Scherer

Scherer — Assistent-Resident in the Dutch colonial civil administration — was the principal Dutch advocate of the scheepvaartregeling (maritime trade regulation) as the decisive strategic instrument of the Atjeh-oorlog. His persistent advocacy of the regulation, his practical application of it on the North Coast from May 1882, his May 1883 introduction of it throughout Atjeh under Laging Tobias, his 20 January 1891 lecture before the Indisch Genootschap at The Hague, and his role in the preparation of the 1893–1894 general regulation under Deijkerhoff, together constitute the most sustained Dutch attempt to substitute systematic trade control for the failed policies of blockade and conciliation.

The 1881 Proposal

Scherer was stationed at the post established at Telok Semawé in 1881. Already in May 1881 he set out to the new Governor Pruijs van der Hoeven the necessity of a rational scheepvaartregeling. The Governor was not persuaded: C’était precher un converti — but, as Kruijt observes, the preacher was himself a convert, and Pruijs van der Hoeven’s reply, “Pacificatie van Atjeh met politieke onthouding op de kusten is onmogelijk” (Pacification of Atjeh with political abstinence on the coasts is impossible), with the further observation that “juist op de kust, waar het geld verdiend wordt, het verzet georganiseerd en waar de strijders vandaan komen, waar het meerendeel der Groot-Atjehsche bevolking in de pepertuinen werkt, ligt het zwaartepunt der Atjeh-kwestie” (just on the coast, where the money is earned, the resistance is organised, and where the fighters come from, where the majority of the Groot-Atjehse population works in the pepper gardens, lies the centre of gravity of the Atjeh question) — and “De meester van de kust is meester van het land” (The master of the coast is the master of the land) — Scherer’s own doctrine.

The May 1882 Introduction on the North Coast

By the pressure of circumstances the Governor gave Scherer, in May 1882, the freedom to introduce the regulation on a part of the North Coast. Howsoever only partially and with defective means applied, it worked excellently.

The May 1883 Introduction Throughout Atjeh

In May 1883 the Governor Laging Tobias, equally convinced of its great usefulness, ordered, under further approval of the government, the introduction of Scherer’s scheepvaartregeling in all Atjeh. Even though unprepared and with inadequate means, it worked excellently under Scherer’s able leadership — until, in October 1884, by order of the High Government in the Netherlands, it was wholly withdrawn and even the abolition of all posts on the coasts was decided. Only on the East Coast, where it had worked for ten years, was it maintained, in order not to lose all influence there as well.

The Indisch Genootschap Lecture of 20 January 1891

Scherer was not discouraged. Strong in his deep conviction, he expounded in a lecture on 20 January 20 January 1891 before the Indisch Genootschap at ‘s-Gravenhage on the subject “Hoe moet Atjeh gepacificeerd worden” (How Atjeh must be pacified), once again the urgent desirability of the introduction of the scheepvaartregeling. Speaking of the then ten-year-elapsed period, he said, among other things:

“Voor ieder die eenigszins over de zaak wilde doordenken moest het duidelijk zijn, dat het verzet niet van Groot-Atjeh maar van de onderhoorigheden uitging, dat dáár het geld verdiend werd, waarmee de kosten van den oorlog werden bestreden, dat dáár het jonge, fanatieke volk werd verzameld om invallen in Groot-Atjeh te doen en dat men zich derwaarts in volkomen veiligheid terugtrok als wij den guerilla’s (in Groot-Atjeh) het vuur te na aan de schenen legden.” (For anyone who would think at all about the matter, it must have been clear that the resistance came not from Groot-Atjeh but from the dependencies, that there the money was earned with which the costs of the war were met, that there the young fanatical people were gathered to make incursions into Groot-Atjeh, and that one withdrew thither in perfect safety when we put the fire too close to the shins of the guerrillas in Groot-Atjeh.)

