Blang Oe was the kampong on the coast west of K. Radja chosen by kolonel Pel on 4 May 1874 as the headquarters of the new Marassa-area chain of posts — Merdoewatie, Lampasej, Blang Oe and Oeleh Leh, with a batterij at Oedjoeng Planggan — and the assembly point before the battle of Soerian of 26 July 1874. By the time the continuous line around K. Radja was completed in May 1875, Blang Oe had become the western terminus of the line where it reached the sea-strand at Oeleh Leh.
Headquarters of the Marassa line
After his 4 May 1874 conference with Toekoe Nek at Marassa, Pel decided to bezet Merdoewatie, Lampasej, Blang Oe (headquarters) and Oeleh Leh, with a batterij at Oedjoeng Planggan. Blang Oe’s selection as headquarters reflected its central position between the Dutch base at the captured Kraton and the new seaward post at Oeleh Leh, and its control of the coast road along which the enemy had attacked Toekoe Nek on 26–27 April 1874. The post was repeatedly gealarmeerd en beziggehouden — alarmed and kept busy — during the coordinated enemy attacks of 19 May 1874 on the K. Radja–Oeleh Leh line, but the Oeleh Leh bezetting stood its “ernstigen aanval” and “sloeg dien wakker af.”
The Soerian assembly and the western terminus
On 26 July 1874 Pel assembled the whole available force at Blang Oe before advancing against Soerian, Poe Oe and the neighbouring kampongs. From Blang Oe the troops marched out at dawn and met immediate stiff resistance; the enemy was prepared. The failure of the Atjehneezen to break the Marassa line in May 1874 was therefore punished from Blang Oe in July. When the continuous line around K. Radja was completed in May 1875, the south side of the stelling-Pel ran from Oedjoeng Plungan through Soerian, Poe Oe, Poengej Blang Tjoet, Lamteboe, Setee, Lamara Olejlo, Lohong, Longbatta Z. to Longbatta-Mesigit, and the west side continued through Poe Oe and Blang Oe to the sea-strand at Oeleh Leh. Blang Oe thus marked the western terminus of the line, where the inland posts joined the seaward corner.
Account from H. F. Meijer (1883) — the hospital post of Blang-Oë
Meijer gives Blang-Oë its purpose as the old work with Lampasei destined to protect the friendly-at-the-start population of Marasa against the attacks of the enemy. After the conquest of the IX and VI Moekims and the pushing forward of the Dutch lines, those two posts had become superfluous and were reduced in garrison to one section of infantry each. Blang-Oë was to be abolished as a fortification only when the auxiliary hospital placed in it could be given another suitable place.
The hospital of Blang-Oë — connected with Olehleh by a reasonably good road passing a strong yoke bridge over the lagune — tended the sick of the coastal establishment; its better supply was obtained directly from Olehleh instead of Kota Radja. In it and in the auxiliary fighting of 1876, Meijer found — among his examples of the daily toll of the guerilla war — the mutilated body of a free coolie fetched several days earlier from this post by Atjehnese prowlers; and at the wounded men’s count of the hospital on 1 September 1876 72 patients, with 574 at that of Panteh Peiraq. The footpath towards Kota Radja by it was reported in a very bad state.
Account from Verstege’s Een beroep op het Nederlandsche volk (1886)
Verstege records how even the kampongs between Oleh-leh and Kota Radja were not spared within the line: in the night of 6-7 June 1885 a band of twenty men fired upon the kampong Blang Oe, situated between Oleh-leh and Kota Radja (see Guerilla raids inside the concentration line (1885)).
See Also
- Marassa
- Toekoe Nek
- Oeleh Leh
- Soerian
- Poe Oe
- Stelling-Pel
- Battle of Soerian (26 July 1874)
- Generaal Pel
Source
Onze vestiging in Atjeh, critisch beschreven, by G. F. W. Borel, Kapitein der Artillerie. ‘s-Gravenhage: D. A. Thieme, 1878. pp. 85, 94, 103–104, 115, 119–120, 132, 135, 141, 143, 176–183, 263.
Een beroep op het Nederlandsche volk in zake het Atjeh-vraagstuk, door J. J. W. E. Verstege (Amsterdam: J. H. de Bussy, 1886), p. 109. OCR: DLP-158.