Kaloet

Kaloet — sometimes Kalut — was an Atjehnese benting (fortification) of exceptional strength, built in the wildernis (wilderness) of the XXV Moekims of Groot-Atjeh at a distance of approximately 800 metres from the Dutch spoorbaan (railway line) and approximately 1300 metres north-west of the Dutch post at Lambaroe. The fortification was the principal Atjehnese strongpoint of the late concentratie period, and the scene of three principal engagements: the reconnaissance of 23 August 1892, the failed assault of 1 October 1892, and the bloodless capture of August 1893 by Toekoe Oemar.

The terrain

The Atjeh-Album of 1896 records that Kaloet was built in het centrum, op ongeveer 800 M. van de spoorbaan — in the centre, at approximately 800 m from the railway line — in a stuk wildernis van ruim een K.M. omtrek, dat 3 à 400 M. ver als een wig in de strook dringt — a piece of wilderness of more than a kilometre circumference, that pushes as a wedge into the [cleared] strip for 3 to 400 m. The terrain surrounding Kaloet was, in the album’s description, a verwarde massa alang-alang en struikgewas — a confused mass of cogon grass and shrubbery — that gave way, at the fortification itself, to a moerassige terreininzinking (marshy ground depression) of approximately 50 metres’ breadth. The site was thus both concealed and naturally defended — and the Atjehnese builders had op vernuftige wijze (in an ingenious way) made use of all the natural and artificial obstacles the terrain offered.

The fortification

The Atjeh-Album records that Kaloet was een zeldzaam groote defensieve kracht — of exceptionally great defensive strength. The four heavy earthen walls formed a rectangle of approximately 20 by 15 metres, of which one of the long sides lay in the front. The walls were 3 to 4 metres high; the side and rear walls somewhat lower and thinner; all equipped with borstweringen (parapets). The left front corner was occupied by a massief hoog bastion (massive high bastion), itself 6 metres high and equipped with a heavy lila (a kind of swivel-gun) on a spilaffuit (pivot carriage). The two side walls were joined by an earthen wall that divided the benting in two. The rear wall was een weinig gebroken (slightly broken) and provided, approximately in the middle, with a bastion armed with two pieces on roller carriages. This heavy armament served to sweep the entrance, which lay at some metres from the bastion on the rear side. The entrance consisted of an extraordinarily strong door, so narrow that only one man could pass through at a time.

The access to the entrance was uiterst moeilijk, en zeer vernuftig bedacht — extremely difficult and very ingeniously devised. Some ten metres behind and to the side of the entrance lay a very deep and broad kuil met water (water-filled pit). From the rimboe (jungle) a narrow footpath led to this pit. The last part of this path consisted, in reality, of a narrow gang van zware palissaden (lane of heavy palisades), equipped with three strong gates. These gates had to be geheel tot splinters geslagen (smashed entirely to splinters) in order to pass through. Over the pit lay a narrow klapperstam, als vonder zonder leuningen (coconut-trunk, as a footbridge without railings). From this footbridge to the gate in the rear wall ran another narrow gang van palissaden (lane of palisades) that twice made a corner and was again equipped with three doors — even sterk van constructie en sluiting als die aan de overzijde van den kuil — as strong in construction and closure as those on the other side of the pit. Around the pit the benting was eenvoudig niet te naderen (simply not to be approached). Around the entire fortification lay a 1½-metre-deep and 2-metre-broad gracht (moat), which was only without water in case of long-continued drought. From the moat at the rear bastion ran a verbindingsgang (connecting lane) to the pit.

In front of the moat, in the front, on the right flank and at the rear, lay a comboeri-aanplanting (comboeri planting) of approximately 5 metres’ breadth. The left flank rested against wholly impassable terrain — oerwoud, massieve wildernis (primeval forest, massive wilderness) — of 60 to 80 cm breadth. In front of the comboeri in the front lay several rows of wolfskuilen (wolf-pits) with randjoes (sharpened bamboo stakes), and in front of these pits again mandjoe-aanplantingen (mandjoe plantings). On the right flank the comboeri was adjoined by a dense nipahbosch (nipah palm grove); on the right side lay the rimboe (jungle).

The garrison

The Atjeh-Album records that the garrison of Kaloet was commanded by an Atjehnese officer whom the album calls De Aanvoerder, commandant van Kaloet — The Commander, commandant of Kaloet — and whose portrait is preserved in one of the album’s plates. The album does not name the commander, but it identifies him as the officer who, on the morning of 4 August 1893, sent a briefje (note) to the panglima of Kaloet with the vriendelijk verzoek (friendly request) to met zijne bezetting uit wandelen te gaan (to go for a walk with his garrison). The note — sent by Toekoe Oemar on the night of 3-4 August 1893 — warned that, if the garrison did not withdraw along a designated path before sunrise, the benting would be invested and the garrison would be over de kling gejaagd (put to the sword).

