Mas Soemo Widikdjo was a Malay guide and interpreter, the son of a British-Indian officer, who had repeatedly rendered services to the Dutch on previous occasions, and who was charged by Lieutenant-general Van Swieten in December 1873 with the delivery of two letters to the sultan of Atjeh offering peace on the model of the Siak-tractaat and proposing to wage war “in the manner of civilised nations.” He departed on 26 December 26 December [1873] and never returned: later it became known that, after being held prisoner a couple of days, he was murderously killed at Longbatta.
Background
Mas Soemo Widikdjo was the son of a British-Indian officer, “hoping for his children to recover the place in society which he had lost for himself by the early death of his father.” He had repeatedly rendered services as a guide or interpreter on previous occasions.
The Mission
After the second Aceh expedition had landed east of the Atjeh river on 9 December 9 December 1873 and had pushed forward to the mouth of the Atjeh river by 15 December 15 December, Van Swieten decided to make one last attempt to end the war by negotiation. He sent two letters to the sultan. In the one, the sultan was informed on what conditions the Dutch were still willing to make peace — namely, if he declared himself willing to sign a tractaat of about the same content as the Siak-tractaat. In the other, the sultan was proposed to wage war “in the manner of civilised nations.” With the delivery of these letters was charged the native Mas Soemo Widikdjo.
The Murder
He departed on 26 December 26 December [1873] but never returned. “Later it became known that, after being held prisoner a couple of days, he was murderously killed at Longbatta.” His murder hardened the Dutch resolution to take the Kraton by force, and led directly to the fall of the Kraton on 24 January 24 January 1874.
Account from Verstege’s Een beroep op het Nederlandsche volk (1886)
Verstege’s narrative adds the fullest setting of the old chief’s fate. General van Swieten, who had proposed to the Sultan in his letter of 1 December 1873 “dit gebruik eveneens te volgen” (“to follow also this custom” — the civilised usage, the Red Cross principle), asked in the same letter that his messengers be treated with kindness and his letters read; and before opening the bombardment of the Kraton he sent, as European law of war and war custom required, a peace offer. On 23 December 1873 Mas Soemo Widjojo — an aged and respectable Javanese chief who accompanied the expedition — went out as parlementair, unarmed and with a white flag. Hardly arrived at the enemy, he was taken prisoner with his followers and bound; a few days later he was put to death in the cruellest manner in the presence of Panglima Polim, of other chiefs and of many lesser Atjehers — his hands and feet bound across, and then his head twisted round (see Murder of parlementaire Mas Soemo Widjojo (23 December 1873)). His three followers escaped some days later on being warned that they too would be killed the next day; one of them, overtaken in his flight, held under water, pierced with lance blows and thrown into a pit as dead, recovered, resumed his flight, but died after his return of the wounds inflicted on him. “De marteldood onzen parlementair aangedaan, mocht zeker gelden als een duidelijk bewijs, dat de Atjehsche vijand wel het allerminst rijp was voor theoriën van Westersch oorlogs- en volkenrecht” (“The martyr’s death inflicted on our truce-bearer could certainly count as clear proof that the Atjehnese enemy was least of all ripe for theories of Western war and international law”), Verstege concludes; six years later van Swieten himself wrote of it as “eene wreede daad, eene verkrachting van het oorlogs- en volkenrecht, tot dusverre steeds geeerbiedigd door alle volken van den Archipel” (“a cruel deed, a violation of the law of war and nations, until then always respected by all peoples of the Archipelago”).
See Also
- J. van Swieten
- Longbatta
- Imam of Longbatta
- Tractaat with Siak of 1858
- Murder of Mas Soemo Widikdjo
- Second Aceh Expedition (1873-1874)
- Capture of the Kraton (24 January 1874)
- Aceh War
Source
De geschiedenis van Nederland in onzen tijd, by J. A. de Bruyne, Directeur der Hoogere Burgerschool te Zierikzee. Deel IV. 1872-1883. Nieuwe uitgave. Schiedam: J. F. Dupont, 1912, Hoofdstuk I, p. 21.
Mas Soemo Widikdjo was a Malay guide and interpreter, the son of a British-Indian officer, who had repeatedly rendered services to the Dutch on previous occasions, and who was charged by Lieutenant-general Van Swieten in December 1873 with the delivery of two letters to the sultan of Atjeh offering peace on the model of the Siak-tractaat and proposing to wage war “in the manner of civilised nations.” He departed on 26 December 26 December [1873] and never returned: later it became known that, after being held prisoner a couple of days, he was murderously killed at Longbatta.
Background
Mas Soemo Widikdjo was the son of a British-Indian officer, “hoping for his children to recover the place in society which he had lost for himself by the early death of his father.” He had repeatedly rendered services as a guide or interpreter on previous occasions.
The Mission
After the second Aceh expedition had landed east of the Atjeh river on 9 December 9 December 1873 and had pushed forward to the mouth of the Atjeh river by 15 December 15 December, Van Swieten decided to make one last attempt to end the war by negotiation. He sent two letters to the sultan. In the one, the sultan was informed on what conditions the Dutch were still willing to make peace — namely, if he declared himself willing to sign a tractaat of about the same content as the Siak-tractaat. In the other, the sultan was proposed to wage war “in the manner of civilised nations.” With the delivery of these letters was charged the native Mas Soemo Widikdjo.
The Murder
He departed on 26 December 26 December [1873] but never returned. “Later it became known that, after being held prisoner a couple of days, he was murderously killed at Longbatta.” His murder hardened the Dutch resolution to take the Kraton by force, and led directly to the fall of the Kraton on 24 January 24 January 1874.
See Also
- J. van Swieten
- Longbatta
- Imam of Longbatta
- Tractaat with Siak of 1858
- Murder of Mas Soemo Widikdjo
- Second Aceh Expedition (1873-1874)
- Capture of the Kraton (24 January 1874)
- Aceh War
Source
De geschiedenis van Nederland in onzen tijd, by J. A. de Bruyne, Directeur der Hoogere Burgerschool te Zierikzee. Deel IV. 1872-1883. Nieuwe uitgave. Schiedam: J. F. Dupont, 1912, Hoofdstuk I, p. 21.
Account from Van Swieten (1879)
Lieutenant-General Van Swieten, in De waarheid over onze vestiging in Atjeh (1879), provided a detailed account of Mas Soemo Widikdjo’s mission. The General described him as “a man of standing and advanced years” and noted that he had “repeatedly rendered us services as a guide or interpreter on previous occasions.” He was accompanied by two followers and two natives of Serdang.
The Mission of 1 December 1873
On 1 December 1873, Van Swieten dispatched two letters to Sultan Mahmud Shah via Mas Soemo Widikdjo. The first set out the conditions on which the Dutch were willing to make peace — namely, if the Sultan declared himself willing to sign a tractaat of approximately the same content as that concluded with the Sultan of Siak Sri Indrapoera in 1858. The second letter proposed mutual observance of the laws of civilized warfare — the humane treatment of prisoners, the protection of non-combatants, and the respectful burial of the dead according to Islamic custom.
In the second letter, Van Swieten specifically requested the Sultan’s assurance that “no harm be done to my envoys, but that they be treated courteously and their letters received and read — for how could we come to deliberation and negotiations if the lives of our envoys were not safe and their persons not sacred?”
The Disappearance
Mas Soemo Widikdjo proceeded into the Acehnese-held territory and was never seen again. Van Swieten waited twelve days. On 2 January 1874, he addressed his ultimatum to the Sultan, demanding: “What have you done with my envoy MANTRIE MAS SOEMOE WIDIKDJO, a man of standing and advanced years?” The Sultan did not reply.
The disappearance was regarded by the Dutch as a violation of the laws of war and provided a central element of Van Swieten’s justification for the subsequent hardening of the Dutch position and the bombardment of Pedir.
Source (Van Swieten account)
De waarheid over onze vestiging in Atjeh, door den Luitenant-Generaal J. van Swieten. Zalt-Bommel, Joh. Noman en Zoon, 1879, pp. 142–170 (Hoofdstuk IV); Bijlage D, pp. 471–472; Bijlage F, pp. 474–475.
Een beroep op het Nederlandsche volk in zake het Atjeh-vraagstuk, door J. J. W. E. Verstege (Amsterdam: J. H. de Bussy, 1886), pp. 17-18. OCR: DLP-158.