 1896 — den moreelen kaakslag that broke the pacifist policy — the korps came into its own under Van Heutsz and Van Daalen. The overval of Aneukgalong of 28 March 1896 showed what the brigades could do; the Gajoetocht of 1904 made them famous.

The two divisions

By the late 1920s the korps was organised in divisions. The 1e Divisie lay at Blang Kedjeren in the Gajoe-Loeës, the most isolated post in Atjeh; the 2e Divisie at Koeala Beh near the mouth of the Tripa in the Meulabosche. The maréchaussée-lied runs: Divisie satoe djaga poetjoet Tripa, Divisie Doewa djaga koeala — the first watches at the source of the Tripa, the second at its mouth.

Traditions of the korps

The korps kept its traditions tight. A tamoe-fonds — every ventje contributed his share — feasted any patrol that came in from elsewhere; for the officers every stranger in the ressort was gast der officieren. The five strokes on the klok of the bivak announced the returning patrol. The dardanellen — figures of importance like Renjaan, dardanellen van kapitein Gortmans — kept order in the bivaks; the lontjeng maréchaussée, the cicade that chirped at ten minutes before six, marked the post of the schildwacht. The 40-year jubilee of 2 April 1930 was celebrated as a Kandoeri Rajeu — a great slametan — both in Indië, where luit.-gen. H. A. Cramer went himself to Atjeh, and in Den Haag, where the Witte dinner gathered minister Colijn, luit.-gen. Swart, gen. maj. tit. Veltman, luit.-kol. Kempees, kol. van Gheel Gildemeester and the rest of the photograph. Zentgraff closes: Er was bij geen enkel korps zoo mooie kameradschap als bij dit, zooveel onderling vertrouwen en zelfbewustheid, zooveel gezonde eerzucht.

Atjeh, door H.C. Zentgraff. Gedrukt bij Drukkerij “De Unie”, 1938, Batavia.

Origins

The corps made its first public appearance in June 1896, the day after the departure of the Regeeringscommissaris Vetter, when the Dutch outpost Aneu’ Galong, occupied by the Acehnese, was retaken after “a splendid night march and a lightning attack with cold steel” by the marechaussée of captain Jhr. Graafland, well supported by a platoon of the 3rd Battalion armed for the first time with repeating rifles. “The first “public” appearance of this young élite corps, in which the new fighting tactics against the Acehnese enemy were embodied.” The blow told: 110 dead remained in the captured fortification after a fierce and honest fight which cost the Dutch six dead and thirty-three wounded, four of them officers, and in which Teungkoe Mat Amin lost his life.

Method

Under van Heutsz the method of the corps was defined against the older warfare: “the bulletproof little forts were pulled down, the breastworks of posts and bivouacs were replaced by barbed wire, patrols and ambushes forestalled the nocturnal firing, the practice of ‘bringing home’ became far too dangerous against troops so mobile and so aggressive; base and line of operations became obsolete concepts.”

Lamster described the consequence: independent columns could operate at full strength against the enemy for days at a time, up to a full week, without having to fritter away part of their force on a normally idle line of operations; later the days became weeks and the weeks months. Provisions were carried for only five or six days and the rest bought on the way or, in wholly hostile territory, foraged. Van Daalen’s march into the Gajò and Alas interior was made with a column of two hundred marechaussées carrying six days’ provisions and lasted five and a half months.

Organisation and daily life

The corps was organised in divisions, each of some twelve brigades. The bivouacs in the plain and in the mountains held their brigades ready to fall in fully packed and equipped within a quarter of an hour at the first whistle — “three days’ provisions on the man, so many days’ provisions with the train, a short inspection, a blast on the signal whistle, and the umpteenth patrol marched out on the trail of Teungkoe or Teukoe This or That… through rain and darkness, through primeval forest and swamp, along the beds of the rocky mountain streams, cutting its way through the dark, oppressive forest.”

