The Oost-Indisch Leger — the Netherlands East Indies Army, abbreviated by G. B. Hooijer on his own title-page as O. I. Leger — was the colonial army that garrisoned the temporary posts of Groot-Atjeh described in De verlaten posten in Groot-Atjeh.
Composition of the outpost garrisons
Hooijer’s plates record garrisons of mixed European and Asian composition. At Kroeng Gloempang he identified Javanese wearing shoes not part of their equipment but indispensable in the heavily overgrown terrain; a tall young European with a bold face; two non-commissioned officers; a couple of sturdy Dutch lads without their uniform coats for the heat; and a native soldier in a blue check shirt and short working trousers. At the bivouacs by the Atjeh-rivier near Anagaloeng, soldiers of every skin colour — negers, inlanders, sinjo (Eurasian)‘s en blanke Europeanen — floundered together in the water. An old Ambonese veteran at Toengkoeb supplied the garrison’s chief entertainment.
Garrison strengths were small: two officers and fifty men at Lam Koenjit and at Toengkoeb; three officers and seventy-five men at Tjot Rang; a company of infantry with a detachment of fortress artillery at Kroeng Gloempang. Larger formations named include the 3rd battalion under Overste Sievers and the two columns totalling 2,700 men that relieved Tjot Rang on 16 April 1896.
Conditions of service
Hooijer described the routine of the posts in detail — reveille at half past five, coffee, soup with rice and sambal (chilli relish) at ten, the second meal at half past four, the oorlam before both, the fourteen-day detacheering, pay accumulated and drawn at Kota Radja, and the freedom of dress permitted at isolated stations — as well as the hazards: malaria in the marshes of the XXVI Moekims, mosquitoes at Lam Koenjit, and the absence of medical officers at the smaller posts.
Hooijer’s tribute
He concluded that these were the men who upheld the Dutch flag in Atjeh as in the whole of the Indies: Zij met hun 30 à 40 duizend bewaren de rust onder de millioenen onderdanen, die onze jonge Koningin kan tellen in haar Indisch rijk — thirty or forty thousand of them preserved order among the millions of subjects the young Queen Wilhelmina counted in her Indies empire. He attributed this to their exertion, courage and contempt of death, their indifference to danger and misery, and their cheerfulness in spite of the mind-killing isolation of the outposts, and ended: Eere aan hen!
See Also
- 3de Bataljon Infanterie
- Korps Marechaussee van Atjeh en Onderhorigen
- Ambonese soldiers in the Atjeh outposts
- Kroeng Gloempang
- Oorlam
- Detacheering
- Queen Wilhelmina
- G. B. Hooijer
Account from Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu
Dutch East Indies Army. Built both the Gajoweg and the Atjeh-tram under the most difficult conceivable conditions during the Aceh campaign.
Source: J. Jongejans, Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu (Baarn: Hollandia Drukkerij N.V., c. 1938), pp. 75.
Source
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, title page, pp. 10, 18, 22, 26, 34, 46, 50, 54.
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. 75.