Jan van Swieten

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descriptionDutch lieutenant-general (1807–1888) who commanded the Second Aceh Expedition of 1873–1874, presided over the capture of the Kraton and the proclamation of annexation of Groot-Atjeh, and earlier in his career negotiated the Treaty of 30 March 1857 with the Sultan of Aceh and took command of the third Bali expedition of 1849.
tagsperson, general, dutch, military, colonial, knil, aceh-war, bali-expedition, 19th-century, infantry, achehnese, acheh, atjeh, governor, commander
aliasesVan Swieten, J. van Swieten, General Van Swieten, Generaal Van Swieten, de Generaal van Swieten, Lieutenant-general Van Swieten, Lieutenant-colonel Van Swieten, General, Conqueror of the Acehnese Van Swieten, war-hero Van Swieten, grijzen veldheer en staatsman, Van Swieten (Atjeh), Jan van Swieten commander Second Aceh Expedition, Van Swieten (Atjeh commander), Johan van Swieten, Lt-Gen J. van Swieten, J. van Swieten, Governor of Sumatra's West Coast

39 min read

Jan van Swieten (1807–1888) — known in Dutch as Generaal Van Swieten and styled by his contemporaries the “conqueror of the Acehnese” and the “grey war-hero” — was a Dutch lieutenant-general of the Indies army who, after a long career that took him from the 1849 third Bali expedition through the governorship of Sumatra’s Westkust and the negotiation of the Treaty of 30 March 1857 with the Sultan of Atjeh, was restored to active service in 1873 to command the second Aceh expedition of November 1873–January 1874. He presided over the fall of the Kraton on 24 January 1874 and issued the proclamation of annexation of Groot-Atjeh on 31 January 1874, before returning to the Netherlands in April of that year. He is the principal Dutch commander of the triumph phase of the Atjeh-oorlog in the colonial school readers and the staff histories, and the figure through whom Merac’s Oost-Indisch Journael (1947) narrates the colonial state’s religious politics in Aceh.

The *Na 1795* school-history textbook of F. Roorda records Van Swieten’s role in the campaign in its canonical compressed form: “De 1e expeditie mislukte, Köhler sneuvelde, maar de 2e expeditie onder Van Swieten bracht succes. De Kraton (paleis) van den sultan werd ingenomen, Kota Radja werd de zetel van ons gezag.” (“The 1st expedition failed, Köhler fell, but the 2nd expedition under Van Swieten brought success. The Kraton (palace) of the sultan was taken, Kota Radja became the seat of our authority.”) The second expedition’s success, in the schoolroom memory, is wholly identified with Van Swieten’s name. His departure from Atjeh in April 1874 left the war to a succession of commanding generals — Pel, Wiggers van Kerchem, Diemont, and Van der Heyden — under whose commands the war of conquest became the war of occupation.

Early Career and the Third Bali Expedition (1849)

As a lieutenant-colonel, Van Swieten first came to prominence during the third Bali expedition of 1849, when he acted as the senior army officer after the death of General-Major Michiels. He assumed command of the main force, requested further instructions from the colonial government, and oversaw the withdrawal to Padang Cove before resuming operations against the Balinese at Kasoemba. His hesitation to await further orders from the government led to a temporary cessation of hostilities, but he later renewed the offensive on 10 June 1849, capturing the temple of Soenla Lawas and the settlement of Kasoemba. He also negotiated with the radja of Kloenkoeng, whose submission after the third expedition helped restore Dutch authority in the region.

Governor of Sumatra’s Westkust and the Tractaat of 1857

By 1856 Van Swieten had been promoted to major-general and appointed governor of Sumatra’s Westkust (West Coast of Sumatra). In that year the official J. F. Nieuwenhuizen had opened negotiations with the Acehnese court; the following year Van Swieten brought to conclusion the tractaat of 30 March 1857, ratified by the Governor-General on 9 May. The treaty provided for “bestendige vrede, vriendschap en goede verstandhouding” (“perpetual peace, friendship and good understanding”) between the two realms, free intercourse for the subjects of either, and the rights of the most-favoured nation. Art. 4 bound both governments to suppress piracy and slave-raiding in their own or their influenced territories; the close of art. 6 prescribed severe punishment for those who plundered stranded ships or maltreated castaways; art. 7 required the sultan to recognise the governor of Sumatra’s Westkust as the representative of the Governor-General and to address him in all matters of mutual interest.

The paper, however, “proved to be patient” — the sultan lacked the authority to make his subordinate chiefs observe the stipulations, and new cases of piracy and plundering of stranded ships continued to occur. The failure of the 1857 tractaat would, sixteen years later, furnish one of the pretexts for the Atjeh-oorlog.

Command of the Second Aceh Expedition (1873–1874)

After the failure of the first Aceh expedition and the death of General Köhler in April 1873, the Indies government set about preparing a second expedition that should leave nothing to chance. Troops were levied in the Netherlands, all were equipped with breech-loading rifles, the artillery was reinforced with newer breech-loading guns from Europe, and supplies of every kind — bridging material, headquarters, landing gear, ambulance, postal service — were assembled. The expeditionary force — 6,354 infantry besides officers, 75 cavalry, 656 artillery with 74 guns, and 306 engineers besides 250 free natives — was placed under Van Swieten, “the retired Lieutenant-general J. van Swieten, restored to active service.” Major-general G. M. Verspyck was appointed second-in-command; Van Swieten was at once civil commissioner and military commander, uniting in himself the political and military authority.

The De Kleine Oosterling school reader records the size of the second Aceh expedition in slightly rounded terms: “in November the army was ready. It was the largest that had ever been sent out by us in the Indies. It numbered 8,000 men, besides a further 4,000 servants and labourers. The fleet consisted of 25 ships, which together were manned with 2,000 hands.” Later accounts give the total force as approximately 13,000 troops. The school reader’s framing of Van Swieten as “capable” establishes the contrast with the adversity of the first expedition under Kaler: “the first expedition to Aceh had thus not turned out well. But one did not now sit idle. No, the adversity experienced fired both the Netherlands and the Indies to still greater zeal… and the capable General Van Swieten left the mother country to take supreme command of the troops that were to proceed to Aceh.”

After delays caused by cholera on Java and aboard the transports, the fleet sailed in mid-November and arrived at the Atjeh roadstead between 20 and 29 November 1873. The landing on 9 December 9 December took place east of the Atjehrivier rather than west of it as in the first expedition, both to avoid stronger resistance and to spare the kampong Marassa, whose head, Toekoe Nek, had offered his services. On 13 December 13 December Kota Moesapi was occupied; on 14 December 14 December the enemy’s first line was carried by the storming of Tiban by Verspyck; on 15 December 15 December the mouth of the Atjehrivier was reached.

The Capture of the Kraton (24 January 1874)

Van Swieten first attempted negotiation, sending two letters to the sultan offering terms similar to the Siak tractaat and proposing to wage war “in the manner of civilised nations.” The bearer, the native Mas Soemo Widikdjo, departed 26 December 26 December and never returned — later it was learned that, after being held prisoner a few days, he was murderously killed at Longbatta. The school reader’s parallel account records the same episode: “the two letters to the sultan (carried by the seventy-year-old Javanese who was killed)”.

The operational sequence then proceeded rapidly. On 6 January 1874 the missigit of the Kraton — the great mosque — was taken. On 12 January 12 January the Taman or Kota Goenoengan, the sultan’s fortified pleasure-garden south-west of the Kraton, was stormed and carried on the advice of Toekoe Nek. On 24 January 24 January a reconnaissance discovered that the Kraton had been evacuated; the Dutch flag was hoisted to the strains of the Wilhelmus. The school reader records the moment: “on 24 January our soldiers advanced, in order to enclose the kraton completely. It surprised us greatly that the enemy, who had still been firing heavily the previous day, now let nothing be heard of itself. A detachment of our troops was sent to reconnoitre the kraton more closely. It pushed through the brushwood, climbed a high earthen wall, and entered the kraton. Soon Van Swieten himself followed with more troops. A loud hurrah and the striking up of Wien Neerlandsch bloed by the band made known that the kraton was in our possession.” Van Swieten’s Wien Neerlandsch bloed — the playing of the Dutch national anthem by the military band on the capture of the kraton — became the school reader’s principal instance of the ceremonial triumph of the second Aceh expedition.

The Kraton — the palace-fortress of the sultan — had been the strategic objective of the first expedition; its capture in the second was the proximate Dutch victory of the war. The sultan, however, had fled before the assault, and the capture of the palace did not entail the surrender of the country.

Two days later, on 26 January 26 January 1874, the sultan died of cholera at Pagger Ajer.

The Proclamation of 31 January 1874

On 31 January 31 January Van Swieten issued his proclamation: “the people of Great Atjeh, after a brave defence and a stubborn struggle, has had to yield to the Dutch arms; the people conquered, the Kraton taken, the sultan dead, many chiefs fallen in the struggle; the land therefore, by right of conquest, belongs to the Netherlands-Indian government.” The chiefs of the three sagis and of the Onderhoorigheden were invited to make written submission; those who did so would have the blockade raised and trade, except in weapons of war, restored, on condition of flying the Dutch flag and providing their ships with proper passes. Van Swieten declared Aceh directly governed territory and established Kutaradja (also written Kota Radja) as the administrative capital. The proclamation is the formal founding document of the colonial administration of Atjeh — the legal basis on which all subsequent Dutch governance of the territory rested.

The Rebuilding of the Meusigit Raja

As the conqueror of the Acehnese, Van Swieten also “managed to bring about that, on the part of the government and entirely at its own cost, a new mosque was built, which was given to the Acehnese population to make them forget the suffering of the war and to demonstrate, in the Islamic land par excellence, that the Netherlands respected the Mohammedan religion perfectly.” After the historic storming and burning-down of the Meusigit Raja — the great mosque of Koeta Radja — by Dutch troops during the first Aceh expedition in April 1873, Van Swieten’s rebuilding was intended as a colonial act of reconciliation. The “grey war-hero” addressed some Acehnese chiefs in a missive of 8 February 8 February 1874 with the well-known lines: “that the great mosque would be rebuilt and would be made into a true place of mercy, from which no more death and destruction, but prayers to the almighty God and works of love would go out.”

The book — and the pastoor who narrates the chapter — immediately qualifies: “One should consider that one then lived in the raw reality of the war years.” The Acehnese received the gift with indifference and mockery: “both during the construction and later, the Acehnese stood at his most indifferent towards it. Not one Acehnese made himself available as a workman at the construction, which was entirely performed by Chinese workfolk — that is, by pig-eating unbelievers — and the work was bitterly mocked by the Acehnese. They regarded it as the forced benefaction of their most unsympathetic unbeliever, the Beulanda (Hollander).” Dr Snouck Hurgronje called this House of God — intended as a proof of the colonial state’s reconciling disposition and generosity towards the Acehnese enemy — “one of the many expensive mistakes that marked the beginning of our Aceh interference,” and qualified the mosque as “an empty monument of our folly.”

