A. Geertsema Beckeringh — Ridder van de Militaire Willemsorde met Eeresabel — was the marechaussée captain who commanded the 5th and later the 2nd Division and was twice Civil Authority at Meulaboh, and under whose administration the pacification of the west coast began in 1909.
The turn of 1909
Improvement on the west coast came only “when at last in 1909 the civil authority, the well-known constabulary captain Geertsema Beckeringh, could dispose of sufficient means of power”: a mobile marechaussée column under captain Darlang temporarily occupied first the mouth of the Wòjla and later Boebon; Schmidt cleared up in Teunòm; and the pacification of the difficult Boven Wòjla under Scheurleer and from the bivouac Tanòh Mirah produced the submission of two hundred resistance men, who were helped with rice and seed-padi. Thereafter only Beneden Wòjla, Boebon and Seunagan remained unquiet in the Meulaboh country.
Travel without escort
Van Heutsz recorded in his letter to minister Idenburg of July 1908 that Geertsema Beckeringh in the Meulabohsche travelled without military escort as regards Wòjla and did not report it because it was forbidden — but that “after the removal of T. Bén Peureumeuë, Geertsema Beckeringh no longer dared go up to upper Meulaboh alone either.”
See Also
- Meulaboh
- Westkust van Atjeh
- F. Darlang
- H. J. Schmidt
- Wòjla
- Corps of Military Constabulary of Atjeh and Dependencies
- Joannes Benedictus van Heutsz
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), Chapter IX, p. 91; Chapter XI, p. 110 and illustration p. 170.