Colonel Ruempol was a Dutch overste (colonel) of the Indische leger who commanded the column that took Kota Alam on 13 November 1874 in the conquest of Kota Alam and the column that conquered Blang Tjoet on 18 January 1875 in the conquest of Blang Tjoet. In Borel’s narrative he is one of Pel’s reliable column commanders, repeatedly entrusted with the consolidation of the eastern face of the stelling-Pel.
The Conquest of Kota Alam
Six days after Diepenbrock’s conquest of Lemboe of 7 November 1874, Ruempol with a half-battalion and an artillery section attacked the south-eastern part of the kampong called Kota Alam, where the Atjeh-rivier bends. The aim was to enfilade the river upstream, shell the enemy stelling of Longbatta, and bring the densely populated III Moekims under Dutch fire. Although the Atjehneezen had had a week to prepare — having watched Lemboe fall — they offered only weak resistance. Kota Alam itself cost little; but during the fortification work the Dutch were fired on from all sides, and the day’s cost reached more than twenty dead and wounded. By evening the post was verdedigbaar and a company was left as garrison. The post, armed with two 12 c.M. vóórlaadkanonnen, immediately began to enfilade the river and shell Longbatta.
The Conquest of Blang Tjoet
Three weeks after the battle of Longbatta of 31 December 1874 — in which van der Meer’s column had been routed and van Zijll de Jong had recaptured the lost benteng — Ruempol was again entrusted with a consolidation. On 18 January 1875 a column of 150 bayonets and an artillery section under his command, with a reserve infantry company, marched out against Blang Tjoet, the kampong between Pendetti and the Longbatta-Mesigit. The enemy was permanently driven from the kampong. At a suitable point near the river bank, some four to five hundred paces from the Mesigit, work immediately began on a fortification, using the abandoned Atjehneesche benteng. After a few days of clearing, the enemy could be prevented from crossing the river by day, and transport between the Mesigit and Pendetti was now “practically safe.”
Significance
Ruempol’s two columns together secured the eastern face of what would become the stelling-Pel: Kota Alam sealed the bend of the Atjeh-rivier, and Blang Tjoet bridged the gap between the Mesigit and Pendetti. Both were betrekkelijk cheap victories, in Borel’s reading, because Pel’s combined-colonne tactics gave the Atjehneezen no time to mass their forces.
Sources
Cornelis Jacobus Snijders (1852–1939): Een leven in dienst van zijn Land en zijn Volk, by D. van den Berg (Voorburg: September 1944), pp. 10–35. Koninklijke Bibliotheek shelfmark 0301 4872.
M. C. E. Ruempol was a Dutch Luitenant-Kolonel of the infantry who, on 13 November 13 November 1874, commanded the column dispatched from Kota Radja by the civil and military governor Kolonel Pel to construct the Benting Kota Alam fortification on the Atjeh River east of Kota Radja.
See Also
- Conquest of Kota Alam (13 November 1874)
- Conquest of Blang Tjoet (18 January 1875)
- Kota Alam
- Blang Tjoet
- Longbatta-Mesigit
- Pendetti
- Generaal Pel
- Kolonel Diepenbrock
- III Moekims
- 1874
- 1875
- Cornelis Jacobus Snijders
- W. J. C. Leers
- T. J. A. van Zijll de Jong
- J. L. J. H. Pel
- Benting Kota Alam operation (13 November 1874)
- Kuta Alam
- Kota Radja
- Acheh River
- Aceh War
Source
Onze vestiging in Atjeh, critisch beschreven, by G. F. W. Borel, Kapitein der Artillerie. ‘s-Gravenhage: D. A. Thieme, 1878. pp. 211, 239.