Major Scharp was a Dutch majoor of the Indische leger who commanded the half-battalion that attacked Lampoeloe on 20 June 1874 in the battle of Lampoeloe, the first Dutch offensive operation since the expedition to Ketapang Doewa of 15 February 1874 four months earlier. In Borel’s narrative he is the officer who opened the aanvallende phase of Pel’s command.
The Battle of Lampoeloe
By mid-June 1874 the crisis at Kota Radja was at its depth. Some companies could field fewer than thirty men of an original 125; only the gravest sick could be taken into the ambulances; the Atjehneezen crept closer, “feasting under gamelan and drumming at 300–400 paces from the parapet, eating stolen Dutch slaughter-oxen.” On 19 June 1874 a column of 150 bayonets and an artillery section had marched from Kota Radja to clear the left bank north of Kampong Djawa, while luitenant Sloet van Zwanenburg led a patrol from Penajoeng on the right bank; Sloet was discovered in his ravine, badly shot up, and died of his wounds days later. The next morning, 20 June 1874, the enemy shelled Kota Radja from the east with unusual violence; the whole garrison stood to arms; salvoes of Beaumont rifles were needed at Kota Podjoet and Pakan Atjeh to drive back the attackers. Then Scharp with his half-battalion attacked Lampoeloe itself.
Outcome and Significance
The enemy was driven from his positions; a half-built benteng by the river was captured. The cost was thirty-four Dutch dead and wounded. Borel judges the action “the first step on a new road”: the first offensive since Ketapang Doewa, and the proof that, even at the lowest point of the bezettingskorps’s strength, the Atjehneezen could be driven from advanced positions when a Dutch commander chose to attack. Scharp’s half-battalion thus inaugurated the series of aanvallende operations — Garouw (28 June), Soerian (26 July), Langkroek (28 September) — by which Pel rebuilt the Dutch position in the second half of 1874.
See Also
- Battle of Lampoeloe (20 June 1874)
- Lampoeloe
- Crisis at Kota Radja (May–June 1874)
- Generaal Pel
- Luitenant Sloet van Zwanenburg
- Majoor Romswinckel
- Pakan Atjeh
- Kota Podjoet
- Penajoeng
- Beaumont-geweer
- 1874
Source
Onze vestiging in Atjeh, critisch beschreven, by G. F. W. Borel, Kapitein der Artillerie. ‘s-Gravenhage: D. A. Thieme, 1878. p. 154.