General‑Major Van Teyn was the civil and military governor of Atjeh who personally assumed command of the combined Dutch forces during the Edi River expedition (1890). He coordinated the arrival of reinforcements, including the warships Samarang and Bennkoeenn, and oversaw the subsequent assaults on Acehnese positions along the Edi.
Command Role
- June 1890: Directed the combined land‑sea operation that ultimately forced the Acehnese to abandon their fortified hill‑tops and villages such as Pedawa Pondong.
Account in Hooijer’s De verlaten posten in Groot-Atjeh (1897)
General‑Major Van Teyn was the Dutch general who granted a salary to Toekoe Tjoet Toengkoeb, oeleebalang of the XIII Moekims Toengkoeb, on condition that he should no longer fight against the Netherlands — the act by which that chief was detached, at least nominally, from the priestly party of Teungkoe di Tiro.
The pacification of Toekoe Tjoet
G. B. Hooijer recorded that Toekoe Tjoet had for years made common cause with the priestly party under Teungkoe di Tiro, then supreme in the XXVI Moekims, and that only after Generaal van Teyn hem een bezoldiging had toegekend, op voorwaarde, dat hij niet meer tegen ons zou vechten — General Van Teyn had granted him a salary on condition that he no longer fight the Dutch — had he laid aside the klewang.
The arrangement proved fragile: by 1893 Toekoe Tjoet was again giving grounds for suspicion, arbitrarily evacuating the benteng at Lamgoet and thereby playing it back into the enemy’s hands, and he was ultimately banished to Malaboeh.
Significance
The episode is an example of the Dutch policy of bezoldiging — the paying of salaries to Achehnese chiefs in exchange for neutrality or cooperation — which underlay the whole alliance system described in De verlaten posten in Groot-Atjeh, from Van Teyn’s stipend to Toekoe Tjoet through to the salaried legioen of Teukoe Oemar.
See Also
- Atjeh
- Edi River expedition (1890)
- Samarang (ship)
- Bennkoeenn (ship)
- T. Tjoet Toengkoeb
- Tengkoe Sjech Saman di Tiro
- XIII Moekims Toengkoeb
- Bezoldiging
- Lamgoet
Sources
De geschiedenis van het Nederlandsche Korps Mariniers van 1665‑1945, OCR transcription, pages 144‑145, 20260707_232246_DLP-55-De_geschiedenis_van_het_Nederlandsche_Korps_Mariniers_van_1665_1945_OCR.txt.
De verlaten posten in Groot-Atjeh, door G. B. Hooijer, Gep. Luit.-Kolonel O. I. Leger, met 24 platen (Haarlem: De Erven F. Bohn; Batavia: G. Kolff & Co., 1897). Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen, Centrale Boekerij, Amsterdam. OCR-filename: 20260719_140140_DLP-134-De_verlaten_posten_in_Groot_Atjeh_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt, p. 24.
Acknowledgement of sources. This article is a single consolidated account combining the material previously held in this entry with the account given in De verlaten posten in Groot-Atjeh (1897) by G. B. Hooijer. Dutch terminology has been rendered in English, the original Dutch being retained only in direct quotations and in bibliographic citations.