Majoor Ducroo was a major of the infantry of the Netherlands East Indies Army who commanded the 9e Bataljon Infanterie in the Lamtoba column of 1879 — the expedition of Luitenant-Kolonel Gerlach to Lampanas, Lamtoba and Selimoen that closed the first phase of the Atjeh-oorlog — as narrated in W. Cool and G. B. Hooijer’s Eene schoone bladzijde uit Atjeh’s geschiedenis (1889).
The 9th Battalion at the landing and first marches
The battalion Ducroo led numbered — together with its staff — seventeen officers, 152 Europeans and 341 natives, composed of one European and three native companies. At the landing at Lampanas on 27 July 1879 the 3rd Company of his battalion, with a section of mortars, was under his command the first troop to be disembarked, rowed ashore in the train of boats towed by the steam barkas; the company at once pushed forward and took up a good position covering the beach. On the march to Lamtoba of 28 July Ducroo commanded the hoofdtroep — the main body — of the column, comprising the 3rd and 4th Companies of the 6th Battalion, three sections of the 1st Company of his own battalion, half of the Mineurs, the two mortar sections and the ambulance.
The Kroeng Raija reconnaissance and the bivak commands
On 12 August 1879 Ducroo carried out the great reconnaissance to Kroeng Raija: three companies of infantry, half the detachment of Mineurs, an ambulance of fifteen tandoes, the chief of staff and an opnemer, over a march of twelve palen through the mountains — sixteen for the commander, who pushed on with the covering detachment to the near neighbourhood of Kroeng Raija itself. The column returned to the bivak only at half past four in the afternoon, having found nothing of note save some mountain paseijs, refugees of the XXVI Moekims, a white flag hung from a high tree, and an abundance of fresh elephant tracks — an exertion that the authors regretted, since the delayed order for the Selimoen march arrived while the troops were still out.
During the punitive expedition against Kepaja Doewa the guard of the bivak at Lamtoba had been confided to Ducroo; and when the flower of the column marched for Selimoen on 13 August, he again remained at Lamtoba in command of the two companies of his battalion — the 2nd and 4th — left for the security of the bivak. It was to Ducroo, as bivak-commander, that on the day before the column’s return the order of the Militaire Bevelhebber arrived directing that, on account of the smallpox in the valley, the column should leave Lamtoba as soon as circumstances allowed and hold ten days’ quarantine at Lampanas.
See Also
- 9e Bataljon Infanterie
- Lamtoba column (1879)
- Reconnaissance to Kroeng Raija (12 August 1879)
- Lamtoba
- Majoor Gerlach
- 1879
- Aceh War
Source
Eene schoone bladzijde uit Atjeh’s geschiedenis, door W. Cool en G. B. Hooijer (‘s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1889), pp. 5, 9, 14, 26, 29, 37-38, 64. OCR-filename: 20260720_115822_DLP-135-Eene_schoone_bladzijde_uit_Atjeh_s_geschiedenis_Nemotron_OCR_v2_OCR.txt.