The Note of 22 April 1874 and the Return to the Netherlands

Before his departure Van Swieten laid down his policy in a note of 22 April 22 April 1874 to his successor Colonel Pel. He wished the defence of Kota Radja itself to be made as active as possible by ceaseless patrols, the establishment of kozakkenposten (Cossack posts), the offering of premiums for the laying down of armed Atjehers, and the levelling of enemy fortifications near Kota Radja. Apart from this the defence was to remain passive: “one must not seek the enemy in his well-built and defended positions, as long as they do not hinder us. His offensive strength is not great and will gradually diminish.” He recognised that the enemy’s defensive strength was considerable, given the nature of the terrain and the close-packed kampongs, and that if he did not submit, the Dutch should rely on the solidity of their positions to force him to it.

On 25 and 26 April 26 April 1874 the troops whose continued presence was no longer needed embarked, and on 26 April the supreme commander, the second-in-command, the general and general staff, with the troops no longer required, left the theatre of war. General Van Swieten considered his task accomplished and departed once more for the mother country; his departure left supreme command in the hands of Kolonel Pel, later appointed general. A force of 128 officers, 1,788 Europeans, 176 Africans, 489 Ambonese and 698 natives remained under Pel’s command. Van Swieten’s later letter of 19 July 19 July 1874 approved Pel’s conduct and recommended the subjection of the IV Moekims, an eastward expansion from Kota Radja, and an attempt to bring the southern parts to submission.

Van Swieten also admitted — both in his note and in his official correspondence — his limited knowledge of the internal political situation of Aceh, noting that there was no central authority and that the sultan was merely a “figurehead”. His seizure of the kraton was one of several simultaneous operations in the 1874 campaign, but it did not lead to lasting control because the Acehnese continued guerrilla resistance.

The 1874 Instructie and the concentrated-defensive plan

Before and after his departure Van Swieten — together with his Nota voor den Kolonel Pel of 22 April 1874 — drew up the founding policy document of the Atjeh government: the Instructie voor den militairen, tevens civielen bevelhebber te Atjeh (Instruction for the military, at the same time civil, commander in Atjeh), approved by Besluit (decree) of the Gouverneur-Generaal of Nederlandsch-Indië of 26 May 1874 No. 1. The Instructie had been drawn up in consultation with the outgoing Gouverneur-Generaal Loudon and the Minister van Koloniën Fransen van de Putte — “de door van Swieten in overeenstemming met den Gouv. Gen. Loudon en den Minister van Koloniën Fransen van de Putte aangewezen weg” (the path indicated by Van Swieten in agreement with Governor-General Loudon and the Minister of Colonies Fransen van de Putte) — and was meant to govern both the prosecution of the war in the interior of Groot-Atjeh and the handling of the still-hostile coastal statelets of the Onderhoorigheden.

The article of the Instructie dealing with the Onderhoorigheden — art. 5 — became, in the later critique of Van Heutsz, the doctrinal weak point of Van Swieten’s system. The text of art. 5 read: “In aanzien van de Onderhoorigheden van Atjeh onderhoudt de militaire en civiele bevelhebber met hen, die onze souvereiniteit hebben erkend, zooveel mogelijk de betrekkingen en tracht hen, die nog niet tot ons zijn toegetreden, door overreding of door blokkade te brengen tot het afleggen der verklaring” — Regarding the Onderhoorigheden of Atjeh, the military and civil commander maintains, as much as possible, relations with those who have recognised our sovereignty, and tries to bring those who have not yet joined us, by persuasion or by blockade, to make the declaration. The article thus contemplated conciliation of the coastal chiefs who had recognised Dutch sovereignty and a blockade — blokkade — of those who had not, but did not commit the colonial state to the systematic closure of the whole coast. Van Heutsz would later argue that art. 5 was insufficient — “dat in verband hiermede ten opzichte van de Onderhoorigheden niet volstaan kon worden met hetgeen art. 5 zijner instructie aangaf” (that, in connection with this, what art. 5 of his instruction indicated could not suffice regarding the Onderhoorigheden) — and that the modification of art. 5 became the central question of the next twenty years.

The 2500-man concentrated defence of Kotja-Radja

The military heart of Van Swieten’s plan was a concentrated defensive line at Kotja-Radja, garrisoned by a small but adequate force. Van Heutsz records that “Deze liet 2500 man achter, om daarmede te bezetten en actief te verdedigen de geconcentreerde stelling Kotja-Radja” — Van Swieten left behind 2500 men to occupy and actively defend the concentrated position at Kotja-Radja. The figure is repeated by Van Heutsz twice in close succession: “Van Swieten toch liet zooals wij zagen 2500 man als bezetting voor Atjeh achter”. The plan rested on the calculation that 2500 men, deployed in a fortified perimeter at Kota-Radja, would suffice to hold the Dutch seat while the coastal statelets were gradually conciliated under art. 5 — a moderate plan, premised on a defensive posture, that avoided the over-extension Van Heutsz would later warn against as the violation of “onze financieele en personeele krachten” (our financial and personnel strength). The troop strength of the entire Atjeh force at this stage, per Kielstra, was “4000 man” — meaning the Van Swieten plan reserved roughly five-eighths of available strength for the Kotja-Radja perimeter and the remainder for the recognised-posts in the Onderhoorigheden.

