Dr. J. W. Naarding was the author of the academic dissertation Het conflict Snouck Hurgronje — Van Heutsz — Van Daalen (1938), published as part XI of the Utrechtsche Bijdragen, which du Croo called “so complete as a study of sources” and used as the principal source for the doctrinal and personal disputes of 1892–1908.
Use by du Croo
Du Croo drew from Naarding the summary of Snouck Hurgronje’s three causes of the persistence of Acehnese resistance, and the argument that “the Atjeh war was not just an ordinary war between two peoples, which could be ended in the ordinary way by a peace, but a new period in the world-historical drama: the Holy War between believers and unbelievers, which received continual spiritual nourishment and guidance from the headquarters of the faith, Mekka, and which permitted an armistice but no lasting peace.”
He also drew from Naarding the statement of the new Atjeh problem: “The great art would then be — and that was the new Atjeh problem — to put an end to the relation between the practitioners of the normal trade of peace and those of the abnormal trade of war among the Acehnese, between farmers and bands.”
The Bijlagen to Naarding’s dissertation supplied du Croo with the documentary core of his eighth and ninth chapters: van Heutsz’s written assessment of Van Daalen as his prospective successor (pp. 62 e.v., 65–66); Snouck Hurgronje’s warning letter to Governor-General Rooseboom of 2 October 1903 (pp. 57 e.v., 69); and the correspondence between van Heutsz and minister Idenburg of 1908 (pp. 151, 168 e.v.).
Du Croo’s reservation
Du Croo endorsed Naarding as a source-study but distanced himself from his judgements of persons: “the conclusions of this writer, where they concern the figure and character of Van Heutsz, were fiercely and, in our opinion, not unjustly contested by many; these are left out of consideration here.”
See Also
- The Conflict Snouck Hurgronje, Van Heutsz, Van Daalen (1938)
- Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje
- Joannes Benedictus van Heutsz
- Gotfried Coenraad Ernst van Daalen
- Alexander Willem Frederik Idenburg
- Maurice Henri du Croo
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 III, pp. 15–16; Chapter VIII, pp. 80–82; Chapter IX, pp. 89–90; List of works consulted, p. 177.