Andreas Victor Michiels (1797–1849) was a Dutch general who distinguished himself throughout a long military career in the Dutch East Indies and was killed in action on Bali in 1849. He entered military service at the age of seventeen and eventually attained the rank of General, having passed through all intermediate ranks.
Account from Nederlandsch Indië Platen Atlas (1926) — Michiels
The atlas describes him in the context of the two monuments depicted on the same plate: “Andreas Victor Michiels werd in 1797 geboren en trad reeds op 17-jarigen leeftijd in den militairen dienst. Na zich op alle mogelijke manieren onderscheiden te hebben en tot den Generaalsrang te zijn opgeklommen, sneuvelde hij in 1849 op Bali.” (Andreas Victor Michiels was born in 1797 and entered military service at the age of 17. After distinguishing himself in every possible way and having been promoted to the rank of General, he fell in battle in 1849 on Bali.)
The atlas further notes that the Atjeh Monument in the Wilhelminapark at Weltevreden, Batavia, “werd opgericht ter gedachtenis aan de pacificatie van Atjeh” (was erected in memory of the pacification of Atjeh). Michiels himself did not campaign in Atjeh — he died in 1849, twenty-four years before the first Dutch expedition to Atjeh in 1873 — but the monuments are presented together in the atlas as symbols of Dutch military achievement in the archipelago.
Monuments
Two monuments are associated with Michiels and the broader military heritage commemorated in the atlas:
- The Michiels Monument (Het Michielsmonument) at the Waterlooplein in Weltevreden, Batavia, directly commemorating General Michiels.
- The Atjeh Monument (Het Atjeh-monument) in the Wilhelminapark at Weltevreden, erected in memory of the pacification of Atjeh.
Account from Verstege’s Een beroep op het Nederlandsche volk (1886)
Verstege invokes generaal Michiels twice: as an epigraph from his De toestand op Sumatra’s Westkust in 1848 — “Het is mij meer te doen om het wezen der zaak tegen de besmetting van schoonschijnende doch inderdaad gevaarlijke drogredenen te bewaren” (“It is my object to preserve the essence of the matter against the besmirching of fair-seeming but indeed dangerous fallacies”) — and as the example of Bali 1849: in the pamphlet’s review, even the statement in kapitein Weitzel’s history of the third Balinese campaign, “dat MICHIELS Djagaraga behoedzaam en stelselmatig had willen aanvallen” (“that Michiels had wanted to attack Djagaraga cautiously and methodically”), is flatly rejected; Michiels attacked with his characteristic forwardness and boldness — “volgens von Clausewitz de onmisbaarste eigenschappen voor den veldheer” (“according to von Clausewitz the most indispensable qualities of the general”) — because there “the sun of our invincibility had begun to wane”, and seventeen days after the landing the impregnable positions of Djagaraga had been stormed. On 25 May 1849 the general was severely wounded at Kasoemba and died soon after; the troops’ subsequent retreat to Padang Cove let the Balinese again attribute the halting to fear and strengthen themselves more than before, so that operations were resumed only fifteen days later — an episode from which Verstege extracts the rule that immediate pursuit of the enemy is the duty of victory.
See Also
- Atjeh Monument
- Michiels Monument
- Weltevreden
- Aceh War
- Pacification of Atjeh
- J. van Swieten
- Second Aceh Expedition
- Royal Netherlands East Indies Army
Sources
Nederlandsch Indië Platen Atlas met korte beschrijvingen, uitgegeven door Volkslectuur, Weltevreden, Java. Weltevreden: G. Kolff & Co., January 1926. Plate 70 (Monuments at Weltevreden). Atjeh gedurende de tweede expeditie en later, Een Oud Officier, Batavia: Ogilvie & Co., 1876, pp. 10-15.
Een beroep op het Nederlandsche volk in zake het Atjeh-vraagstuk, door J. J. W. E. Verstege (Amsterdam: J. H. de Bussy, 1886), pp. 42-45. OCR: DLP-158.