The premature abandonment of 1875

The Van Swieten plan was abandoned within a year of its adoption. Van Heutsz dates the reversal precisely: “in 1875, op voorstel van Generaal Pel, door den nieuw opgetreden landvoogd, Gouv. Gen. van Lansberge, de door van Swieten in overeenstemming met den Gouv. Gen. Loudon en den Minister van Koloniën Fransen van de Putte aangewezen weg geheel verlaten” — in 1875, on the proposal of Generaal Pel, the newly installed Gouverneur-Generaal van Lansberge wholly abandoned the path Van Swieten had marked out in agreement with Loudon and Fransen van de Putte. The decision was taken in favour of “het op grootere schaal aanvallend optreden” — a large-scale offensive — and the Pel plan of 30 April 1875 substituted the occupation of the entire coastal strip of Groot-Atjeh from Kroeng Raja to Kroeng Raba for the concentrated Kotja-Radja defence.

By 1876 the post-station count had reached forty-seven — “in ‘t einde van 1876 … was het aantal bezette punten in Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden geklommen tot 47” (at the end of 1876 … the number of occupied points in Atjeh and Dependencies had climbed to 47) — and the troop strength, per Kielstra, had risen to “3000 Europeanen, 180 Afrikanen en 5000 Inlanders” with a marine complement of “13 oorlogsbodems, 2 gouvernementstoomers en 4 gewapende kruisbooten” (13 warships, 2 government steamers and 4 armed cruising boats). The Van Swieten plan’s 2500-man concentrated defence had become, by 1876, a 47-post, ~8000-man dispersed occupation. Van Heutsz treats this as the original strategic error of the war — “Feitelijk reeds geheel was afgeweken van het programma van Swieten” (In fact already entirely departed from the programme of Swieten) by May 1875 — and the Van Swieten Instructie as the moderate programme the Regeering had been wrong to abandon.

Van Heutsz’s reassessment in the 1893 tract

Van Heutsz’s handling of Van Swieten in the 1893 tract De onderwerping van Atjeh is the most sustained act of historical rehabilitation in the book. Van Swieten — styled by Van Heutsz the grijzen veldheer en staatsman (grey general and statesman) — is named as the first of the eleven Governors in the catalogue that opens the diagnostic chapter: “Aanvangende met den Generaal van Swieten hebben wij nu den elf Gouverneur van Atjeh” (Beginning with General van Swieten we now have the eleventh Governor of Atjeh). His Instructie and Nota are the first documents Van Heutsz cites in detail; and his 2500-man Kotja-Radja plan is the benchmark against which the post-1875 dispersed occupation is measured. Van Heutsz’s verdict is succinct: “ware den Generaal van Swieten aangewezen weg gevolgd geworden” — had the path Van Swieten marked out been followed — the war would not have become the chronic colonial ulcer it became. The “pennestrijd, aanvankelijk in Nederland gestreden over het militair en politiek beleid van den grijzen veldheer en staatsman, den Generaal van Swieten” — the pamphlet war fought in the Netherlands over the military and political conduct of the grey general and statesman — is invoked as the backdrop against which the post-1875 plans of Pel, Van Lansberge, Van der Heijden, and the Civiel Gouverneur of 1881 must be judged.

Van Heutsz’s Van Swieten is not a hero of the same stamp as Van der Heijden or Van Teijn — the two Governors whose active operations Van Heutsz celebrates — but rather the founding legislator, the General whose Instructie established the constitutional framework within which the later Governors operated, and whose moderate concentration-plan, had it been adhered to, would have spared the colony the policy oscillations Van Heutsz catalogues across the next twenty years.

Departure (April 1874) and the succession

Van Swieten departed Atjeh in April 1874. His departure left the command to General Pel, who served until his death on 24 February 1876, and thereafter to the succession of commanding generals — Wiggers van Kerchem, Diemont, and Van der Heyden — under whom the conquest of Groot-Atjeh was prosecuted through the late 1870s.

Account from Na 1795 (1924) — the schoolroom memory

The *Na 1795* school-history textbook of F. Roorda fixes Van Swieten’s name in the canonical Dutch schoolroom memory of the Atjeh-oorlog. The two clauses on the expeditions’ outcome — “De Kraton (paleis) van den sultan werd ingenomen” (“The Kraton (palace) of the sultan was taken”) and “Kota Radja werd de zetel van ons gezag” (“Kota Radja became the seat of our authority”) — fix the two consequences of the capture of the Kraton of 24 January 1874: the strategic objective achieved, and the colonial capital founded. Van Swieten’s name, together with Köhler and Van Heutsz, is one of the three mnemonic pegs of the Dutch schoolroom memory of the Atjeh war.

The 1874 pamphlet controversy

In 1874, Van Swieten entered the public debate on the second expedition by publishing a letter in Het Vaderland. In that letter he defended his conduct and argued that the expedition had fulfilled its program by taking the Kraton and securing a durable Dutch position. This public defense drew an immediate reply from the pseudonymous Brutus in Open Letter by Brutus to General Knoop, a pamphlet written in support of General Knoop’s judgement that the expedition had been only “slechts ten halve gelukt” — only half successful.

The controversy mattered because it showed how quickly Van Swieten’s military reputation became tied to public print. Admirers treated him as the commander who had reversed the defeat of 1873. Critics answered that the occupation of the Kraton had not brought the submission of Atjeh, and that the campaign had moved too slowly after key successes.

Brutus built that criticism around a clear sequence of events. He argued that too much time had been lost after Tiban, at Penajoeng, before and after the fighting at Lemboe and the Great Missigit, and again after the fall of the Kraton. He treated the Expedition to Bital (12 February 1874), the Expedition to Ketapang Doewa (15 February 1874), and the reverse at Battle of Lampoe Oek (16 April 1874) as proof that the Dutch had captured the center without truly breaking resistance. Van Swieten’s short public optimism in the General van Swieten War Telegrams deepened this criticism when the war continued.

