J. W. Vuijk was a Dutch lieutenant of the Nederlandsch-Indisch Leger who was killed in action at Senelop on 30 March 1896, in the early days of the 1896 crisis that followed Toekoe Oemar’s defection from the Dutch alliance. He is named in the Atjeh-Album of 1896 as the first officer fatality of the siege of the temporary posts, and his portrait is one of the six reproduced in the album’s closing plates of the fallen of the spring 1896 operations.
The siege of Senelop
The Atjeh-Album records that, in the early days of the 1896 crisis, the temporary posts at Anagaloeng, Senelop, Biloel and Lamkoenjit were besieged by the forces of Toekoe Oemar after his defection, and that the besiegers’ fire made the walls of the bentings dangerous for the garrisons. The album’s narrative places the engagement at Senelop on 30 March 1896 — the date of Vuijk’s death — as the first of the major engagements of the siege period. The album records that Vuijk was killed by Atjehnese fire from the kampongranden — the kampong thickets — surrounding the benting, and that his body, followed by eleven wounded and several soldiers, was carried into the gate of the benting as the first offering of Toekoe Oemar’s defection — als eerste offer van Toekoe Oemars afval.
The image of the offering
The Atjeh-Album’s language for Vuijk’s death is striking: the body carried through the gate is the eerste offer — the first offering — of the defection. The sacrificial framing reflects the album’s larger reading of the 1896 crisis as a moment at which the long concentratie period was redeemed by Dutch blood. The same framing is repeated, with variations, in the album’s roll of the fallen: Vuijk’s death at Senelop on 30 March 1896 is followed by the deaths of Geluk at the relief of Biloel and Lamkoenjit on 9 April 1896, Maarschalk at the battle of Tjot Rang on 14 April 1896, and Zon at Senelop on 19 April 1896.
Burial at Kota Potjoet
The album records that Vuijk was buried at the cemetery of Kota Potjoet, whose entrance bears the inscription Aan onze Kameraden, gevallen op het Veld van Eer — To our comrades, fallen on the Field of Honour.
Significance
Vuijk’s significance in the documentary record of the Atjeh-oorlog is as the first officer fatality of the siege period that followed Toekoe Oemar’s defection. His death on 30 March 1896 — three weeks after the defection — established the tempo of the siege: a slow drain of officer casualties that would, by the end of the spring, produce the seven fatalities commemorated in the album’s roll of the fallen. The album’s sacrificial framing of his death — as the first offering of the defection — is a document of the way in which the Dutch popular press interpreted the 1896 crisis as a moment of national sacrifice.
See Also
- Senelop
- Toekoe Oemar’s defection (1896)
- E. P. A. Geluk
- H. L. Maarschalk
- J. B. Zon
- H. O. W. L. Kramer
- C. G. A. C. Krohne
- K. H. Westendorp
- Relief of Biloel and Lamkoenjit (April 1896)
- Battle of Tjot Rang (14 April 1896)
- Kota Potjoet
- Aceh War
- 30 March
- 1896
- Atjeh-Album (Eigen Haard, 1896)
Source
Atjeh-Album van Eigen Haard, uitgave van de N.V. Het Tijdschrift “Eigen Haard”, Amsterdam, 1896, pp. 8, 28, 30 (De Poeassa — Eindelijk Ontzet; Gevallenen, hun Roeping Vervuld!).