Generaal Wiggers van Kerchem

Generaal Wiggers van Kerchem was a Dutch kolonel (later generaal) of the Indische leger who served as tijdelijk bevelhebber of the Dutch forces in Atjeh during generaal Pel’s absence at Buitenzorg from July to November 1875, and again definitief from 10 March 1876 after Pel’s sudden death at Lamjoeng. He was, in Borel’s account, the man who let Pel’s aanvallende achievements lapse back into the afwachtende houding — the second coming of van Swieten’s passive system.

The Interim Command

During Pel’s three months’ leave, which began on 12 June 1875, Wiggers van Kerchem held military and civil command ad interim. His administration was not without accomplishment: under it the Poelolo Bras lighthouse was completed on 20 June 1875 and its light first ontstoken, and the post of Sinangri was occupied in July 1875 without enemy opposition, considerably improving the stelling at its weakest point between Oeleh Leh and Soerian. But the enemy attempt to break the south line in the night of 21–22 June 1875 — bij tijds verijdeld — and the steady harassment of September–November, when the Atjehneezen “hadden de gelegenheid gebruikt om versterkingen naby onze posten op te werpen” and several detachments south of Kota Radja and at Lampriet were “in groot gevaar om afgesneden en in de pan gehakt te worden,” confirmed Pel’s conviction on his return that the afwachtende stelsel had to be abandoned at once.

The Definitive Command and Reversion to Passivity

Wiggers van Kerchem took over definitively on 10 March 1876, two weeks after Pel’s death, and inherited the stelling-Pel at its furthest extent — from the mouth of the Kroeng Raba on the west coast, through the newly conquered IV, VI and IX, to Pango on the right bank of the Atjeh-rivier, with lt.-kol. Engel already at Kwala Gigieng since 26 February 1876. He was “geen voorstander van het aanvallende stelsel”; he wished not to extend the linie further and to adopt a “strijkt afwachtende houding.” Under his long command the linie Kroeng Raba–Kwala Gigieng, Borel records in 1878, has remained “nagenoeg onveranderd.” The Kroeng Raya eastern closure of Pel’s plan, attempted under generaal Diemont by sea-expedition under kolonel van der Heijden, “leidde tot geene bevredigende uitkomst,” and the plan as a whole was never executed.

Borel’s Judgement

Borel treats Wiggers van Kerchem as a reversion to the spirit of van Swieten: the same distrust of the aanvallende tactiek, the same preference for the spade over the sword. The contrast with Pel’s three months of conquest — Lamtengah (8 January 1876), the Blang Kalla kloof (15 January), Boekit Daroe and the Glitaroem pass (28 January), Atoeh (3 February), Pango (13 February) — is, in Borel’s narrative, the measure of what the Dutch lost when Pel’s slagaderbreuk carried him off.

Account from De onderwerping van Atjeh (Van Heutsz, 1893) — the conflict with Van Lansberge

In the 1893 tract De onderwerping van Atjeh, Van Heutsz places Wiggers van Kerchem as the third name in his catalogue of the eleven Governors of Atjeh — van Swieten, Pel, Wiggers van Kerchem, Diemont, van der Heijden, Pruijs van der Hoeven, Laging Tobias, Demmeni, van Teijn, Pompe van Meerdervoort, Deijkerhof — and is the only one of the eleven removed by the Gouverneur-Generaal van Lansberge for resisting an armed-coercion policy in the Onderhoorigheden. Van Heutsz’s verdict on Wiggers van Kerchem is brief but pointed: he refused to spend Dutch troops on van Lansberge’s east-coast adventures, preferring to keep every available soldier in Groot-Atjeh to complete the Pel plan, and was cashiered for that refusal.

Opposition to van Lansberge’s armed coercion

The conflict that cost Wiggers van Kerchem his governorship was a disagreement with G.-G. van Lansberge over the use of Dutch troops in the Onderhoorigheden. In 1876, Van Lansberge “zag op dit tijdstip (1876) voornamelijk heil in een gewapend optreden in de Onderhoorigheden, om de staatjes die onze souvereiniteit nog niet erkend hadden, door de wapens daartoe te dwingen” — saw at this time (1876) principally salvation in an armed intervention in the Onderhoorigheden, to force the statelets that had not yet recognised our sovereignty to do so by arms. Wiggers van Kerchem refused. Van Heutsz’s wording fixes the position with precision:

“De Generaal-Majoor Wiggers van Kerchem, opvolger van Generaal Pel, kon zich met deze inzichten niet vereenigen, hij zag geen heil in een agressief optreden met de wapenen in de Onderhoorigheden, waarvan de gevolgen z. i. niet te berekenen waren en gaf er verre de voorkeur aan, om vooralsnog alle beschikbare troepen in Groot-Atjeh te houden, noodig ter voltooiing van het programma van den Generaal Pel.” — Major-General Wiggers van Kerchem, successor of Generaal Pel, could not associate himself with these views; he saw no salvation in an aggressive armed intervention in the Onderhoorigheden, the consequences of which, in his opinion, were incalculable, and he far preferred for the present to keep all available troops in Groot-Atjeh, necessary for the completion of Generaal Pel’s programme.