The dispute did not end there. In 1876, the anonymous author of Atjeh gedurende de tweede expeditie en later used official material such as the Commander’s Journal of the Second Aceh Expedition and the war telegrams to defend Van Swieten against Brutus. The debate over his leadership therefore began while the war was still ongoing and quickly widened into one of the first major documentary controversies of the Aceh War.

Legacy

Van Swieten’s expedition marked the first successful Dutch occupation of Aceh’s capital, but it failed to end the war. His decision to leave a garrison without adequate pacification measures laid the groundwork for the prolonged guerrilla warfare that followed — the Atjeh-oorlog would drag on for another three decades, finally ending only under Van Heutsz’s governorship in 1903–1904. In the colonial school readers — above all the *De Kleine Oosterling* school reader of 1901 — Van Swieten is the moral counterpart to Kaler: the capable commander whose success closes the adversity–triumph arc of the school reader’s Aceh War. In Merac’s Oost-Indisch Journael he is the figure through whom the colonial state’s failure to understand Acehnese religious politics is narrated: the conqueror who tried, and failed, to make the Acehnese population forget the suffering of the war.

Significance

Van Swieten’s significance for the encyclopedia of Achehnese history lies principally in two acts. First, his capture of the Kraton on 24 January 24 January 1874 is the principal Dutch military success of the Atjeh-oorlog’s opening phase — the act that transformed the war from a punitive expedition into a conquest. Second, his proclamation of annexation of 31 January 31 January 1874 is the formal founding document of the colonial administration of Atjeh, the legal basis on which all subsequent Dutch governance of the territory rested. His name, together with Köhler and Van Heutsz, is one of the three mnemonic pegs of the Dutch schoolroom memory of the Atjeh war.

Account from Schets eener parlementaire geschiedenis (1955)

The following account is drawn from the parliamentary history of the Dutch Second Chamber as narrated by Vermeulen in the colonial section of the 1955 fourth revised edition of Rengers’s *Schets*.

General Van Swieten — generaal Van Swieten — was the Dutch commander of the second military expedition against Atjeh, which landed in December 1873 with 8,000 men. After a bombardment of the “versterkte vorstenverblijf” (fortified royal residence), the residence was surrounded; it proved to have been abandoned. By Van Swieten’s proclamation, Groot-Atjeh was declared government territory; the fortified kraton was renamed “Kota-Radja”.

The second Atjeh expedition

The source records: “In December van hetzelfde jaar landde een tweede legermacht, 8000 man sterk, onder generaal Van Swieten. Na een bombardement van het vorstenverblijf werd dit omsingeld; het bleek verlaten” (In December of the same year a second army, 8,000 strong, under general Van Swieten, landed. After a bombardment of the royal residence it was surrounded; it proved to have been abandoned). The Van Swieten expedition was thus, in form, the reversal of the Köhler defeat of April 1873.

The Groot-Atjeh proclamation

Van Swieten’s proclamation of Groot-Atjeh as government territory is the first formal Dutch annexation of Atjehnese land. The fortified kraton of the Sultan of Atjeh was renamed “Kota-Radja” — “Fort City” or “Royal Fort” — a name that would, in the Dutch period, become the principal seat of the colonial administration of Atjeh en Onderhorigheden. The renaming is the symbolic act by which the sultanate was, in Dutch eyes, superseded.

The overestimated result

The source’s verdict on Van Swieten’s achievement is direct: “Het bereikte resultaat werd ver overschat” (The achieved result was greatly overestimated). Van Swieten returned with the main force to Batavia, leaving 3,000 men under Pel to bring the chiefs to submission by amicable arrangement. The Atjehnese, “die zich volstrekt niet verslagen gevoelden” (who did not feel themselves at all defeated), soon resumed their attacks. The pattern — formal annexation, declaration of victory, withdrawal of the main force, resumption of Atjehnese resistance — would prove characteristic of the entire war.

Significance

Van Swieten’s 1873 expedition is the formal beginning of Dutch territorial administration in Atjeh. The Kota-Radja renaming, the Groot-Atjeh annexation, and the Pel interlude together set the pattern for the next thirty-one years: formal Dutch declarations of sovereignty alternating with persistent Atjehnese resistance.

Account from De Atjeh-Oorlog by J.A. Kruijt (1896)

Kruijt’s account of Van Swieten is sharply critical: admiring the military achievement, condemning the political decisions and their consequences.

Van Swieten’s second expedition of approximately 9,000 combatants was divided into three brigades, one of which remained in reserve at Padang. A strong squadron of the Marine supported the operations. On 7 January 1874 the groote Missigit was taken; on 24 January 1874 the kraton fell. “Dit feit maakte overal diepen indruk” (This fact made a deep impression everywhere), and several chiefs came forward to submit. Two days later the Sultan died of cholera.

Kruijt identifies Van Swieten’s proclamatietocht (proclamation tour) as the origin of the vlaghijscherij (flag-raising) — the practice of circulating the flag and the onderwerpingsacte (act of submission) along the coasts by Marine vessels, with submission often little more than a flag sent ashore by a messenger. On the North and West Coasts, Kruijt writes, the flag and the act of recognition were “veelal eenvoudig door een boodschapper aan land gezonden, zonder meer” (usually simply sent ashore by a messenger, and nothing more), and trade was opened without supervision, “zoodat de deuren er wijd werden opengezet om den vijand van alles te voorzien en het verzet te stijven” (so that the doors were thrown wide open to supply the enemy with everything and to stiffen the resistance).

