The Goeah Teroes — groote grot, the great cave — was a cave high in the mountains of the Glé Betoes between Lho-Nga and Lepong on the west of Groot-Atjeh, used in 1897 as the stronghold of the band of Toekoe Hassan and the object of the Dutch patrol of 25 September 1897.
Description
P. H. R. Beuming describes the cave as lying high in the mountains and resembling een waar arendsnest — a veritable eagle’s nest. It was reached only by climbing rock faces of dizzying height with the aid of ropes and hooked staves, through terrain so overgrown that the point of the Dutch column had to hack a way with the kapmes, and where one false step meant falling to pieces in the abyss.
Below the cave the climbing party reached a plateau formed by nature, where the signs of the enemy’s immediate proximity were found in some banana leaves bearing the remains of a fresh rice meal.
The cave itself proved on entry to have several exits, through which the defenders escaped after the Dutch forced the mouth; great bloodstains on the ground and along the walls showed that the band had suffered losses. It was this multiplicity of exits, and the impossibility of pursuit, that decided Captain J. N. C. Baron van Heerdt to break off the action and take up the retreat.
The action of 25 September 1897
The mouth of the Goeah Teroes was the scene of the death of 1st Lieutenant J. van Greuningen and the European fusiliers Winkelman, Tuk and Dissel, shot down à bout portant by about fifteen Acehnese who appeared suddenly from behind a rock face, and of the severe wounding of the native fusiliers Bongsowikromo and Tanja. The native fusilier Siman was killed by fire from within the cave as the Dutch reached the entrance. The full narrative is given at Patrol to the Goeah Teroes on the Glé Betoes (25 September 1897).
See Also
- Patrol to the Goeah Teroes on the Glé Betoes (25 September 1897)
- Glé Betoes
- Toekoe Hassan
- J. N. C. Baron van Heerdt
- J. van Greuningen
- Lho-Nga
- Lepong
- 1897
Source
Schetsen uit den strijd op Groot-Atjeh, met speciaal vervaardigde kaart en toepasselijke photo’s, bewerkt door P. H. R. Beuming, oud-onderofficier van het Ned.-Indische Leger (Amsterdam, December 1911; uitgegeven ten bate van het te stichten Herstellingsoord voor Rijks-Ambtenaren). Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen, Br N 82-144
Acknowledgement of sources. The material in this article derives from Schetsen uit den strijd op Groot-Atjeh, met speciaal vervaardigde kaart en toepasselijke photo’s, bewerkt door P. H. R. Beuming, oud-onderofficier van het Ned.-Indische Leger (Amsterdam, December 1911). Dutch passages are quoted in the original with an English rendering.