The later Governor Van Teijn continued to urge the scheepvaartregeling on the government. In August 1889 he wrote:

“Hoe meer ik kennis maak met den aard en het karakter van den Atjeher, hoe meer ik gevestigd raak in mijne overtuiging, dat wij steeds een middel in de hand moeten hebben om zonder veel bezwaar dadelijk te kunnen straffen, indien ons gezag niet wordt geëerbiedigd. Daartoe geeft de scheepvaartregeling gelegenheid. ‘t Zij door heffen van boeten, in te vorderen door naasting voor korteren of langeren duur van de in- en uitvoerrechten; ‘t zij door allen in- of uitvoer te verbieden. Zonder deze regeling zullen wij nimmer ons gezag op de kuststaatjes kunnen handhaven en zullen wij nimmer voldoenden invloed in Groot-Atjeh kunnen uitoefenen.” (The more I become acquainted with the nature and the character of the Atjeher, the more I am fixed in my conviction that we must always have a means in hand to be able to punish at once without much burden, if our authority is not respected. For this the scheepvaartregeling gives occasion. Either by levying fines, to be recovered by distraint for shorter or longer duration of the import and export duties; or by prohibiting all import or export. Without this regulation we shall never be able to maintain our authority in the coastal statelets and shall never be able to exercise sufficient influence in Groot-Atjeh.)

Van Heutsz confirmed all these opinions in full in his excellent and clear brochure “De onderwerping van Atjeh”, published in 1898.

The 1893–1894 Preparation under Deijkerhoff

How fully Deijkerhoff himself was convinced of the good effect of the blockade and considered its strict and permanent maintenance necessary, he had already from the beginning, with the Resident Scherer, arranged the preparation of a scheepvaartregeling. Scherer came over to Atjeh for this purpose, visited the various coastal statelets, had discussions with the chiefs — who, in the prospect of being released from the straitening bands of the blockade, were glad to see him come. Only Pedir refused to accept the conditions set. Scherer found the situation in Atjeh, since his departure in 1884, much deteriorated. He attributed this especially to the blockade.

Scherer’s Doctrine

Scherer’s doctrine, as Kruijt expounds it, is that the centre of gravity of the Atjeh-oorlog lies not in Groot-Atjeh — where the Dutch had concentrated their forces and where the enemy’s resistance was merely symptomatic — but on the coasts, where the money was earned with which the war was financed, where the young fanatical recruits were gathered, and where the resistance was organised. The scheepvaartregeling — by concentrating all import and export in a few Dutch-controlled harbours, by levying duties, by withholding the Sultan’s share from recalcitrant chiefs, and by closing harbours to all trade in case of grave offences — was the means by which the Dutch could exercise political influence on the coasts at low cost and with decisive effect. “De meester van de kust is meester van het land” (The master of the coast is the master of the land), Scherer held.

Significance

Scherer is the principal Dutch strategist of the Atjeh-oorlog. His advocacy of the scheepvaartregeling — from the May 1881 proposal, through the May 1882 partial introduction, the May 1883 general introduction, the 20 January 1891 lecture, and the 1893–1894 preparation under Deijkerhoff — constitutes the most sustained and coherent Dutch strategic analysis of the war. His diagnosis — that the war was sustained from the coasts, not from Groot-Atjeh — was vindicated by the subsequent Dutch victory under Van Heutsz, which rested on the systematic application of the scheepvaartregeling and the marechaussée campaigns of the late 1890s and early 1900s. His Indisch Genootschap lecture of 20 January 1891 is one of the most important strategic documents of the war.

Account from De onderwerping van Atjeh (Van Heutsz, 1893)

In the 1893 tract De onderwerping van Atjeh, Van Heutsz treats Scherer — after Van der Heijden and Van Teijn — as the third intellectual hero of his narrative: the man “uit wiens helder brein het eerst het denkbeeld van eene rationeele regeling voor handel en scheepvaart in verband met onze vestigingen op de kusten, is gesproten” — from whose clear brain the idea of a rational regulation of trade and shipping in connection with our establishments on the coasts first sprang. Scherer’s scheepvaartregeling concept — the controlled routing of all Atjehnese maritime trade through Dutch-administered ports, with duties levied on the in- and out-flow of goods — is the central prescription of the 1893 tract.

Arrival on the Noordkust (1879–80)

Scherer arrived on the Noordkust as wd. assistent-resident (acting assistant-resident) at the moment — late in the Van der Heijden governorship — when the coastal line of posts prescribed by the Pel plan of 30 April 1875 had been completed and the Dutch position on the Noordkust was sufficiently consolidated to permit the controlled routing of trade. Van Heutsz’s encomium fixes the arrival and the originality in a single sentence:

“op dit tijdstip was juist, als wd. assistent-resident, op de Noordkust gekomen de man — de tegenwoordige resident Scherer — uit wiens helder brein het eerst het denkbeeld van eene rationeele regeling voor handel en scheepvaart in verband met onze vestigingen op de kusten, is gesproten”. — at this moment there had just arrived, as acting assistant-resident, on the North Coast, the man — the present resident Scherer — from whose clear brain the idea of a rational regulation of trade and shipping in connection with our establishments on the coasts had first sprung.

The arrival opened the period in which a rationeele scheepvaartregeling could have been built, “zonder schokken hoegenaamd, geleidelijk” — without shocks of any kind, gradually — under Van der Heijden’s military administration and “met krachtige medewerking van het bestuur van Atjeh onder Generaal van der Heijden” (with vigorous cooperation of the administration of Atjeh under General Van der Heijden). The opportunity was lost when Van der Heijden was dismissed in early 1881 — “tot eeuwige schade en schande voor Nederland, dat hem van zijn voetstuk liet afrukken” (to eternal damage and shame of the Netherlands, that allowed him to be torn from his pedestal) — and the scheepvaartregeling Scherer had conceived was, for the next two years, deferred.

The Gighen–Samalanga test (1880): the bangoen method

The empirical origin of the scheepvaartregeling lay in the Gighen and Samalanga episodes, where two Dutch emissaries — Said Abdellah and Soetan Maharadja — had been murdered and the local chiefs had repeatedly evaded payment of the bangoen (the blood-price) by excuses. Scherer’s solution was to lay a kruisboot (a marine patrol vessel) before the harbours of Gighen and Samalanga and to collect the bangoen by levying duties on the in- and out-going goods. Van Heutsz records the result and the inference Scherer drew from it:

“Dit hielp; te Gighen betaalde men nog vóór dat de kruisboot er lag en te Samalanga, nadat de kruisboot er slechts drie dagen gelegen had. Dat was voor Scherer eene vingerwijzing en bracht hem op het denkbeeld, dat als slechts alle in- en uitvoer langs onze vestigingen plaats had onder onze contrôle, wij ook het middel in de hand hadden om de hoofden van de verschillende staatjes in het rechte spoor te houden”. — This helped; at Gighen they paid even before the cruiser lay there, and at Samalanga, after the cruiser had lain there only three days. That was for Scherer an indication and brought him to the idea, that if only all import and export took place through our establishments under our control, we also had in hand the means to keep the chiefs of the various statelets on the right track.

The Gighen–Samalanga test was, in Van Heutsz’s reading, the gewichtige antwoord op de vraag van Pel in zijn brief van 30 April 1875 wat, na voltooiing van zijn plan, moest gedaan worden in ons politiek en handelsbelang — the weighty answer to the question Pel himself had posed in his letter of 30 April 1875: what, after the completion of his plan, was to be done in our political and trade interest? Scherer’s answer was that the controle op handel en scheepvaart would put the Dutch “op de geldkist” of Atjeh — on the cash-box of Atjeh — and thereby provide both the middel tot beloonen als straffen (means to reward as well as to punish) and the middel om de hoofden … in het rechte spoor te houden (means to keep the chiefs on the right track).

The May 1883 scheepvaartregeling under Laging Tobias

Scherer’s scheepvaartregeling was first applied, in its full form, under Gouverneur Laging Tobias in May 1883. Van Heutsz records the application, attributing the denkbeelden (ideas) to Scherer and the invoering (introduction) to Laging Tobias:

“Reeds in Mei 1883 toch, zoo verhaalt ons Scherer, vaardigde hij, onder nadere goedkeuring der Regeering, een besluit uit, waarbij, volgens zijn (Scherer’s) denkbeelden, eene contrôle op handel en scheepvaart werd ingevoerd, die alles wat in- en uitgevoerd werd door onze handen deed gaan en aan ons toezicht onderwierp”. — Already in May 1883, so Scherer tells us, he issued, under further approval of the Government, a decree by which, according to his (Scherer’s) ideas, a control on trade and shipping was introduced, which caused everything that was imported and exported to pass through our hands and to be subjected to our supervision.

The May 1883 scheepvaartregeling covered the Noord- en Westkust from June 1883 and the Oostkust from earlier still — “op laatstgenoemde kust was daardoor als vanzelf, te Edi, een handelscentrum ontstaan, waren hoofden en bevolking tot welvaart geraakt” (on the latter coast a trading-centre had thereby arisen as if of itself, at Edi; chiefs and population had attained prosperity) — and on the Noordkust “had de ondervinding aangetoond, dat in die scheepvaartregeling het middel lag om ons bestuur de macht en invloed te bezorgen, noodig om geleidelijk tot een ordelijken stand van zaken te geraken” (experience had shown that in that shipping-regulation lay the means to procure for our administration the power and influence necessary to arrive gradually at an orderly state of affairs). Van Heutsz’s verdict, in the 1893 tract, is the highest praise he accords any Governor in the entire catalogue: “de scheepvaartregeling door Scherer voorgesteld en door Laging Tobias ingevoerd gaf alles wat men kon verlangen” — the scheepvaartregeling proposed by Scherer and introduced by Laging Tobias gave everything one could desire. The measure placed the Dutch, in Van Heutsz’s words, “in den volsten zin des woords op de geldkist van Atjeh” — in the fullest sense of the word on the cash-box of Atjeh — and gave them the macht om de Atjehers te doen betalen zooveel en waar wij zelf maar wilden (power to make the Atjehnese pay as much as and wherever we ourselves wished).

The 20 Januari 1891 lecture to the Indisch Genootschap

Scherer’s principal public exposition of the scheepvaartregeling was the lecture he gave to the Indisch Genootschap on 20 January 1891 — the lecture Van Heutsz would later refute point-by-point in the policy-prescription half of the 1893 tract. The lecture set out Scherer’s four proposals: 1°. Het controleeren van handel en scheepvaart; 2°. Het meester worden op de kust; 3°. Het isoleeren van Groot-Atjeh; 4°. Het pacificeeren van Groot-Atjeh met of zonder sultan (1. The controlling of trade and shipping; 2. The becoming master on the coast; 3. The isolating of Groot-Atjeh; 4. The pacifying of Groot-Atjeh with or without sultan). Van Heutsz, in the 1893 tract, accepts the first proposal, dismisses the second and third as “bepaald verkeerd” (decidedly wrong) and “scharrelpolitiek” (scratch-politics), and rejects the fourth’s “met of zonder sultan” in favour of “zonder sultan” (without sultan). Scherer’s lecture was published in brochure form, and Van Heutsz quotes it page-by-page — bladz. 15, 19, 23, 26–27, 38, 42 — throughout the 1893 tract. Van Heutsz concedes Scherer’s priority on the scheepvaartregeling but argues that his application is too soft — “dat de scheepvaartregeling door Scherer voorgesteld … niet door krachtige marinemiddelen gesteund” (that the shipping-regulation proposed by Scherer … was not supported by powerful naval means) — and that Scherer’s “sluiting-as-straf” (closure-as-punishment) reading underestimates the marine force the measure requires: “Eene scheepvaartregeling zonder of met eene onvoldoende marine is als een leger zonder of met gebrekkige wapenen” — A shipping-regulation without, or with an insufficient, navy is like an army without, or with defective, weapons.

The October 1884 resignation

Scherer’s resignation came in early October 1884, after he had perceived that Generaal Demmeni would only half-apply his scheme. Van Heutsz records the resignation, and Scherer’s parting warning-notes to the General, in a single passage:

“toen hij bemerkte, dat de Generaal Demmeni, hoe ook diens denkbeelden omtrent de Atjeh-zaak waren, eenvoudig het hem voorgeschreven stelsel in practijk zou brengen, besloot om heen te gaan; hij vroeg toen intrekking zijner plaatsing te Atjeh en vertrok in het begin van October, na eerst nog in een paar met redenen omkleede nota’s, den kolonel Demmeni ernstig tegen het opheffen der scheepvaartregeling en van de posten op de kust gewaarschuwd te hebben”. — when he perceived that General Demmeni, whatever his views on the Atjeh question, would simply put the prescribed system into practice, he decided to leave; he then requested the withdrawal of his posting at Atjeh and departed at the beginning of October, after first, in a couple of reasoned notes, having seriously warned Colonel Demmeni against the lifting of the shipping-regulation and of the posts on the coast.

The Nota’s van Scherer aan Demmeni — the parting warning-notes — were the last expert advice the General received before Scherer left. The resignation took with it, in Van Heutsz’s reading, the only man who could have advised Demmeni how to construct the scheepvaartregeling he had begun to introduce: “de man, die den Generaal het beste had kunnen voorlichten omtrent de wijze, waarop die scheepvaartregeling diende ingericht te zijn en waarom eene andere regeling niet deugde, was heengegaan” (the man who could best have advised the General on the way in which that shipping-regulation should be arranged, and why another arrangement was no good, had departed). The counter-factual is explicit: “Ware hij gebleven en had hij gestreden met zijne argumenten tegen de blokkade en voor de scheepvaartregeling, zeker zou dan geene contrôle op handel en scheepvaart getroffen zijn, zooals thans het geval is geweest, vermoedelijk ook geen tweeslachtige regeling” — Had he stayed and fought with his arguments against the blockade and for the shipping-regulation, then certainly no control on trade and shipping would have been adopted as has now been the case, probably also no ambiguous arrangement.

Sources

Hoe Atjeh te onderwerpen, door W. A. Coblijn, gepensionneerd Kolonel van het Oost-Indisch Leger (‘s-Gravenhage: De Gebroeders van Cleef, 1893), pp. 50, 70–80, 90–93, 112, 117. OCR-filename: 20260716_140310_DLP-100-Hoe_Atjeh_te_onderwerpen_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt.

Source

De Atjeh-Oorlog: Kort Overzicht van Oorsprong, Verloop en Gevolg, door J. A. Kruijt. ‘s-Gravenhage: Loman & Funke, 1896. Chapter VII (Scherer’s doctrine and the 1881–1884 introduction), Chapter XII (the 1893–1894 preparation). OCR-filename: 20260716_140310_DLP-101-De_Atjeh_oorlog_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt, pp. 35–37, 65–66.

De onderwerping van Atjeh, door J. B. van Heutsz, Majoor der Infanterie, gewezen Chef van den Staf in Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden. ‘s-Gravenhage: De Gebroeders van Cleef; Batavia: G. Kolff en Co., 1893, esp. pp. 22, 26–28, 32, 34–35, 39–42. OCR-filename: 20260718_105749_DLP-107-De_onderwerping_van_Atjeh_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt.

tags	person, dutch, colonial, civil-administrator, aceh-war, atjeh, resident, official, 19th-century, scheepvaartregeling-advocate, colonial-administrator, civil-government, aceh, author
aliases	Assistent-Resident Scherer, wd. assistent-resident Scherer, A. Scherer, Resident Scherer, de tegenwoordige resident Scherer, H. J. Scherer, Scherer (Atjeh official), G. A. Scherer, de Resident Scherer

Explorer