E. B. Kielstra was a Dutch military historian and author of Beschrijving van den Atjeh-oorlog (“Description of the Atjeh War”), published in three volumes at The Hague between 1883 and 1885, with maps. The work was offered in 1902 by the bookseller Martinus Nijhoff at the reduced price of 15 florins (original price 29 florins) in commemoration of the third centenary of the Dutch East India Company.
Work
Kielstra’s three-volume Beschrijving van den Atjeh-oorlog provided a detailed contemporary account of the Atjeh War (1873-c. 1900), one of the longest and most costly colonial conflicts in Dutch history. The work, accompanied by maps, served as a standard reference on the military operations in Atjeh during the first decade of the war, complementing the later and more famous studies by C. Snouck Hurgronje and others.
Account from Vijftig jaren economische staatkunde in Atjeh (1923)
E. B. Kielstra was the Dutch historian whom author Joh. Langhout calls “the well-known writer on Atjeh” and “the excellent connoisseur of Atjeh’s history”, and whose judgements — on the self-contradicting obligations of the London treaty of 1824 and on the contrast between civilian Governor Pruijs van der Hoeven’s policy in Groot-Atjeh and in the Dependencies — anchored Langhout’s assessment of the early decades of the Acheh War.
On the treaty of 1824
Of the London treaty of 17 March 1824 — which prescribed that the Dutch Government would so regulate the relations with Atjeh that the native state, without losing anything of its independence, would not disturb the safety of trade and shipping — Kielstra remarked, in Langhout’s words “rightly”, that both obligations named in the agreement were absolutely in conflict with each other: by the signing, the Dutch authority had taken upon itself at most to “chastise”; the taking of further measures to prevent such deeds in the future had to remain behind. Langhout adds as the agreement’s “principal peculiarity” that it was signed by a Netherlands-Indian governor-general.
On the civil government of 1881–1884
The premature introduction of civil government in Atjeh was named by some the cause why in the years 1881–1884 almost all advantages gained were again lost. Kielstra pointed out the unfavourable contrast between the political policy followed by Pruijs van der Hoeven in Groot-Atjeh and the line of conduct which the same official followed toward the Dependencies, and explained it thus: “Along the coasts we tried to obtain influence, but we had no direct rule to exercise. There one had to negotiate, to persuade, there the matters had to be discussed, and there one saw the Indian official, acquainted with the native population, her customs and usages, in his full strength. In Groot-Atjeh, on the contrary, we had a territory conquered by force of arms, where in the first years the sword had to keep what the sword had won — something that same official did not perceive.”
Works cited
Langhout cites Kielstra’s Het Herstel van het Sultanaat in Atjeh (“The Restoration of the Sultanate in Atjeh”) in connection with Governor Van Teijn’s instruction (1886) to combine the consolidation of the concentration with the restoration of the Sultanate under Dutch protectorate.
See Also
- A. Pruijs van der Hoeven
- Introduction of civil government in Atjeh (1881)
- Van Teijn
- Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824
Source
A List of the Best Books Relating to Dutch East India, Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague (1902).
Vijftig jaren economische staatkunde in Atjeh, by Joh. Langhout (The Hague: N.V. Boekhandel v/h W. P. van Stockum & Zoon, 1923), pp. 18, 44–45, 60.