Majoor Lubeck was a major of the infantry of the Netherlands East Indies Army who commanded, in August 1879, the column that marched from Indrapoeri along the Atjeh-rivier to Selimoen — the eastern arm of the converging movement that, together with the Lamtoba column of Luitenant-Kolonel Gerlach, carried out the Selimoen expedition of 13–15 August 1879 narrated in W. Cool and G. B. Hooijer’s Eene schoone bladzijde uit Atjeh’s geschiedenis (1889). With his column marched the controleur Kamp.
The approach on Selimoen
The order of 11 August 1879 had prescribed that Lubeck’s column, advancing from Indrapoeri along the Atjeh river, and Gerlach’s column from Lamtoba, should answer one another’s vuurpijlen — signal rockets sent up at seven in the evening, answered half an hour later. On the evening of 13 August Gerlach’s officers, from a plateau above their bivak, saw three rockets rise at the appointed time exactly where reckoning placed Lubeck — at Gleiêng — and answered them: contact was thus restored in an unknown, wild and hostile country. It was Lubeck’s advance, the authors judged from the evidence of the abandoned benting before Selimoen, that spared the Lamtoba column the attack of an enemy who must otherwise have disputed the narrow path commanding his ravines.
On the morning of 14 August, from the edge of the berg-plateau, the officers of the mountain column could distinguish Lubeck’s column below them in the valley — a fine black streak winding slowly over the yellow-green sawah, small white puffs of smoke rising from it: “zoo waar, dat was de colonne Lubeck, die al vurende voorwaarts trok.” The column had met its most serious opposition at Lampisang, where Toekoe di Tiroe with his band had awaited it. In the afternoon of 14 August it occupied Selimoen, beating Gerlach’s column by a day.
The submission of Toekoe Moeda Daud and the return
On 14 August 1879 Toekoe Moeda Daud, the head of Selimoen and one of the pretenders to the Sultan’s throne, offered his voluntary submission to Lubeck and promised to accompany him to Kota Radja; upon that promise no hostages were demanded. When Gerlach’s column arrived on 15 August, it was greeted by the notes of the Wilhelmus van Nassauwen from Lubeck’s band — the moment the authors made the emotional summit of their book. Through the offices of Controleur Kamp, Lubeck had given Toekoe Moeda Daud reason to hope that the second column’s bivak would be placed wholly outside the kampong; Gerlach, now in general command, did not allow this. Lubeck’s bivak lay some eight hundred paces from Gerlach’s, behind the chalk hills on the bank of the Atjeh river; on the evening after his arrival his bivak received a few shots, upon which a section of infantry was posted on the commanding hill between the two camps.
Having promised in his report to the General to bring the chief with him to the Kraton, Lubeck waited for Toekoe Moeda Daud until within a few hours of his own march, a time of great tension; thechief appeared at last, and Lubeck’s column marched back to Indrapoeri in the morning of 17 August 1879, accompanied by Toekoe Moeda Daud, Toekoe Ajer Alang and a following — received everywhere by the population in the most peaceful manner. Of his remaining provisions he had left more than half a day’s store at the disposal of Overste Gerlach.
Account from H. F. Meijer (1883) — the July operations of 1876
Meijer’s Atjeh van 26 December 1875 tot 4 September 1876 (1883) shows Major Lubeck in the operations of that year. As commander of the left half of the 5th Infantry Battalion he was quartered at Longbatah Zuid in March 1876, receiving the troops that Lieutenant-Colonel H. F. Meijer assembled there on the eve of the storming of Lambaroe and seeing to their quarters and warm food. In the July sweeps he commanded the 2nd column in the IV and VI Moekims operation, assembling at Pakan Badak, dragging his mountain artillery by hand through the drowned ground of the Kroeëng Daroe on the first day, and covering Diepenheim’s march through the pass of Blang Kala on 9–10 July. On 13 July he personally led the encircling column — three companies of the right half of the 5th battalion, a company of barisan, mortar crews and engineers, guided by Captain F. C. E. Meijer of the General Staff — across the Kroeëng Raba by two small rafts to cut off Toekoe Tjihiq Lamngga at Leboew; the quarry escaped, warned by the premature rifle fire, but kampong Raba was burned and the river mouth was held. With the other troops he returned to Kota Radja on 15 July.
See Also
- Selimoen Expedition (August 1879)
- Selimoen
- Indrapoeri
- Toekoe Moeda Daoed
- Controleur Kamp
- Majoor Gerlach
- 1879
Source
Eene schoone bladzijde uit Atjeh’s geschiedenis, door W. Cool en G. B. Hooijer (‘s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1889), pp. 35-36, 42, 47-48, 52-54, 56-58. OCR-filename: 20260720_115822_DLP-135-Eene_schoone_bladzijde_uit_Atjeh_s_geschiedenis_Nemotron_OCR_v2_OCR.txt.