On 16 April 1874 a Dutch column was repulsed before an enemy fortification just south of the kraton — an échec that went unavenged. Van Swieten judged his task accomplished and on 26 April 1874 returned to Java, leaving Colonel Pel with 3,000 men. His Nota to Pel, Kruijt judges, was written “in bewoordingen, die voor verschillende uitleggingen vatbaar waren” (in terms susceptible to various interpretations) and set the pattern for the Dutch reports from Atjeh: “dat ophemelen van kleine of onbeteekenende gebeurtenissen in ons voordeel, dat blindblijven voor verschijnselen in ons nadeel” (that extolling of small or insignificant events in our favour, that blindness to phenomena to our disadvantage).

Account from Onze vestiging in Atjeh (Borel, 1878)

Jan van Swieten was a gepensioneerd luitenant-generaal (retired lieutenant-general) of the Dutch army whom the government recalled to active service in 1873 as opperbevelhebber der zee- en landmacht and regeerings-commissaris for the second expedition against Atjeh, with “bijna onbeperkte volmacht,” and who became the central target of Borel’s critical history for declaring the war ended after the fall of the Kraton and for bequeathing to Kolonel Pel an afwachtende houding (wait-and-see posture) that, in Borel’s judgement, squandered every advantage won at the cost of Dutch blood.

Appointment and the Second Expedition

Van Swieten’s appointment in November 1873 surprised the Indische leger, which no longer knew him personally and found him “geenszins populair”; the government simultaneously named generaal Verspijck as tweede bevelhebber, although Verspijck’s diverging inzichten were “niet gekend” and he was to play only an ondergeschikte rol. After the landing at Pedro-punt and the bloody reconnaissances at Lemboe on Christmas 1873, van Swieten ordered the frontal storming of the Mesigit on 6 January 1874 without reconnaissance, costing 220 dead and wounded; he rejected Verspijck’s proposal to land the third brigade at the Kroeng Raba-baai for a pincer movement, leaving it instead at Padang — “eene groote strategische fout.” On 23–24 January 1874 Verspijck’s omtrekkende beweging delivered the deserted Kraton to the Dutch without a fight.

The Afscheidsrede and Departure

After the fall of the Kraton van Swieten “stak het zwaard voor goed in de scheede” and applied the afwachtende houding; he ordered the Javaansche hulptroepen of Mangkoe Negoro and Pakoe Alam and a veld-batterij back to Java, recalled one of the two companies of vesting-artillerie together with the beste geschut, and tolerated the padi-snijden on the Langkroek sawah. He issued on 7 April 1874 the instruction for daily patrols that Borel judges should have been given “van af de inneming van den Kraton.” When the échec at Lampoe Oek on 16 April 1874 exposed the failure of his passive system, van Swieten was “zeer verbolgen” and blamed Romswinckel entirely, refusing the major a hearing. On 23 April 1874 he pronounced his afscheidsrede — “Ik beschouw den oorlog met Atjeh als geëindigd” — and on 26 April 1874 boarded the Prins Alexander der Nederlanden and departed, leaving Pel a “zeer gebrekkige stelling.”

Borel’s Indictment

Borel’s indictment of van Swieten runs the length of Onze vestiging in Atjeh. He accuses him of leaving Aceh’s stelling “ondoelmatig, onveilig en zonder het minste offensieve vermogen,” of squandering the chance to occupy the stelling-Pel a year early at low cost, of issuing contradictory instructions to Pel, of fighting an “overdreven zachte en humane” war with proclamations and gifts to spies, and of refusing to burn kampongs or cut standing padi. Borel also cites the legerorder that withdrew the application of art. 92 of the Crimineel Wetboek to sleeping sentinels as an unlawful and damaging act. The judgement of generaal Knoop — that the second expedition was “slechts ten deele gelukt” — is, in Borel’s view, generous; Borel says he could have said “mislukt.”

Account in Hooijer’s De verlaten posten in Groot-Atjeh (1897)

Jan van Swieten was the Dutch general commanding the second expedition against Atjeh, whose departure from the theatre G. B. Hooijer marked, in the musical programme sketched in his Voorwoord, as the moment at which dissonance entered the story of the Atjeh-oorlog.

In Hooijer’s periodisation of the war

Sketching the symphony he thought the war deserved, Hooijer moved from the mysterious beginning full of fear of the European great powers, through the war-music of the first expedition and the stately advance of the second expedition rolling broadly along Acheh’s shores, to de dissonanten na van Swieten’s vertrek met de schrille klanken van het Allah il Allah — the dissonances after Van Swieten’s departure, with the shrill sounds of the Allah il Allah. These, he wrote, were first drowned by the war- and victory-song under Van der Heijden but thereafter regained the upper hand, until muffled music could express the Dutch concealment behind the geconcentreerde linie.

Van Swieten’s retrospective

In 1879, Jan van Swieten published De waarheid over onze vestiging in Atjeh. He defended the limited-war and indirect-influence policy associated with the Second Dutch Expedition to Aceh, arguing that capture of the Kraton of Aceh had not made direct administration prudent and that coercive destruction could strengthen resistance.

Account from Vijftig jaren economische staatkunde in Atjeh (1923)

J. van Swieten was the Dutch general who, as Governor of Sumatra’s West Coast, concluded with Sultan Ibrahim Mansur of Atjeh the treaty of peace, friendship and commerce of 1857 — the agreement meant, in author Joh. Langhout’s words, “once more to try, along the road of reconciliation, to call another, better state of affairs into being” sixteen years before war was declared on the sultanate.

