H.C. Zentgraff — signing himself in the book’s preface simply DE SCHRIJVER (“the author”) — was the ex-military officer who in 1938 published Atjeh at Drukkerij “De Unie” in Batavia, the source-book on which this whole encyclopaedia of the Atjeh-oorlog substantially rests. He had himself served in Atjeh — “ik stel er eene eer in, tot dat Leger te hebben behoord, óók in Atjeh, en het zit mij diep in het hart” — and from that vantage wrote with the explicit purpose of stepping outside Dutch self-complacency and letting the Atjeher, for once, speak.
Method and sources
In his Inleiding Zentgraff sets out his method. He had been permitted by the Legerbestuur — the Army Administration — to consult the military archives, where he found zeer belangrijk materiaal (very important material). He further gathered information from velen die in den krijg eene rol van beteekenis speelden (many who played a role of consequence in the war), and in Atjeh from verschillende personen, ook Atjehers (various persons, including Acehnese). The aim was to give the sketches historischen grond (historical grounding) and to do justice to both parties: “A tout seigneur tout honneur!” His book contains no more romance than the events themselves afford; all opsmuk (embellishment), every offer aan de fantasie (tribute to fantasy) would only damage the geweldige realiteit (tremendous reality).
The Sumatraantjes articles
Zentgraff also wrote for the Dutch-Indies press under the collective title Sumatraantjes. He cites, in his chapter on the Lhong tuchtingsexpeditie of 1897, his own article on Lhong: “En als de grijsgroene mannen hier rondgaan, is dit altijd met eene bijzondere voorzichtigheid welke geen detail over het hoofd ziet…” — “And when the grey-green men go about here, it is always with a special caution that overlooks no detail…” The same articles formed the medium through which he carried his Atjeh memories to a colonial-reading public.
Significance
Zentgraff’s Atjeh is a singular document of colonial-war literature: written by an officer who honoured his own army but refused to write a zoet boek (sweet book) in which every Dutchman was a hero and every Atjeher a traitor. He cited the Acehnese poet Dokarim at length, set the Dutch edition of Tengkoe Koetakarang’s Tadkirat arrakidin before his readers as a verdict on Dutch bad faith toward generaal éénoog, and reproduced the letters of Van Daalen to his wife. The work is the foundation-stone of this wiki.
See Also
- H.C. Zentgraff’s Atjeh (1938)
- Van Heutsz
- Van Daalen
- Snouck Hurgronje
- Dokarim
- Tengkoe Koetakarang
- Tadkirat arrakidin
- Lhong punitive expedition (1897)
- Aceh War
- 1938
- Batavia
- Sumatraantjes
Source
Atjeh, door H.C. Zentgraff. Gedrukt bij Drukkerij “De Unie”, 1938, Batavia. OCR-filename: 20260709_002148_DLP-81-Atjeh_OCR.txt.