The General’s position was that an armed adventure in the east-coast statelets would have incalculable consequences, and that the available troops were needed in Groot-Atjeh to finish what Pel had begun. The disagreement was strategic, not temperamental: Wiggers van Kerchem’s reading of the situation was that Pel’s coastal closure was the precondition for any later coercion of the Onderhoorigheden, and that to siphon off troops before the closure was complete would jeopardise the one operation that had been begun in earnest.

The Merbou proxy: arming Tekoe Moeda Augkasa

The test case for the disagreement was the war then being fought on the Oostkust between Simpang Olim and Kerti, in which the Dutch-hostile Tandjong Semantoh had thrown in its lot with Simpang Olim against Kerti. Van Lansberge wished Dutch troops to be sent to the support of Kerti. Wiggers van Kerchem refused direct intervention and instead resorted to a proxy: he armed and subsidised the previously expelled chief of Merbou, Tekoe Moeda Augkasa, to do the fighting on Kerti’s behalf. Van Heutsz’s text is precise on the material content of the subsidy:

“In den strijd op de Oostkust destijds tusschen Simpang Olim en Kerti uitgebroken en waarbij het ons, evenals Simpang Olim, vijandige Tandjong Semantoh aan de zijde van Simpang Olim stond, was de Generaal dan ook tegen het zenden van troepen tot steun van Kerti zooals de Gouv. Gen. wenschte en bepaalde hij er zich toe om aan het vroeger verdreven hoofd van Merbou, Tekoe Moeda Augkasa, die Kerti met 500 man wilde helpen, 150 achterlaadgeweren met munitie en 3000 dollars te zenden, teneinde Simpang Olim en Tandjong Semantoh afbreuk te doen.” — In the struggle on the East Coast then broken out between Simpang Olim and Kerti, in which Tandjong Semantoh, hostile to us as to Simpang Olim, stood on the side of Simpang Olim, the General was therefore against the sending of troops to support Kerti as the G.-G. wished, and confined himself to sending to the formerly expelled head of Merbou, Tekoe Moeda Augkasa, who wished to help Kerti with 500 men, 150 breech-loading rifles with ammunition and 3000 dollars, in order to do damage to Simpang Olim and Tandjong Semantoh.

The 150 breech-loading rifles, the ammunition, and the 3000 dollars dispatched to Tekoe Moeda Augkasa constituted Wiggers van Kerchem’s alternative to the direct military expedition van Lansberge had ordered. It was a proxy strategy of the kind Van der Heijden and his successors would repeatedly refuse to adopt — arming one Acehnese chief against another — and it would, in the next governorship, give way to exactly the armed coercion Wiggers van Kerchem had declined to perform.

Replacement by Diemont (November 1876)

Van Lansberge’s response was to dismiss Wiggers van Kerchem and replace him with Generaal Diemont, who would carry out the armed coercion the Gouverneur-Generaal had prescribed. Van Heutsz records the dismissal in a single sentence that contains both its motive and its consequence:

“De Gouverneur-Generaal echter, die, door het met de wapenen dwingen van erkenning onzer souvereiniteit, hoopte de voor die weerspannige staatjes nog steeds voortdurende dure blokkade te kunnen opheffen, liet toen den Generaal Wiggers van Kerchem vervangen door den Generaal Diemont, die, onmiddelljkk na zijn op- treden in November 1876, door het zenden van eene militaire expeditie, Simpang Olim en Tandjong Semantoh, tot erkenning van onze souvereiniteit dwong en tot regeling van de destursaangllgenneeenn daar een controleur plaatste, gedekt en gesteund door een militaire bezetting.” — The Governor-General, however, who, by forcing recognition of our sovereignty with weapons, hoped to be able to lift the costly blockade that had been continuously maintained against those recalcitrant statelets, then had Generaal Wiggers van Kerchem replaced by Generaal Diemont, who, immediately upon taking office in November 1876, by sending a military expedition, forced Simpang Olim and Tandjong Semantoh to recognise our sovereignty and to regulate their relations, placing a controleur there, covered and supported by a military garrison.

