J. K. J. de Stuers — a Dutch Catholic member of the Tweede Kamer of one of the governing parties — is the parliamentary voice who, in the 1904 debate on the Gajoe-Alas-Batak expedition of Van Daalen, drew the most extreme historical parallels in the entire Indies parliamentary record: comparing the expedition to the campaigns of Timoer Lenk and Djengis Khan and characterising it as “beulenwerk” — the work of executioners. The disavowal he suffered at the hands of his fractieleider Kolkman is one of the dramatic episodes of the Atjeh-oorlog ([[1873-1904)|Atjeh-oorlog]]-era parliamentary record.
The 1904 speech
After the official figures of the Van Daalen expedition — 2,922 inlanders killed, including 1,149 women and children, “in weinige dagen” — were communicated to the Tweede Kamer, De Stuers made the speech that would become the most quoted single intervention of the Atjehnese-war parliamentary debates. Van Kol (s.d.) had already declared the expedition “erger dan de dagen van Alva’s schrikbewind” — worse than the days of Alva’s reign of terror. De Stuers — a Catholic, and therefore accustomed to draw on a longer historical memory — went further back: “Het is of men op de inlanders een bende bloedhonden heeft losgelaten, het is beulenwerk”. And he compared it explicitly to the campaigns of Timoer Lenk (Tamerlane) and Djengis Khan (Genghis Khan).
The disavowal
De Stuers’ speech “was zo ver buiten de voor een afgevaardigde van één der regeringspartijen gebruikelijke vormen van kritiek gegaan, dat hij door zijn fractieleider Kolkman openlijk en plechtig gedesavoueerd werd” — had gone so far beyond the forms of criticism customary for a member of one of the governing parties that he was openly and solemnly disavowed by his party-leader Kolkman. The disavowal is the most visible party-disciplinary action in the colonial parliamentary record of the period.
The electoral-nightmare retort
At the next begrotingsdebat — after the elections — De Stuers returned to the charge. He called Kolkman’s disavowal “het product ener electorale nachtmerrie” — the product of an electoral nightmare. The incident revealed the strain that the Atjehnese war was placing on the internal cohesion of the Dutch governing parties.
The 230 bayonets
The members of the expedition had, meanwhile, received 148 decorations — among them 44 military Willemsorden — for “180 bajonetten” (it was actually about 230), a generosity that De Stuers found “wat overdadig” — rather excessive. The disproportion between the number of bayonets and the number of decorations is one of the standing ironies of the Atjehnese-war honours system.
Later interventions
De Stuers returned to Atjeh questions in subsequent begrotingsdebatten. He it was who formulated the devies of “het brengen van rust en orde en veiligheid” as the touchstone of colonial policy, and who observed that the Atjehnese war — already 35 years long — was “niet bijster veel” different from a state of perpetual anarchy under indigenous chiefs. The last nine years of the war had, by the official figures, killed 20,000 of a population of about half a million.
Significance
De Stuers’s 1904 speech is the moral climax of the Atjehnese-war parliamentary record. His comparison of the Van Daalen expedition to Timoer Lenk and Djengis Khan is, in the verdict of Vermeulen, the historical reference-point before which all subsequent Dutch discussion of Atjehnese-war atrocities is measured.
See Also
- Van Daalen’s Gajo-Alas-Batak expedition (1904)
- G. C. E. van Daalen
- H. B. van Kol
- A. W. F. Idenburg
- Kolkman (fractieleider)
- Atjeh-oorlog (1873-1904)
- Pacificatie van Atjeh
- I. D. Fransen van de Putte
- Timoer Lenk
- Djengis Khan
- 1904
Source
Schets eener parlementaire geschiedenis van Nederland van 1849 tot 1901, by Mr W. J. van Welderen baron Rengers, 4th rev. ed., Vol. IV: Oost-Indië 1891-1918 by Dr W. H. Vermeulen (‘s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1955), pp. 271-272, 276-278.