Geij van Pittius — majoor A. R. W. Geij van Pittius, den pas opgetreden chef van den staf (the newly entered Chief of Staff) — was the Dutch major who, as Chief of Staff to Generaal van der Heijden in 1878, was the intellectual author of the June 1878 strategic reversal that abandoned the coastal expeditions of the Onderhoorigheden (Dependencies) and attacked the Sagi of the XXII Moekims directly — the reversal that opened the XXII Moekims campaign of July–October 1878, brought the submission of Habib Abdoel Rachman and Tekoe Moeda Baid on 13 October 1878, and produced, by September 1879, the day-order declaring that “geheel Groot-Atjeh ten onder gebragt” was (the whole of Groot-Atjeh had been subjugated). Van Heutsz’s 1893 tract De onderwerping van Atjeh credits Geij van Pittius by name as the officer whose vertoogen (representations) brought the General to the decision; the citation is drawn from Kielstra’s Beschrijving van den Atjeh-oorlog (III, noot, bladz. 249), Van Heutsz’s principal secondary source throughout the tract.
The 1877 advice: the Zuidoosterlinie into the XXII Moekims
Geij van Pittius had first proposed the inrukken — the moving-in on — the XXII Moekims as early as 1877, during the Atjeh visit of Gouverneur-Generaal van Lansberge. Van Heutsz’s account, citing Kielstra, fixes the date and the advice:
“Deze had reeds in 1877, tijdens de aanwezigheid te Atjeh van den Souverneur-Generaal van Lansberge, er op aangedrongen, de Zuidoosterlinie langs de Atjeh rivier te verleggen en daartoe de XXII Moekims in te rukken”.
The advice was to shift the Zuidoosterlinie — the south-eastern line of Dutch posts that ran along the Atjeh river — into the territory of the Sagi of the XXII Moekims and so to bring military pressure directly on the first of the three Sagi (federation) federations of Groot-Atjeh. Van Lansberge had refused to follow the advice — “wellicht dewijl toen, om de vermelde redenen, van een verzoeningspolitiek, die veel goedkooper was, heil voor de toekomst verwacht werd” — probably because, for the reasons mentioned, hope was at that time placed in a verzoeningspolitiek (conciliation policy) that was much cheaper, and from which, for the future, salvation was expected. The verzoeningspolitiek of March 1877 — conciliation in Groot-Atjeh combined with armed coercion in the still-hostile Onderhoorigheden — had been the policy on which Van Lansberge had staked his March 1877 visit to Atjeh; Geij van Pittius’s advice to abandon the conciliation of the Groot-Atjeh chiefs and attack the Sagi’s directly was, in March 1877, still unwelcome at the Gouverneur-Generaal’s (Governor-General’s) level.
The June 1878 persuasion of Van der Heijden
The advice was renewed in June 1878 — after the Inval van Habib Abdoer Rachman (June 1878) (the incursion of Habib Abdoer Rachman of June 1878) had exposed the failure of the verzoeningspolitiek and had triggered, by telegram of 13 June 1878, the Gouverneur-Generaal’s order to Van der Heijden to make an end of the resistance in Groot-Atjeh. Geij van Pittius, by then pas opgetreden — newly entered into office — as Chief of Staff, brought the General to the decision. Van Heutsz’s account names Geij van Pittius by name:
“Het waren vooral de vertoogen van den pas opgetreden chef van den staf, den majoor A. R. W. Geij van Pittius, die den bevelhebber tot dit besluit brachten”.
The besluit — the decision — was the abandonment of the planned Pasangan expedition and the concentration of the full strength of the Atjeh garrison against the Sagi federations of the interior. Geij van Pittius’s argument was, Van Heutsz records, both negative and positive: negative against the coastal expeditions, positive for the direct attack on Groot-Atjeh:
“Thans overtuigde de chef van den staf hem, dat men door expeditiën naar de kuststaten het doel — het einde van den oorlog — niet kon bereiken, en dat alleen eene beslissing kon worden verkregen door in Groot-Atjeh zelf den vijand aan te tasten en te vervolgen, totdat zijne oorlogsbenden allerwegen verslagen en verdreven waren. Alleen op deze wijze zou afdoende gevolg kunnen worden gegeven aan den last der Regeering om Habib’s benden te verdrijven niet alleen, maar ook onschadelijk te maken”.