The treaty of 1857

The chronic insecurity on the Atjehnese coasts — the plundering of an American merchant ship (1830) and the ensuing American chastisement of Koeala Batië in 1831, the loss of the schooner Dolphiijn with its money shipment of 30,000 guilders in 1836, the expulsion of the Atjehnese from Baros and Singkel in 1840, the English chastisement of Koeala Batië and Koeala Meureudoe in 1844, and the plundering of a Neapolitan schooner (1851) and an English merchantman (1852) — led the Netherlands Indian Government, “once more to try along the road of reconciliation”, to instruct General van Swieten, then Governor of Sumatra’s West Coast, to conclude with Ibrahim Mansoer, who had meanwhile come forward as Sultan of Atjeh, an agreement of peace, friendship and trade. It contained provisions on the admission of each other’s subjects to trade, shipping and residence in one another’s countries, provisions against sea-, strand- and man-robbery, and the agreement that all claims on account of former facts would lapse.

Later significance

The treaty worked, Langhout writes, “until 1858”, when the Dutch contract with the Sultan of Siak called forth the Atjehnese pretensions upon that realm — claims not recognized by the Netherlands — beginning the chain of irritations that led through the expeditions of 1865, the refusal of the Atjehnese chiefs’ requests for Dutch supremacy, and the replacement of the London treaty by the Sumatra treaty of 1871, to the declaration of war of 26 March 1873. Langhout’s own account of that later conflict, he observes elsewhere, relies for military particulars on the existing literature — for which Van Swieten himself, as lieutenant-general and former commander of the expeditions of 1873, had furnished one of the standard narratives with his book De waarheid over onze vestiging in Atjeh.

Account from Verstege’s Een beroep op het Nederlandsche volk (1886)

Overste Verstege’s pamphlet of 1886 is the most detailed indictment of the general’s conduct of the war built from the general’s own publications. Against the young officer’s doctrines — van Swieten’s own account of the Second Bali expedition (1848), in which he had written that the objective points of a campaign lying deep inland compel the swift attaque de vive force (“this is the fundamental principle of wars of invasion”), and that in most wars in the Indies the boldness of the attack and the bravery of the soldiers had almost always triumphed over the strongest entrenchments; and his own dashing conduct of the Second Boni expedition (1859), in which sixteen days after the landing the whole realm had been brought down — Verstege sets the behaviour of the sexagenarian opperbevelhebber of 1873-1874: the letter of 1 December 1873 which, before the same Sultan whose answer he required to be read by his “envoys”, proposed that the war should be waged after “het gebruik onder de beschaafde volken” (the custom among civilised peoples, i.e. the principles of the Red Cross), was followed within three weeks by the martyr’s death of the truce-bearer Mas Soemo Widjojo (see Murder of parlementaire Mas Soemo Widjojo (23 December 1873)); the complaint of 2 January 1874 (“Ik kan nu niemand meer vinden, die een brief naar den Kraton wil brengen”); the Dagorder of 24 January (“overwonnen, doch nog niet onderworpen”) with new exertions announced; the forced retreat before a numerous enemy at Longbattah of 29 January; the private journal of 4 February 1874 — “iedere ontmoeting met den vijand, iedere beweging veroorzaakt ons verliezen, die schier niet meer aan te vullen zijn” (“every meeting with the enemy, every movement causes us losses that are hardly replenishible any more”) — alongside the telegrams of the same day and of 7 February to Batavia, that with the Kraton “de kracht der verdediging gebroken” and “geene vijandelijkheden; volk is vredesgezind” (“no hostilities; the people is peace-minded”); and then, despite the asserted exhaustion of the army, the annexation of the whole realm of 12 February 1874, “the skin of the bear sold before the bear was shot”. The letters of 8 February to Imam Longbattah and Toekoe Kadli (“the Kraton shall be arranged as a kota for the Netherlands, under whose administration safety and protection shall be given to all who settle in its neighbourhood”; “At Atjeh a great commercial city shall be founded”) and of 20 February to the chiefs and hoeloebalangs of the three Sagies (“But men shot at us… and forced me, to punish the fools, that teased me, and to burn the kampongs… May God’s curse come over you and your people if you continue in the way you have taken”) are cited in extenso, as are the drafts of the “moderate demands” at the close of the Buitenzorg letter of 19 July 1874, the parting note to Kolonel Pel of 22 April (“De politiek moet en zal voltooien, wat de wapenen zoo gelukkig begonnen hebben” — “Politics must and shall finish what the weapons have so happily begun”), and the letters to the Netherlands of 17 October (the deliberate relinquishment of the attack on the hostile kampongs) and 27 October 1874, in which the commander gave it as a paradox in defence of the waiting posture that “niet wij, maar hij [the enemy] wordt door die vruchtlooze aanvallen uitgeput” (“not we, but he is exhausted by those fruitless attacks”). In 1879 the general defended himself in De Waarheid over onze vestiging in Atjeh with the same theses — the war’s object had only been a firm footing on North Sumatra; the burning missiles of 1875-1876 should never have existed; and “de verdediging is de sterkste vorm des oorlogs” (“defence is the strongest form of war”) — answered by Verstege with the judgement of von Clausewitz that defence has but a negative object and must be let go as soon as one is strong enough to aim at the positive one; and still in May 1884 van Swieten wrote in an album for the Dutch theatrical fund (Tooneelfonds): “De oorlog moet steeds opbouwend en beschavend zijn, en dat kan hij zijn, als hij menschelijk gevoerd wordt, in overeenstemming met de thans heerschende begrippen van volkenrecht” (“War must always be constructive and civilising, and that it can be if it is waged humanely, in accordance with the now prevailing notions of international law”) — a sentence on which Verstege’s comment is that it showed how such theories find many followers in a country enjoying already seventy years of peace. The pamphlet also reports that general Kroesen and afterwards general Knoop kept the old correspondence, that the 1884-1885 concentration was, “as is generally asserted, chiefly upon that advice of general van Swieten and of the minister of war Weitzel”, accepted by the government, and that the name of the “grijze veldheer” was yet again brought up to cloak that retreat.

