Major van der Meer was a Dutch majoor of the Indische leger who commanded the 10th battalion of infantry and the left column of Pel’s two-colonne operation against Longbatta on 31 December 1874, and whose misinterpretation of Pel’s orders and subsequent loss of cohesion on the open sawah turned the battle of Longbatta into the worst Dutch reverse since the échec at Lampoe Oek. In Borel’s account he is the principal culprit of the disaster.
The Longbatta Operation
Pel’s plan for 31 December 1874 was a converging movement: the left column (10th battalion under van der Meer, with a four-gun battery and a mineur detachment) to march from Pakan Atjeh along the left bank directly on Longbatta; the right column (5th battalion under Romswinckel, under overall command of overste Wiegand) to make a feint attack east of Kota Radja. Romswinckel’s morning attack on the bosch-rand succeeded so well that the enemy streamed east to face him; the stelling at Pendetti opposite Lemboe was abandoned, and van der Meer’s column reached Blang Tjoet, left the river, and marched on Longbatta. The fortified Mesigit (stone mosque) was taken without a shot. Longbatta was a very important kampong, long the residence of Panglima Polim, the Imam of Longbatta and other hostile chiefs.
The Disastrous Retreat
While van der Meer held a benteng by the Mesigit, Pel sent him an order to investigate the nearest kampong-rand to the south-east. Van der Meer misinterpreted: he abandoned the captured Mesigit benteng without leaving a garrison, and marched his whole force southward over the open, marshy sawah. The Atjehneezen, who had streamed back in, occupied the abandoned benteng and cut off the column’s retreat; van der Meer, marching calmly across the sawah, did not notice. Heavy firing broke out on the far side. Pel’s staff tried in vain to recall van der Meer by signals. By sunset the firing grew heavier and the column did not appear. The men, exhausted by the march over the sticky sawah, were attacked from all sides in the thick brush. At first the soldiers held out and even advanced, but as more enemy arrived van der Meer ordered retreat. The retreat across the marshy sawah, under furious pursuit and cold-steel attacks, became a rout; the battalion lost cohesion and orders could not be given. The rear guard, pursued on foot, wandered into very marshy ground, lost all cohesion, and was cut to pieces; some men threw away their weapons. The wounded and exhausted who fell behind were mercilessly killed by the Atjehneezen.
Borel’s Judgement
Borel treats van der Meer as the principal culprit of the day. The colonne-van der Meer was saved from annihilation only by van Zijll de Jong’s heroic counter-attack with some sixty infantry and a four-gun battery that retook the lost benteng. The day after the battle, more than fifty severely wounded — many with dreadful klewang cuts — were taken into the Kota Radja ambulances. One administration officer, one mineur sergeant and some twenty men were missing — probably killed on the spot by the furious Atjehneezen; some forty Beaumont rifles, much munitie and ambulance materials were captured by the enemy. Borel’s broader lesson is that marching in dispersed order over a doorweekte sawah along a wooded edge loses all order and exposes troops to ambush — a lesson he would invoke again at the Atoeh catastrophe of 13 February 1876.
See Also
- Battle of Longbatta (31 December 1874)
- Majoor van Zijll de Jong
- Kolonel Wiegand
- Majoor Romswinckel
- Generaal Pel
- Longbatta
- Longbatta-Mesigit
- Blang Tjoet
- Pendetti
- Pakan Atjeh
- Sawah
- Klewang
- 1874
Source
Onze vestiging in Atjeh, critisch beschreven, by G. F. W. Borel, Kapitein der Artillerie. ‘s-Gravenhage: D. A. Thieme, 1878. pp. 228–232, 236–237.