The motive van Lansberge avowed was the lifting of the dure blokkade — the costly blockade — that had been maintained against the recalcitrant statelets: an armed recognition of Dutch sovereignty was to be traded for the relief of the naval expense. Diemont executed the trade within days of his appointment. Wiggers van Kerchem, whose refusal to do so had cost him the governorship, is not mentioned again in the 1893 tract.

Significance (per Van Heutsz)

Wiggers van Kerchem’s brief governorship is, in Van Heutsz’s narrative, the strategic interlude between the Pel plan and its completion under Diemont — and the moment at which the Regeering first committed itself to the armed coercion of the coastal statelets that would absorb the next four years of Dutch operations. The catalogue of Governors that Van Heutsz assembles places Wiggers van Kerchem third, between the author of the Pel Plan and the general who carried out the coercion Wiggers van Kerchem had refused to undertake. His proxy strategy in the Simpang Olim–Kerti war — the arming of Tekoe Moeda Augkasa of Merbou with 150 rifles and 3000 dollars — is the earliest recorded Dutch subsidy of an Acehnese chief against his rivals in the Onderhoorigheden, the precedent for the later, often-criticised pattern of Dutch proxy politics on the east coast.

Sources

De geschiedenis van Nederland in onzen tijd, by J. A. de Bruyne, Directeur der Hoogere Burgerschool te Zierikzee. Deel IV. 1872-1883. Nieuwe uitgave. Schiedam: J. F. Dupont, 1912, Hoofdstuk I, pp. 75-79.

Onze vestiging in Atjeh, critisch beschreven, by G. F. W. Borel, Kapitein der Artillerie. ‘s-Gravenhage: D. A. Thieme, 1878. pp. 303, 306–308, 311, 320–322, 332. De Atjeh-Oorlog: Kort Overzicht van Oorsprong, Verloop en Gevolg, door J. A. Kruijt. ‘s-Gravenhage: Loman & Funke, 1896. Chapter V, “Periode onder de generaals Wiggers van Kerchem en Diemont, van Maart 1876 tot Juni 1877.” OCR-filename: 20260716_140310_DLP-101-De_Atjeh_oorlog_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt, pp. 20, 22–23.

Account from H. F. Meijer (1883) — the commander of the consolidation

H. F. Meijer’s official history Atjeh van 26 December 1875 tot 4 September 1876 (1883) shows Wiggers van Kerchem as the commander of the consolidation that followed Pel’s death. Between 9 March and 4 September 1876 the Dutch troops did not act offensively: the general had the order to restrict himself to the consolidation of the occupied position and to the urgent building of roads and clearings. Under him the posts of Atoë Noord (March), Biloel Zuid (May) and Kroeëng Raba (July) were founded; Colonel K. van der Heyden was placed over the south-east line on 1 April; vivres-depots for two months were stored at Lambaroe and Mesigit Pagar-Ajer; and the long lines of posts were at last joined by beaten roads.

Nevertheless Meijer’s chronological record also shows the price of the pause: nearly every night of that spring brought firing on one or more posts, and nearly every month a bloody incident — the ambushes of 21 March, 7 April, 16 April, the disasters of Lampagar (2–3 May), 18 June, 14 July, 17 July and 28 August.

When the general did move, he moved in force: he personally directed the march of the three columns to Biloel Zuid on 13–15 May and the two-column march of the July operation into the IV and VI Moekims, at the end of which he placed the post at the mouth of the Kroeëng Raba. On 4 September 1876 he led part of the troops to the XXVI Moekims for the closing of the XXII and XXVI Moekims from the sea — resuming Pel’s design.

Source

Onze vestiging in Atjeh, critisch beschreven, by G. F. W. Borel, Kapitein der Artillerie. ‘s-Gravenhage: D. A. Thieme, 1878. pp. 303, 306–308, 311, 320–322, 332.

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. pp. 9–10. OCR-filename: 20260718_105749_DLP-107-De_onderwerping_van_Atjeh_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt.

tags	person, dutch, colonial, military, general, bevelhebber, aceh-war, atjeh, governor, 19th-century, 1875, 1876, acting-governor
aliases	Wiggers van Kerchem, generaal Wiggers, Generaal-Majoor Wiggers van Kerchem, de Generaal Wiggers van Kerchem, kolonel Wiggers van Kerchem, tijdelijk bevelhebber Wiggers, G. B. T. Wiggers van Kerchem, General Wiggers van Kerchem, Van Kerchem

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