Van Heutsz-Monument te Batavia is a subject named in General Swart, Pacifier of Atjeh (1943) by M. H. du Croo, in connection with the history of Atjeh and the governorship of H. N. A. Swart.
Account in du Croo’s Generaal Swart (1943)
From Joannes Benedictus van Heutsz
Du Croo quoted the portrait drawn by J. W. Meijer Ranneft, chairman of the Volksraad, at the unveiling of the Van Heutsz Monument at Batavia: “Van Heutsz is not limited. His mind is as mobile as his mobile columns. He does not remain within the concentrated line, nor on Java; he brings peace to the whole of Atjeh and to the whole of the Netherlands Indies. He does not remain confined within the few years of his rule, but lays out new and distant paths for administration, education, finance and much besides.” He was not afraid of the representative system; he wanted a Volksraad. “Alles kan” (“everything is possible”) was his device — “and for this man that is no mere phrase, but the short expression of what he wants and of what he is.”
From Batavia
H. N. A. Swart arrived there from the Netherlands on 17 June 1887; served at the Subsistentenkader there from 11 December 1895; visited it incognito with van Heutsz before departing for Atjeh in 1908 — “Haroun al-Rashid and his vizier” at the Restaurant Versteeg opposite Hotel De Nederlanden, where the disguise failed; and returned there on 22 September 1918 to take up the Vice-Presidency of the Council. The Governor-General told him: “I am glad again that during my absence General Swart is at Batavia.” The Van Heutsz Monument was unveiled there.
From Volksraad
Van Heutsz “is not afraid of the representative system; he wants a People’s Council,” said J. W. Meijer Ranneft, chairman of the Volksraad, at the unveiling of the Van Heutsz Monument. De Locomotief had objected in 1918 that “now, however, that the People’s Council has ushered in a new era for colonial development,” the daily leadership of the Council of the Indies would better have been entrusted to a man more familiar with the political currents in the colony. Three years later the Java-Bode recorded: “For many, the interest he always showed in the People’s Council has been surprising; he was often an attentive visitor at its sittings. A man who, after a career through the autocratic schools of the Outer Possessions, followed the rise of parliamentarism with so much interest proved that he understood the voice of the times.”
See Also
- Joannes Benedictus van Heutsz
- Batavia
- Volksraad
- H. N. A. Swart
- General Swart, Pacifier of Atjeh (1943)
- Atjeh
Source
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), passim.