Hoynck van Papendrecht was a Dutch captain of infantry in Atjeh in 1875–1876, military commander of the post at Lampagar in the VI Moekims. He was killed inside his own quarters in the night attack of 2-3 May 1876 — the disaster for which the official history of the war distributes the blame expressly to his own misplaced confidence. He is to be distinguished from C. P. Hoynck van Papendrecht, the painter of the famous picture of Van Heutsz and his staff at Batèë Ilië.
The post and his confidence
The post at Lampagar had been founded at the request of the kampong itself, and from its beginning the atmosphere there seemed trustworthy: the heads came every day to pay their respects and the people offered food daily for sale. Hoynck van Papendrecht — who often declared that he trusted the Atjeher very little in general — here judged special precautions unnecessary, and by May the garrison was still quartered in an open camp with only a living fence. H. F. Meijer, in Atjeh van 26 December 1875 tot 4 September 1876 (1883), suggests that the eventual soothing influence of the heads may have persuaded him, for the night of 2–3 May, even to orders reducing the guard around the post.
The night of 2–3 May 1876
On the evening of 2 May the kampong heads Hadji Soliman and Toekoe Amat asked — and the Captain granted — that the sentries on the north side of the camp should not fire too quickly at possible population patrols that night. Somewhat deaf, he rarely joined their conversations but was always kept informed of them by his officers. At about four the enemy stormed over that northern fence. The Captain, who since one o’clock had been working on the administration of his company in the gallery of the officers’ quarters, rose from his writing-table to get his weapons from the sleeping room; he was cut down in his own room by the klewang of someone the artillery sergeant Trijns saw behind him. His body was found mutilated beyond recognition at first light.
His men, rallied by the Third, junior officer Lieutenant Schnelle, held the camp and the post. The disaster of Lampagar stands in Meijer’s book as the model of the te veel vertrouwen (too much trust) fault of the first consolidation year.
See Also
- Night attack on Lampagar (2-3 May 1876)
- Van de Roemer
- Schnelle
- Lampagar
- Guerilla warfare in Groot-Atjeh
Source
Atjeh van 26 December 1875 tot 4 September 1876, door H. F. Meijer (Breda: P. B. Nieuwenhuijs, 1883), chapter VII, pp. 166–176.