Luitenant Westerling — later captain, later still the controversial commander of the Special Troepen Corps — was a Dutch officer of the K.N.I.L. of partly Turkish descent who served in Aceh during the Aceh War’s counter-insurgency phase and is mentioned in Oom Ambon van het K.N.I.L. in connection with the late-colonial cycle of unrest on Celebes in 1946-1947, where his name became associated with the *Menado opstand (February 1946)|Menado opstand]] and the broader South Celebes pacification that would later make him notorious.
The Aceh apprenticeship
Westerling served in Aceh as a young officer — the same theatre that produced the colonne Schmidt method of counter-insurgency. The book mentions him in passing, but the connection is significant: the methods later associated with his name in Celebes in 1946-1947 were learned in the Aceh counter-insurgency, where the colonne Schmidt had established the model of small, highly trained patrouilles operating with local intelligence against a religiously motivated resistance.
The Celebes and Menado period (1946-1947)
The book’s reference to Westerling comes in the context of the cycle of unrest on Celebes and the *Menado opstand (February 1946)|Menado opstand]] of February 1946. In this period Westerling’s Special Troepen Corps conducted the South Celebes pacification that would later become the subject of controversy. The book does not detail the controversy; it registers the figure as part of the landscape of the late-colonial army’s last war.
Significance
Westerling’s significance in Oom Ambon van het K.N.I.L. is small but pointed. He is the figure through whom the book connects the methods of the Aceh counter-insurgency — the colonne Schmidt method of small patrouilles, the dardanellen|dardanel system, the use of local intelligence — to their later application in the Indonesian revolution. The book’s quiet point is that the methods that had finished the Aceh War in 1911 were the methods that would, in 1946-1949, be used in the last war of the colonial army — and that the soldiers who had learned them in Aceh were the soldiers who would, in 1949, be abandoned by the political settlement.
See Also
- Menado opstand (February 1946)
- Tegen de rood-witten (1946-1949)
- Colonne Schmidt campaign against the Tiriō Teungkoes (1910-1911)
- K.N.I.L.
- Atjeh-oorlog
- Celebes
- 1946
- 1947
Source
Oom Ambon van het K.N.I.L., by G. W. T. Dames, Maj. Inf. K.N.I.L. b.d. (‘s-Gravenhage: Koninklijke Bibliotheek, 1954), chapters on the Indonesian revolution period.
Luitenant Westerling — later captain, later still the controversial commander of the Special Troepen Corps — was a Dutch officer of the K.N.I.L. of partly Turkish descent who served in Aceh during the Aceh War’s counter-insurgency phase and is mentioned in Oom Ambon van het K.N.I.L. in connection with the late-colonial cycle of unrest on Celebes in 1946-1947, where his name became associated with the *Menado opstand (February 1946)|Menado opstand]] and the broader South Celebes pacification that would later make him notorious.
The Aceh apprenticeship
Westerling served in Aceh as a young officer — the same theatre that produced the colonne Schmidt method of counter-insurgency. The book mentions him in passing, but the connection is significant: the methods later associated with his name in Celebes in 1946-1947 were learned in the Aceh counter-insurgency, where the colonne Schmidt had established the model of small, highly trained patrouilles operating with local intelligence against a religiously motivated resistance.
The Celebes and Menado period (1946-1947)
The book’s reference to Westerling comes in the context of the cycle of unrest on Celebes and the *Menado opstand (February 1946)|Menado opstand]] of February 1946. In this period Westerling’s Special Troepen Corps conducted the South Celebes pacification that would later become the subject of controversy. The book does not detail the controversy; it registers the figure as part of the landscape of the late-colonial army’s last war.
Significance
Westerling’s significance in Oom Ambon van het K.N.I.L. is small but pointed. He is the figure through whom the book connects the methods of the Aceh counter-insurgency — the colonne Schmidt method of small patrouilles, the dardanellen|dardanel system, the use of local intelligence — to their later application in the Indonesian revolution. The book’s quiet point is that the methods that had finished the Aceh War in 1911 were the methods that would, in 1946-1949, be used in the last war of the colonial army — and that the soldiers who had learned them in Aceh were the soldiers who would, in 1949, be abandoned by the political settlement.
See Also
- Menado opstand (February 1946)
- Tegen de rood-witten (1946-1949)
- Colonne Schmidt campaign against the Tiriō Teungkoes (1910-1911)
- K.N.I.L.
- Atjeh-oorlog
- Celebes
- 1946
- 1947
Source
Oom Ambon van het K.N.I.L., by G. W. T. Dames, Maj. Inf. K.N.I.L. b.d. (‘s-Gravenhage: Koninklijke Bibliotheek, 1954), chapters on the Indonesian revolution period.