In the years after 1908 the Kompeuni disposed, for the first time, “commanders and soldiers who had formed themselves in the hard work of war, who in their armament and equipment were adapted to the business of fighting and tracking, who fought the adversary with his own weapons and his own methods, who were day after day and night after night on the war-path.”

Defeats nevertheless occurred: “more than one careless patrol commander was startled at night with his men by the screaming war-cry of attacking bands — and then it was as a rule too late. More than one brigade lost carbines — and a carbine always meant dozens of new fighters in the holy war, who banded together around that weapon.”

Trackers

The spoorzoekers were the corps’s decisive asset. The Ambonese sergeant Dambohpulu, “a twenty-four-carat forest-runner,” who found the traces of Tgk. di Barat’s foragers at the Aloeë Soea in 1912, is du Croo’s model: he read from the nature of the leaf, of the break, of the impression in the ground beneath and the sharpness of the edges of footprints “how many men have passed, and when,” and noticed that in some places the leaves were trodden somewhat more firmly into the ground than usual — “for an animal does not hide its tracks in the forest; only man does that, and if one sees a cut branch in the forest, or the like, then for a tracker that is worth as much as an authentic report of the band’s march.”

Other named trackers include Wokas, Mamahit, Tarmin, Wakary and Sinkey of W. J. Mosselman’s brigade.

The great commissions

The corps’s greatest single achievement of the pacification years was the destruction of the Tirò Teungkoes by H. J. Schmidt and his two famous brigades under Molier and Von Gilsa, who devoted years exclusively to that task — “the great epic of those stirring days … a classic example from the colonial “small war”,” described at length in Marechaussee in Atjeh.

Officers

Among the officers and brigade commanders of the corps named in du Croo’s book, in addition to Schmidt, are Jhr. J. J. Boreel, F. Darlang, G. F. B. Watrin, Th. J. Veltman, A. Geertsema Beckeringh, F. P. A. van Gheel Gildemeester, A. H. C. Roelofsen, H. Behrens, W. Muurling, C. A. Snell, Van Eck, Hein Meijer, G. F. P. Gosenson, J. van Arkel, W. A. Herold, Kaniess, Scheurleer, Van der Vlerk, G. K. W. F. de Vaynes van Brakell Buys, M. Schouten, W. J. Mosselman, Slooten, Jenae, Bossert, Gackstätter, Wisse, Loeff, Roobaart, Hanff, J. H. C. Vastenou and P. Nutters.

Instruction

The corps’s conduct towards the population was regulated by the General Instruction for Commanders of columns and patrols of 26 February 1912, which set out at length the humane treatment required.

Significance (du Croo, 1943)

The marechaussée was the instrument by which the Atjeh-oorlog was won and the pacification executed; “to them, and when they departed, to the successors they had trained,” was entrusted the final task of eliminating the last irreconcilables, so that at Swart’s retirement in 1918 only T. Radja Tampo’ remained unfound.

Account in Hooijer’s De verlaten posten in Groot-Atjeh (1897)

The Korps Marechaussee van Atjeh en Onderhorigen was the Netherlands Indies gendarmerie corps raised for service in Atjeh, described by G. B. Hooijer as het dappere korps Marechaussée — the brave corps of Marechaussée — and designated to provide the police supervision of the districts of Groot-Atjeh that were to be brought under regular administration in 1896.

The projected role

Hooijer recorded that at the beginning of 1896 the temporary posts were to be converted into fixed settlements met al den aankleve van dien — with all their appurtenances: clearance of terrain, the building of bridges, the laying of roads, dykes and tramways, een krachtig politietoezicht van het dappere korps Marechaussée, and regular administration by acting controleurs.

This programme amounted, in Hooijer’s words, to een feitelijk in bezit nemen van wat tot dusver uit zijn handen in leen was ontvangen — an actual taking into possession of what had hitherto been held in fief from the hands of Teukoe Oemar — and Hooijer offered it, tentatively, as a possible explanation of Oemar’s defection in March 1896.

