H. C. Zentgraaff was the Dutch journalist and author of Atjeh and Sumatraantjes, from whom du Croo borrowed several of the fullest narrative passages of Generaal Swart — the deaths of Pang Nanggròë, Tjoet Meutia, Tgk. di Barat and Tgk. di Mata Ië — and whose judgement of the Acehnese fighter stands as the epigraph of du Croo’s chapter on the patrols.
The epigraph
“The truth is that the Acehnese, men and women alike, have in general fought splendidly for what they saw as their national or religious ideal. Among those fighters there is a very great number of men and women who would be the pride of any people; they yield nothing to the most brilliant of our own figures of war.” — H. C. Zentgraaff, Atjeh.
Du Croo returned to that sentence at the close of the chapter on T. Radja Sabi: “That was the Acehnese drama of T. Radja Sabi and his followers… ‘men and women who would be the pride of any people and who are in no way inferior to the most brilliant of our own war figures’.”
Of the death of Tgk. di Barat and his wife, standing one before the other when a single bullet mortally wounded both, Zentgraaff wrote: “Comme ils tombent bien (how well they fall)… and is there one people on this earth that would not write the downfall of these heroic figures with deep reverence in the book of its history?”
Passages borrowed
- The pursuit and death of Pang Nanggròë by sergeant Slooten in the Paja Tjitjém, 24–26 September 1910 (Atjeh, p. 110).
- The pursuit by W. J. Mosselman and the deaths of Tgk. Sjeh di Paja Bakong, Tgk. Mat Saleh and Tjoet Meutia at the Kroeëng Peutòë, 22–25 October 1910.
- The tracking of Tgk. di Barat by the Ambonese sergeant Dambohpulu and the surprise by Behrens on 22 February 1912.
- The career and death of Tgk. di Mata Ië at Samarkilang on 10 July 1917 (Atjeh, p. 97).
Zentgraaff on the Dutchman in the Indies
Du Croo also quoted Zentgraaff’s characterisation of the Dutch coloniser from his Vaderlandsche Kout, in which Zentgraaff — “who also lived through that old and that new” — argued that the Dutchman’s fault of turning quickly and sharply against persons who stand out above the norm had, from the point of view of colonial policy, the merit of leading him to place system above persons: “Thus there is in his methods little sentiment, but great reasonableness; he has detached them from the persons who carry them out and apply them and raised them to the level on which his best convictions live… The persons go, the system remains. And by this it acquires the great continuity which, in the restless atmosphere in which colonial development will always to some extent live, is so indispensable, and which impresses the Easterner in particular very greatly.”
“The great love of freedom of the Hollander is a guarantee that he will also leave or give the peoples governed by him the greatest possible quantity of freedom… Moreover he has a high sense of justice; his administration of justice ranks, with that of a few other peoples of the North Sea and the Baltic, among the best in the world. It may be much taken up with formalism, but in any case it remained free of the political influence and of the scandals which have besmirched it in, for example, America, France and so on. The Easterner too has confidence in it, even if he is an opponent of Western rule.”
Significance
Zentgraaff was, with du Croo and H. J. Schmidt, one of the principal chroniclers of the last phase of the Atjeh-oorlog from the Dutch side, and the one whose admiration for the Acehnese adversary was most explicit. Through the passages du Croo reprinted, his prose supplies the most vivid narratives in Generaal Swart.
See Also
- Atjeh (book by H. C. Zentgraaff)
- Maurice Henri du Croo
- Pang Nanggròë
- Tjoet Meutia
- Tgk. di Barat
- Tgk. di Mata Ië
- W. J. Mosselman
- General Swart, Pacifier of Atjeh (1943)
Account from Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu
During a journalistic journey in 1937 he coined the name ‘terpentijnstraat’ (turpentine road) for the proposed road through the Tripa valley to Aceh’s Westkust.
Source: J. Jongejans, Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu (Baarn: Hollandia Drukkerij N.V., c. 1938), pp. 80.
Source
Generaal Swart, Pacificator van Atjeh (“General Swart, Pacifier of Atjeh”), by M. H. du Croo, Colonel K.N.I.L. (retired), with the collaboration of H. J. Schmidt, Titular Colonel K.N.I.L. (retired), with a foreword by His Excellency Lieutenant-General K.N.I.L. (retired) G. K. Dijkstra (Maastricht: N.V. Leiter-Nypels, 1943), Chapter I, p. 2; Chapter X, pp. 93–101; Chapter XII, pp. 118–119; List of works consulted, p. 177.
Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu, by J. Jongejans, Oud-Resident van het Gewest Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden, with a foreword by Dr. H. Colijn (Baarn: Hollandia Drukkerij N.V., c. 1938), pp. 80.