See Also

Account from Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu

Led the second Dutch expedition to Aceh, landing on the beach at Oelèë Lheuë on 9 December 1873. Issued the proclamation of 31 January 1874 annexing Atjeh and Onderhoorigheden to the Dutch colonial possessions. Also drafted the model 6-article agreement (souvereiniteitsverklaring) used with the oelèëbalangs.

Source: J. Jongejans, Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu (Baarn: Hollandia Drukkerij N.V., c. 1938), pp. 320, 321, 322, 336.

Sources

De geschiedenis van Nederland in onzen tijd, by J. A. de Bruyne, Directeur der Hoogere Burgerschool te Zierikzee. Deel IV. 1872-1883. Nieuwe uitgave. Schiedam: J. F. Dupont, 1912, Hoofdstuk I, pp. 19–37.

De Kleine Oosterling — Iets uit de Geschiedenis van Nederlandsch-Indië. Leesboekje voor de Lagere Scholen, door J. Wijma, Tweede Druk (Kampen: Laurens van Hulst, 1901), Les 37 (“Een hoofdsterkte bemachtigd”).

Oost-Indisch Journael: Palaver om de tafel met het gat, by Merac, Toekan-Serie no. 2, ed. G. L. Tichelman (Haarlem: De Gulden Pers, 1947), the chapter on the Meusigit Raja.

“Dispereert Niet: Twintig Eeuwen Historie van de Nederlanden”, Deel XI, by A. Algra and H. Algra (Franeker: T. Wever, 1946).

De geschiedenis van het Nederlandsche Korps Mariniers van 1665-1945, OCR transcription (DLP-55), pp. 108, 128–129, 20260707_232246_DLP-55-De_geschiedenis_van_het_Nederlandsche_Korps_Mariniers_van_1665_1945_OCR.txt.

Na 1795: Repetitie-boekje voor de Vaderlandsche Geschiedenis ten behoeve van Hoogere Burgerscholen en Candidaat-Notarissen, by F. Roorda (Groningen: P. Noordhoff, 1924), p. 47.

Nederlanders over de Zeeën: 350 Jaar geschiedenis van Nederland buitengaats, onder redactie van Dr. H. J. de Graaf, met medewerking van Prof. G. Gonggrijp, W. R. Menkman en Prof. Jhr Dr P. J. van Winter, 2e geheel herziene druk (Utrecht: W. de Haan N.V., MCMLV), pp. 216-217.

De onderwerping van Atjeh, door J. B. van Heutsz, Majoor der Infanterie, gewezen Chef van den Staf in Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden. ‘s-Gravenhage: De Gebroeders van Cleef; Batavia: G. Kolff en Co., 1893, esp. pp. 6–8, 10–14, 16, 22–26. OCR-filename: 20260718_105749_DLP-107-De_onderwerping_van_Atjeh_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt. Over de eerste expeditie tegen Atjeh: Een antwoord aan Generaal de Stuers, G. G. Booms, ‘s-Gravenhage: A. van Hoogstraten & Zoon, 1875, pp. 14-15; Atjeh gedurende de tweede expeditie en later, Een Oud Officier, Batavia: Ogilvie & Co., 1876, pp. 5-76.

Onze vestiging in Atjeh, critisch beschreven, by G. F. W. Borel, Kapitein der Artillerie. ‘s-Gravenhage: D. A. Thieme, 1878. pp. 9–11, 14–16, 19–23, 24–38, 41–49, 54–58, 64–72, 78–87, 96, 98, 104, 108–110, 116–122, 124–128, 203, 265, 270–272, 275, 277–282, 284, 286–292, 294–296, 304, 308, 312, 322, 324, 344, 354, 364.

De verlaten posten in Groot-Atjeh, door G. B. Hooijer, Gep. Luit.-Kolonel O. I. Leger, met 24 platen (Haarlem: De Erven F. Bohn; Batavia: G. Kolff & Co., 1897). Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen, Centrale Boekerij, Amsterdam. OCR-filename: 20260719_140140_DLP-134-De_verlaten_posten_in_Groot_Atjeh_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt, Voorwoord.

Acknowledgement of sources. This article is a single consolidated account combining the material previously held in this entry with the account given in De verlaten posten in Groot-Atjeh (1897) by G. B. Hooijer. Dutch terminology has been rendered in English, the original Dutch being retained only in direct quotations and in bibliographic citations.

De waarheid over onze vestiging in Atjeh: met eene kaart van Atjeh en een plan van den Kraton, by J. van Swieten (Zalt-Bommel: Joh. Noman en Zoon, 1879), pp. 1–465.

Open brief aan den Generaal Knoop over de Atjeh-kwestie (naar aanleiding van den brief van Generaal Van Swieten in Het Vaderland), door Brutus (L. van Bakkenes en Co., 1874), pp. 1–33.

Vijftig jaren economische staatkunde in Atjeh, by Joh. Langhout (The Hague: N.V. Boekhandel v/h W. P. van Stockum & Zoon, 1923), pp. 16–17.

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. 320, 321, 322, 336.

Een beroep op het Nederlandsche volk in zake het Atjeh-vraagstuk, door J. J. W. E. Verstege (Amsterdam: J. H. de Bussy, 1886), pp. 15-34, 37-48, 51-52, 89-91. OCR: DLP-158.

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