Mr. L. W. C. Keuchenius was a Dutch anti-revolutionary parliamentarian and Minister of Colonies (1888–1893), whose condemnation of the origins of the Atjeh war was quoted twice in the Atjeh debate of 1897. He is to be distinguished from the colonial commentator W. H. J. Keuchenius, author of the Atjeh-opstellen of 1896.
The condemnation of the war
A parliamentarian of this name is cited twice in the Atjeh debate of 1897 for his condemnation of the origins of the Atjeh-oorlog.
H. van Kol told the chamber on 17 November 1897 that “nooit is de aanklacht van Keuchenius (Handelingen Tweede Kamer 1880/81, bladz. 73) weerlegd, die sprak van une mauvaise guerre dans une mauvaise cause” — a bad war in a bad cause — glossed in the pamphlet’s footnote as “Een slechte oorlog in een slechte zaak” — and who branded the Atjeh war as “een der gruwelijkste en der onrechtvaardigste oorlogen ooit in Indië ondernomen” (one of the most horrible and most unjust wars ever undertaken in the Indies).
Van Kol used the citation to press his charge that in the twenty-five years during which Atjeh had been an annual subject of discussion in the Dutch parliament, no one had ever succeeded in demonstrating the justice of the war in any tolerably conclusive way, and that men now preferred to keep silent about it: “De eene helft van dit Parlement erkent het gruwelijke onrecht tegenover Atjeh gepleegd, de andere bewaart evenals de Minister een voorzichtig stilzwijgen, en allen grijpen naar de alles uitwisschende spons en roepen: Schwamm d’rüber.” — The one half of this Parliament acknowledges the horrible injustice committed against Atjeh, the other preserves, like the Minister, a prudent silence, and all reach for the all-effacing sponge.
Troelstra cited the same authority against Kuyper’s doctrine that the injustice of the war had become prescribed by lapse of twenty-four years. The figure, Troelstra said, would not do and must be halved: “Nog in 1885 heeft Keuchenius, het vitium originis van den Atjeh-oorlog besprekend, zich bedienende van de woorden van den heer Wintgens, over den aanvang van den Atjeh-oorlog zich uitgelaten. Wanneer het dan dus in 1885 nog de tijd was om te spreken over den oorsprong van den Atjeh-oorlog, dan zijn wij ook den tijd niet 24 jaren ten achter, maar moet men daar 12 jaar van afnemen.” — As late as 1885 Keuchenius, discussing the vitium originis of the Atjeh war, expressed himself on the beginning of the Atjeh war, making use of the words of Mr. Wintgens.
Source
Atjeh in de Tweede Kamer: Debatten bij de behandeling der begrooting van Nederlandsch-Indië voor 1898, uitgave van de Sociaaldemokratische Arbeiderspartij in Nederland (Amsterdam: J. A. Fortuijn, 1897). Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen, Br P95-178, pp. 41, 61–62.
Acknowledgement of sources. The material in this article derives from Atjeh in de Tweede Kamer: Debatten bij de behandeling der begrooting van Nederlandsch-Indië voor 1898 (Amsterdam: J. A. Fortuijn, 1897). Dutch passages are quoted in the original with an English rendering.
The De Standaard Nota (June 1873)
Van Swieten, in De waarheid over onze vestiging in Atjeh (1879), cited a different and earlier manifestation of Keuchenius’s criticism: a nota published in the newspaper De Standaard on 13 June, 16 June, and 17 June 1873, in which Keuchenius — then identified as a former member of the Council of the Indies — accused Governor-General Loudon of having undertaken the war with “little justified purpose, on frivolous grounds, with arrogant self-confidence, in haste, with short-sightedness if not worse, without policy, in thoughtlessness.” He declared that the Governor-General had “brought dishonour upon Netherlands statecraft.”
The nota concluded with a prayer that the King be moved “to halt the perpetrated atrocities; to stop the hastily undertaken hostilities against Atjeh; and to dispatch a magnificent embassy directly from the Netherlands to assure the Sultan of Atjeh that He in sincere friendship wishes to live with Atjeh.”
Van Swieten cited the nota as one of the “unseemly outbursts” of the press that, when known in Pinang and carried to Atjeh, “caused the belief to arise that the war was neither popular in the Netherlands nor in India, and that from Atjeh’s side only perseverance was needed to triumph.” The public criticism from the Netherlands thus contributed, in Van Swieten’s analysis, to the hardening of the Acehnese position and the failure of the diplomatic efforts of March 1873.
Source (Van Swieten account)
De waarheid over onze vestiging in Atjeh, door den Luitenant-Generaal J. van Swieten. Zalt-Bommel, Joh. Noman en Zoon, 1879, pp. 9–10.