Ajer-Alang was a kampong on the Atjeh-rivier halfway between Indrapoeri and Selimoen, chosen in August 1879 as the site of the etappe (provisions post) by which the transport problem of the Selimoen expedition was solved, as recorded in W. Cool and G. B. Hooijer’s Eene schoone bladzijde uit Atjeh’s geschiedenis (1889).
The etappe post
The march order of 11 August 1879 prescribed that for the provisionment of the column marching from Lamtoba an etappe post should be established at Ajer-Alang, on the Atjeh river halfway between Indrapoeri and Selimoen. It was this arrangement that cut through the chief of staff’s recursive coolie calculation: the fully land-borne transport of six days’ provisions for the mountain column would have called for about 1,600 bearers, of whom only some 900 were with the troops, while the stocking of the valley meanwhile would have demanded fifteen days; the etappe halved the requirement at once (see Transport and Coolie System in Aceh).
The forage marches of 16–18 August 1879
From the bivak at Selimoen, Kapitein Van Rijn marched to Ajer-Alang on 16 August 1879 with one and a half companies and some five hundred coolies to draw provisions; since the four wounded and thirteen heavy sick evacuated with him could not remain at the post, the medical officer Nöckedved accompanied them through to Indrapoeri and returned the same evening. On the afternoon of 18 August the transport reached the Selimoen bivak with a greater store than had been expected — provisions for more than three days — having been fired upon only at the crossing of the Atjeh river, level with the bivak that Majoor Lubeck’s departed column had occupied, by some marauders from the mountains. The journey, the authors remarked, passed wholly peacefully through a region that a few days before had been the unknown heart of the resistance; white flags stood out along all the route.
The kampong gave its name — by the most usual Dutch rendering — to the chief Toekoe Ajer Alang, brother of Panglima Polem, who submitted at Selimoen on 15 August 1879.
See Also
- Selimoen Expedition (August 1879)
- March order for the Selimoen expedition (11 August 1879)
- Kapitein Van Rijn
- Toekoe Tjoet Hadjet
- Acheh River
- Indrapoeri
- Selimoen
- 1879
Source
Eene schoone bladzijde uit Atjeh’s geschiedenis, door W. Cool en G. B. Hooijer (‘s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1889), pp. 35-36, 55-56, 58. OCR-filename: 20260720_115822_DLP-135-Eene_schoone_bladzijde_uit_Atjeh_s_geschiedenis_Nemotron_OCR_v2_OCR.txt.