The argument was that the expeditions to the kuststaten — the coastal statelets — could not achieve the doel (the end of the war), and that a beslissing — a decision, a settlement — could only be obtained by attacking the enemy in Groot-Atjeh itself and pursuing him until his war-bands were everywhere defeated and driven out. Only in this way, Geij van Pittius argued, could effectual compliance be given to the Regeering’s (Government’s) order to drive out and disable Habib’s bands. The argument was accepted by Van der Heijden — “toen besloot de Generaal van der Heijden voorloopig van de expeditie naar Pasangan af te zien en met geheel zijne beschikbare macht voor goed te Groot-Atjeh aan het verzet een einde te maken” — and the XXII Moekims campaign opened in July 1878.
The strategic significance
The reversal was, in Van Heutsz’s narrative, the keerpunt (turning point) of the Atjeh-oorlog — the moment at which the colony, having spent four years dispersing its forces in coastal expeditions against the Onderhoorigheden, turned its full strength on the Sagi’s of the interior. The campaign that followed vindicated the reversal within three months: “binnen drie maanden na den aanvang van den eersten veldtocht in de XXII Moekims, de onderwerping van Habib Abdoel Rachman en van Tekoe Moeda Baid op den 13en October 1878 volgde” — within three months of the opening of the first campaign in the XXII Moekims, the submission of Habib Abdoel Rachman and of Tekoe Moeda Baid followed on 13 October 1878. The XXVI Moekims campaign of 1879 followed; the tocht naar Selimoen of September 1879 closed it; the day-order of 5 September 1879 declared the conquest complete.
The strategic principle Geij van Pittius had articulated — that the doel could not be reached by coastal expeditions and that only the direct attack on Groot-Atjeh could produce a beslissing — was the principle on which Van Heutsz would build his 1893 tract’s central prescription. The rejection of the verzoeningspolitiek and the cajoleering (cajoling) decade that followed Van der Heijden’s dismissal in early 1881 was, in Van Heutsz’s diagnosis, the political reversal of the Geij van Pittius strategic reversal: the colony returned to the dispersal of its forces among the Onderhoorigheden, and the war that Van der Heijden had on the verge of concluding became, after 1881, the chronic colonial ulcer of the next twelve years.
Significance
Geij van Pittius’s significance in the Aceh Wiki History record rests on three things: he was the intellectual author of the June 1878 strategic reversal — the abandonment of the coastal expeditions of the Onderhoorigheden and the concentration of the full strength of the Atjeh garrison against the Sagi’s of the interior — that opened the XXII Moekims campaign and produced, within three months, the submission of Habib Abdoel Rachman and Tekoe Moeda Baid on 13 October 1878; he had first proposed the inrukken of the XXII Moekims — the shifting of the Zuidoosterlinie along the Atjeh river into the territory of the Sagi of the XXII Moekims — as early as 1877, during the Atjeh visit of G.-G. van Lansberge, and the advice had been refused on the grounds of the verzoeningspolitiek of March 1877; and his vertoogen — his representations to Van der Heijden — were the immediate occasion of the besluit of June 1878 that abandoned the planned Pasangan expedition and concentrated the full strength of the Atjeh garrison on the Sagi federations of the interior. The strategic principle Geij van Pittius articulated — that the doel could not be reached by coastal expeditions and that only the direct attack on Groot-Atjeh could produce a beslissing — is the principle on which Van Heutsz would build his 1893 tract’s central prescription, and the rejection of which, after Van der Heijden’s dismissal in early 1881, was, in Van Heutsz’s diagnosis, the political reversal of the Geij van Pittius strategic reversal.
See Also
- Van der Heijden
- XXII Moekims campaign (1878)
- XXVI Moekims campaign (1879)
- Selimoen tocht
- Day-order of 5 September 1879
- Groot-Atjeh
- XXII Moekims
- Atjeh rivier
- Van Lansberge
- Habib Abdoel Rachman
- Inval van Habib Abdoer Rachman (June 1878)
- Tekoe Moeda Baid
- Pasangan
- Onderhoorigheden
- B. C. P. Kielstra
- De onderwerping van Atjeh (Van Heutsz, 1893)
- 1877
- 1878
Source
De onderwerping van Atjeh, door J. B. van Heutsz, Majoor der Infanterie, gewezen Chef van den Staf in Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden. ‘s-Gravenhage: De Gebroeders Van Cleef; Batavia: G. Kolff en Co., 1893, esp. p. 17 (citing Kielstra’s Beschrijving van den Atjeh-oorlog, III, noot, bladz. 249). OCR-filename: 20260718_105749_DLP-107-De_onderwerping_van_Atjeh_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt.