S. van Houten — cited by his critic as de heer Mr. van Houten — was a Dutch statesman and publicist whose contributions to the Vragen des Tijds of 1891–1892 (aflevering 4) and whose parliamentary amendment concerning the schutterij (civic militia) and a burgerweer (burgher guard) were made, by the retired colonel W. A. Coblijn in Hoe Atjeh te onderwerpen, the representative statement of the political philosophy that had, in Coblijn’s view, mismanaged the Atjeh-oorlog for twenty years.
The controversy
Coblijn rebuked Van Houten’s use of the saying of the German Kaiser that the army is a part of the people, and not the worst part — Die Armee ist ein Theil des Volkes und nicht der schlechteste — and his conclusions upon the amendment on the wetsontwerp Bergansius (the Bergansius bill): that the schutterij should serve mainly as the support of the lawful authority. Against him Coblijn marshalled the authorities of the military art — Moltke, Machiavelli, Derrécagaix and Horsetzky — and argued that Van Houten had not remained true to the truth in his account of these examples. Coblijn also attacked Van Houten’s naval criticism: his disagreement with the Minister of Marine over the enlargement of the fleet, and his view that an expensive strengthening of the squadron would sow distrust and provoke reprisals, left the colonies — and above all the war in Atjeh, which depended on the sea — without the armoured ships that the Indies required. The controversy formed the domestic, parliamentary panel of Coblijn’s thesis that not a destiny but the politics of the mother country was to blame for the failures in Atjeh.
See Also
- Hoe Atjeh te onderwerpen (Coblijn, 1893)
- W. A. Coblijn
- Civil versus military government in Atjeh
- Staten-Generaal
- Aceh War
Source
Hoe Atjeh te onderwerpen, door W. A. Coblijn, gepensionneerd Kolonel van het Oost-Indisch Leger (‘s-Gravenhage: De Gebroeders van Cleef, 1893), pp. 17–24. OCR-filename: 20260716_140310_DLP-100-Hoe_Atjeh_te_onderwerpen_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt.