Van Blokland was a Dutch captain of the Nederlandsch-Indisch Leger who, on 7 March 1896, commanded the 72-man patrol that was ambushed near the Dutch temporary post of Anagaloeng in the XXII Moekims of Groot-Atjeh — the engagement that became known as the patrol of 7 March 1896 and that produced the first officer fatality of the 1896 crisis, Lieutenant Westendorp. Van Blokland himself was wounded in the engagement.
The patrol of 7 March 1896
The Atjeh-Album of 1896 records that the patrol was sent out on 7 March 1896 under Van Blokland and two lieutenants — of whom one was Westendorp — with the object of proceeding westward from the extreme temporary post of Anagaloeng to deal with a band of Atjehnese who had, for some two weeks, been shooting at everyone they could hit from that direction. The patrol was 72 men strong. On the march out it was left relatively unmolested, but on the return march it was attacked by various bands and was hard-pressed to hold its own. Although it was only some 350 paces from Anagaloeng, it had to hold its ground for five long hours in order not to leave the dead and wounded in the enemy’s hands.
The relief by the Senelop command
The commandant at Senelop — hearing the rumour of the engagement — hurried to Lamsict with 40 men under lieutenants Westendorp and Ketjen and from there to Anagaloeng. By taking up a flanking position and drawing the Atjehnese fire upon himself, the Senelop command gave Van Blokland the opportunity to retire. The casualties of the relief were: Westendorp and three subordinates severely wounded; Van Blokland, Stakman, Van Hasselt, the medical officer van der Meer, the adjutant-non-commissioned-officer Kruger and 18 subordinates lightly wounded. Of the twelve killed on the patrol, three had to be left on the field.
Significance
Van Blokland’s significance in the documentary record of the Atjeh-oorlog is as the commander of the patrol of 7 March 1896 — the engagement that produced the first officer fatality of the 1896 crisis. His survival of the engagement — and the relief of his patrol by the Senelop command — is one of the principal narratives of the early days of the crisis, and his appearance in the Atjeh-Album of 1896 establishes the chain of command that linked the temporary posts at Anagaloeng and Senelop in the early days of the Toekoe Oemar defection crisis.
Account in Hooijer’s De verlaten posten in Groot-Atjeh (1897)
Van Blokland — called by G. B. Hooijer Kapitein Blokland — was the Dutch captain commanding the post of Anagaloeng whose patrol of 7 March 1896 was severely mauled by the Moslemin a short distance from the fortification, an action Hooijer identified as het voorspel van het drama — the prelude to the drama of the defection of Teukoe Oemar three weeks later.
The order to patrol
At the beginning of 1896 the commandant of the post at Anagaloeng received instructions that, before his detachment was relieved by another, he should make a patrol through the surrounding country and drive off the hostile marksmen who would not cease firing at Dutch transports. Hooijer read this as a sign that an end might be coming to the Dutch passive attitude toward the roving, thieving and murdering Moslemin, and that plans were in the air to transfer the task of maintaining order from the Achehnese back to Dutch soldiers.
The patrol of 7 March 1896 (Hooijer’s account)
Accordingly Kapitein Blokland marched out of the benteng early on the morning of 7 March 1896 with seventy-two men, leaving only twenty-eight soldiers behind. He had been out of sight behind the surrounding trees only a short time when those in the post heard, from every side, the steadily increasing fire of the enemy answered by Dutch volleys. At length they saw their captain’s party retiring to within 350 paces of the post and there standing fast, because there were not hands enough to carry the many dead and wounded further.
Confusion in the post
No officer had been left in the benteng, and everything there ran in disorder and the greatest anxiety: soldiers’ wives wailed, children cried, and no one dared leave the post to help the party pinned down in the rice-fields under enemy fire.
The relief
At last the liniecommandant (commander of the line) appeared, having come from Senelop on hearing the heavy firing and having picked up forty men from Lam Soet and Lambarih on the way. The Captain of the Staff accompanying him succeeded, by taking up a position on the flank, in drawing the fire of the Moslemin upon himself, and thereby gave the wounded Blokland the opportunity to withdraw into the post with his dead and wounded and his twenty unwounded men.
Aftermath
Three weeks later the same post, which was to have been converted into a permanently occupied fixed point, was invested by a population that had suddenly turned hostile. For eighteen days the garrison was left to itself, fortunately amply supplied with vivres and ammunition; only then did a column appear which, after fighting several actions, relieved it. The post was lifted and burnt on 18 April 1896 without heavy loss.
See Also
- Patrol of 7 March 1896 near Anagaloeng
- Anagaloeng
- Senelop
- Lamsict
- K. H. Westendorp
- Ketjen
- Stakman
- Van Hasselt
- Van der Meer (medical officer)
- Kruger (adjudant)
- Franson
- Bisschoff van Heemskerk
- Toekoe Oemar’s defection (1896)
- Aceh War
- 7 March
- 1896
- Atjeh-Album (Eigen Haard, 1896)
- Patrol of Captain Van Blokland (7 March 1896)
- Lam Soet
- Lambarih
- Moslemin
- Defection of Teukoe Oemar (1896)
Sources
Atjeh-Album van Eigen Haard, uitgave van de N.V. Het Tijdschrift “Eigen Haard”, Amsterdam, 1896, p. 8 (De Poeassa — Atjehers en Kafirs — Anagaloeng — Eindelijk Ontzet).
De verlaten posten in Groot-Atjeh, door G. B. Hooijer, Gep. Luit.-Kolonel O. I. Leger, met 24 platen (Haarlem: De Erven F. Bohn; Batavia: G. Kolff & Co., 1897). Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen, Centrale Boekerij, Amsterdam. OCR-filename: 20260719_140140_DLP-134-De_verlaten_posten_in_Groot_Atjeh_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt, pp. 50-52.
Acknowledgement of sources. This article is a single consolidated account combining the material previously held in this entry with the account given in De verlaten posten in Groot-Atjeh (1897) by G. B. Hooijer. Dutch terminology has been rendered in English, the original Dutch being retained only in direct quotations and in bibliographic citations.