Account from the Jubileum-nummer of 1930 — the fortieth anniversary

For the corps’s fortieth anniversary on 2 April 1930, and for the grant to it of a vaandel (colour) by Queen Wilhelmina, the Batavia daily Het Nieuws van den Dag voor Nederlandsch-Indië issued the Extra Jubileum-nummer Het Korps Maréchaussée in Atjeh, styling the corps De Atjehsche Garde — the Atjehnese Guard — and placing on its masthead the motto attributed to Cambronne, “La garde meurt, mais ne se rend pas!” The koninklijk besluit granting the colour recited that the corps had “sedert de oprichting een belangrijke rol vervuld bij de vertegenwoordiging en handhaving van het Nederlandsch Gezag.”

Foundation and original purpose

The jubilee account gives the corps’s full official style as Korps Maréchaussée te voet in Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden and dates its institution to a Gouvernementsbesluit of April 1890, made under the further approval of the King. Its original purpose was to exercise police work inside the geconcentreerde stelling of Groot-Atjeh, and it was “voorbestemd om die taak over te dragen aan het burgerlijk bestuur, zoodra de toestanden het zouden toelaten” — destined to hand that task over to the civil administration as soon as conditions permitted.

The provocation was the state of affairs after the concentratie decision of 19 August 1884: small bands crept inside the line, attacked convoys and destroyed engineering works, and overvallen occurred “met schier verbijsterende regelmaat.” The carrying of weapons by the Atjehnese population was made punishable and a passenstelsel introduced, but the evil was not thereby overcome, and a separate corps was raised.

The first establishment

Only one divisie was at first designated: a captain-commandant, one first lieutenant, a European sergeant-major, a European fourier, twelve European sergeants, twelve non-European sergeants, twelve non-European corporals and 180 non-European maréchaussées. Of these it was required that they make themselves acquainted with “taal en adat” — the language and the adat of the population — in order to win confidence and obtain reliable intelligence.

Recruitment was from officers, non-commissioned officers and “de beste niet-Europeesche manschappen van het Leger.” Placement with the corps “is een onderscheiding geweest en is dat gebleven”; a European soldier had first to gain non-commissioned rank, and even then admission depended on his record.

From police work to field operations, 1896

From 1890 to 1896 the corps worked inside the concentrated line, performing police duties and also administrative work — laying out registers of the kind kept by the B.B., in which possessions and trades were recorded. From 1896 it also entered the purely military field, seeking out the enemy in his hiding places; the jubilee number credited that extension to the initiative of the then captain Jhr. G. J. W. C. Graafland, carried out “met ontembare energie.” The corps first took the field in its entire composition — three officers and 221 non-commissioned officers, corporals and men — at Ana’ Galoeng on 29 June 1896.

Growth, stations and pay

By Gouvernementsbesluit of 3 March 1899 the corps was brought to 20 officers and 1,212 men in five divisions of three afdeelingen, each subdivided into four brigades; military administration was placed under a field officer, for which the plaatselijk commandant at Koeta Radja was soon designated. An annual sum was placed at the disposal of the Civil and Military Governor to reward maréchaussées who had excelled. Commanders of divisions and afdeelingen were, where circumstances required, charged with the administration as civiel-gezaghebber.

In 1898 the corps stood: Staff at Koeta Radja; 1st Division at Selimoen; 2nd at Indrapoeri; 3rd at Tjot Mantjang and Glé Broet; 4th at Tjot Goet; 5th at Lam Baroe and Lho’-Nga. In 1910: 1st at Blang Kedjeren; 2nd at Meulaboh; 3rd at Takèngan; 4th at Lam Meulo; 5th at Lho Soekon, where it still lay in 1930.

Members were paid extra — captains on the scale of the General Staff, lieutenants and onderluitenants on that of the Engineers, with a separate scale for the lower ranks. Exempt from garrison duty, they ran their own menage. Their uniform was distinguished by bloedvingers on the collar corners and a flat curl on the sleeves, gold for officers and orange cloth for the men. They were armed with a karabijn — first the Beaumont, later the Mannlicher — and with the klewang, “het specifieke wapen van den Atjeher, waarmede hij thans zelf werd bestreden.”

