Karel van der Heijden was a prominent officer in the Dutch East Indies Army who served as a column commander during the Second Aceh Expedition and later as Civil and Military Governor of Aceh from 1877 to 1881.
Operational Service (1873–1874)
During the Second Aceh Expedition, Lieutenant-Colonel Van der Heijden commanded infantry units during the Capture of Peunayong, led the southern encirclement column in the Encirclement and Fall of the Kraton on 24 January 1874, and commanded assault columns at the Battle of Bital.
Aggressive Pacification Campaign (1877–1881)
Appointed Governor in July 1877, Van der Heijden instituted a policy of total military aggressiveness (agressie-politiek). He launched systematic sweeps throughout the Aceh valley, culminating in the major Battle of Selimeum on 15 July 1879, which expelled resistance forces from Great Aceh.
In July 1880, he conducted the Battle of Batu Ili expedition against Samalanga. His hardline campaigns secured temporary submission from anti-colonial leaders, including Habib Abdurrahman az-Zahir in October 1878, before civil administration was introduced in 1881.
Account from Verstege’s Een beroep op het Nederlandsche volk (1886)
Verstege’s fourth chapter is the fullest contemporary eulogy of Van der Heyden’s record: the operations in the XXII Moekims resumed 23 March 1879, the capture of missigit Indrapoerie with insignificant loss on the next day, the destruction of the fortified lines of Sihong (Djerir), Gleieng and other chief centres of resistance in May-June, the morning-storm of Gleieng (Verstege dates it 5 June 1879) with slight loss while the feared sagie-head Panglima Polim fled, the finishing work of 9-10 June, the punishment of the robbers of Ladoeng and Kroeng Rajal (19 June) without Dutch loss, the opening of the veldtocht against the XXVI Moekims (30 June), the trips to Lampanas and Lamtobah, the marches of the Selimoen column (July-August) that caused Toekoe Moeda Daoed and Toekoe Tjoet Hadjet themselves to meet the troops with white flags (15 August-20 August), the Dagorder of 5 September 1879 (“Gheel Groot-Atjeh ten onder gebracht” — “All Great-Atjeh subdued”), the letter of 20 August 1879 in which he announced that the war operations on a grand scale were finished and that the period of the endless patrolling to keep peace and safety had begun, with the grave warnings that a hasty measure from too great a desire of parsimony might undo all that had been wrought, and that the reforming process of the population had to be guarded by a powerful government with a sufficient force behind it; the Nota of 19 April 1880 on the form of administration in Groot-Atjeh; the brilliant dinner at Batavia in September 1880 where Van Kinsbergen’s decoration showed the Dutch lion crushing the Atjeh flag with a broken lance under its claw; the reception of heads after the end of the fast (4 October 1880) and of Toengkoe Sjech Marabahan (7 March 1881); the first stone of the new mosque laid by him on 9 October 1879 before 6,000 Atjehers, princes and chiefs of the vasal states at his invitation; and then the removal by the Kabinetsbrief of 11 March 1881 — with the Governor-General’s thanks for his many and great services “voornamelijk voor de laatste twee jaren” — the parting speech of 9 April ending “Groote voorzichtigheid blijft geboden om de vrucht van jaren niet in gevaar te brengen” (“Great caution remains required not to endanger the fruit of years”), and the lament of the pamphlet: “het ontzag inboezemende zwaard van VAN DER HEYDEN [was vervangen door] den geminachten politiestok van PRUIJS VAN DER HOEVEN” (“the awe-inspiring sword of Van der Heyden was replaced by the despised police-stick of Pruijs van der Hoeven”). Verstege invokes too the memory that Van der Heyden, in March 1881 still, by the appreciation of the sovereign and the thanks of the government, had been crowned with the most honourable dismissal, and yet “in Februari 1882 in zijn Memorie” it was the same general who had to refute with irrefutable proofs the accusation that the war against Atjeh had been waged in an inhuman manner — and that nearly ended on the accused’s bench (see van Goltstein’s parliamentary utterance of 18 November 1881).
See Also
- Second Aceh Expedition
- Encirclement and Fall of the Kraton
- Battle of Selimeum
- Battle of Batu Ili
- Habib Abdurrahman az-Zahir
Source
De expeditiën naar Atjeh 1873-1874, W.W.F. Herfkens, Koninklijke Militaire Academie, 1900, pp. 58-60, 63, 73-75.
Een beroep op het Nederlandsche volk in zake het Atjeh-vraagstuk, door J. J. W. E. Verstege (Amsterdam: J. H. de Bussy, 1886), pp. 4 note, 59-70, 74-75. OCR: DLP-158.