Later history and losses

In 1914 the Maréchaussée became part of the arm of the Infantry. Reduced in 1925 to 18 officers and 1,072 men under the policy of versobering (austerity), it was raised again towards the end of 1927 to 23 officers and 1,214 men after the Westkust action, a new division being formed with Bakongan as its station. In the period 1890–1930 approximately 950 members of the corps fell on the field of battle and about 250 were wounded; most of the deaths occurred during the patrouilles.

The corps spirit

The chief factor in its success was, in the editors’ judgement, “de uitstekende korpsgeest, welke de Maréchaussée van de andere Wapens heeft onderscheiden” — see Korpsgeest der Maréchaussée. Its watchword was “Eén voor allen, allen voor één,” and only two words were allowed value: Doel and Bereiken.

A more reflective judgement

Alongside the celebratory framing, the same issue recorded Colonel L. A. Snell’s judgement that the Atjehnese people was “onderworpen, doch niet verzoend” — subjected but not reconciled — and that the Netherlands had done it “leed, zeer veel leed” which it was the duty of the younger generation to make good; and W. J. Mosselman’s bitter passage on the neglected indigenous veterans, whom he described as carried off “als vergeten cadavers” and whose treatment he called a matter of Eereschuld, a debt of honour.

Account from Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu

Dutch colonial military police. The marechaussée takes 5–6 days on the paardenpad from Takengon to Blang Kedjerèn; an untrained person needs a week.

Source: J. Jongejans, Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu (Baarn: Hollandia Drukkerij N.V., c. 1938), pp. 79.

Sources

Oom Ambon van het K.N.I.L., by G. W. T. Dames, Maj. Inf. K.N.I.L. b.d. (‘s-Gravenhage: Koninklijke Bibliotheek, 1954), chapters “Van recruut tot pensioen,” “De buitenpost,” “Ooms leger,” “De colonne Schmidt,” “Dominee Thenu,” “Thijs,” and “De patrouille.” In Memoriam Maurice Henri du Croo (1951), pp. 5, 6, 10, 20 (references to Marechaussée in Atjeh and du Croo’s service with the corps).

Generaal Swart, Pacificator van Atjeh (“General Swart, Pacifier of Atjeh”), by M. H. du Croo, Colonel K.N.I.L. (retired), with the collaboration of H. J. Schmidt, Titular Colonel K.N.I.L. (retired), with a foreword by His Excellency Lieutenant-General K.N.I.L. (retired) G. K. Dijkstra (Maastricht: N.V. Leiter-Nypels, 1943), Chapter III, pp. 18–19; Chapter X, pp. 93–101; Chapter XII, pp. 116–117 and illustrations.

De verlaten posten in Groot-Atjeh, door G. B. Hooijer, Gep. Luit.-Kolonel O. I. Leger, met 24 platen (Haarlem: De Erven F. Bohn; Batavia: G. Kolff & Co., 1897). Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen, Centrale Boekerij, Amsterdam. OCR-filename: 20260719_140140_DLP-134-De_verlaten_posten_in_Groot_Atjeh_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt, p. 54.

Acknowledgement of sources. This article is a single consolidated account combining the material previously held in this entry with the account given in De verlaten posten in Groot-Atjeh (1897) by G. B. Hooijer. Dutch terminology has been rendered in English, the original Dutch being retained only in direct quotations and in bibliographic citations.

Het Korps Maréchaussée in Atjeh: De Atjehsche Garde, 1890 - 2 April 1930 (“The Corps of Maréchaussée in Atjeh: The Atjehnese Guard”), Extra Jubileum-nummer of Het Nieuws van den Dag voor Nederlandsch-Indië issued for the fortieth anniversary of the corps (1930), pp. 1-16. Offprint DLP-143, Bibliotheek KITLV, accession 621 116 794.

Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu, by J. Jongejans, Oud-Resident van het Gewest Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden, with a foreword by Dr. H. Colijn (Baarn: Hollandia Drukkerij N.V., c. 1938), pp. 79.

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