The engagements

Kaloet was the scene of three principal engagements in the late concentratie period:

The reconnaissance of 23 August 1892, in which a reconnaissance column under Captain Jhr. Graafland — with Lieutenant Brant as guide — destroyed the Atjehnese fortifications in the *Kroeng Tandjong|Kroeng Tandjong]] and approached to within 50 metres of Kaloet’s vóórwal (front wall) before withdrawing.
The failed assault of 1 October 1892, in which a strong column from Lambaroe under a captain and three lieutenants, supported by 75 men from Lampermej and 50 men of the 14th Battalion, assaulted Kaloet from the north-east and was repulsed with 7 killed and more than 30 wounded, including Lieutenant Hoolboom (mortally wounded) and Lieutenant Drijber.
The bloodless capture of August 1893, in which Toekoe Oemar — supported by the 4th Mountain Battery from the Kraton and approximately 1000 men, and by the fire of the guns of Lamreng and Lambaroe — invested the fortification on 4 August 1893 and found it abandoned the next morning.

Significance

Kaloet’s significance in the documentary record of the Atjeh-oorlog is as the principal Atjehnese strongpoint of the late concentratie period — the fortification whose exceptional strength and natural defences made it the test case of the Dutch concentratie strategy. The failed assault of 1 October 1892 was the principal Dutch military failure of the late concentratie period, and the bloodless capture of August 1893 was the principal Dutch-Atjehnese auxiliary success of the same period. The album’s detailed description of the fortification — its bastion, gracht, kuil, palissaden, comboeri, wolfskuilen, randjoes and mandjoe-aanplantingen — is the principal published record of Atjehnese fortification practice in the late nineteenth century.

Account from De Atjeh-Oorlog by J.A. Kruijt (1896)

Kruijt’s De Atjeh-Oorlog treats Kaloet as the symbol of the paralysis and self-deception of the Pahlawan-klucht period under Deijkerhoff.

Kaloet was the principal enemy fortification within the 1,000-metre open strip surrounding the Dutch concentrated stelling in Groot-Atjeh. The enemy had entrenched himself to within 150 metres of the Dutch belt railway. From Kaloet the enemy continually bombarded Dutch trains, posts, patrols, and transports; even breaking the railway in September 1892 and constructing breastworks and trenches, so that the train could not run for some time. Before Kaloet the Dutch troops repeatedly bloodied their heads; they could not take it. The reports then said that the Dutch were clearing, that they had achieved their object, that the taking of Kaloet was unnecessary.

On 10 August 1893 Toekoe Oemar — operating with Dutch troops, Dutch artillery, and Dutch rijksdaalders — took Kaloet “bijna zonder slag of stoot” (almost without blow or push). He blew them away or walked in. On the proposal of Deijkerhoff, Toekoe Oemar was officially pardoned on 30 September 1893 — seven weeks after the taking of Kaloet — under the name of T. Djohan Pahlawan and with the rank of Panglima prang besar. The ease with which Toekoe Oemar took Kaloet — when Dutch troops had repeatedly failed — was, in Kruijt’s analysis, evidence of the secret arrangement between Toekoe Oemar and the enemy that the Dutch refused to recognise.

Account in Hooijer’s De verlaten posten in Groot-Atjeh (1897)

Kaloet was an Achehnese fortified position in Groot-Atjeh which had proved too strong for Dutch arms before the alliance of 1893, described by G. B. Hooijer as dat beruchte Kaloet, dat ons te sterk was gebleken — that notorious Kaloet, which had proved too strong for us — and which Toekoe Oemar was expected to remove as one of the “stones” on which the Dutch might stub themselves.

In the design of the alliance

Hooijer described the plan of employing Teukoe Oemar in these terms: he would take away for the Dutch the stones on which they might stub themselves, such as the notorious Kaloet. The Dutch would then be able to lay out roads in the neighbourhood to move easily, and with the help of a population enjoying rest and prosperity keep the Moslemin at a distance.

The failed Dutch attack

The unsuccessful attempt on Kaloet, of which Hooijer had spoken earlier in his narrative, was one of only two occasions in the ten-year concentratie period on which the Dutch operated outside the geconcentreerde linie against the Moslemin — and in it only a small number of men came under fire, of whom a third were killed or wounded. The other occasion was the attack on Kota Toeankoe.

Legacy

When Tjot Goeë was retained as a permanent strongpoint after April 1895 while Lam Koenjit and Biloel were lifted, the reason Hooijer gave was om te voorkomen dat de vijand er weder een tweede Kaloet zou oprichten — to prevent the enemy from erecting a second Kaloet there.

Sources

Atjeh-Album van Eigen Haard, uitgave van de N.V. Het Tijdschrift “Eigen Haard”, Amsterdam, 1896, pp. 25–27, 30–33 (De Strijd om Kaloet — Eene herinnering uit den Atjeh-oorlog).

De Atjeh-Oorlog: Kort Overzicht van Oorsprong, Verloop en Gevolg, door J. A. Kruijt. ‘s-Gravenhage: Loman & Funke, 1896. Chapter XII. pp. 64, 68–69.

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. 9, 10, 26.

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.

tags	place, fortification, aceh-war, 1892, 1893, aceh, xxv-moekims, groot-atjeh, defensive-position, atjehnese-fortification, benteng, moslemin
aliases	Kalut, Kaloot, the benting Kaloet, the Atjehsche benting Kaloet, Kaloet fortification, dat beruchte Kaloet, the notorious Kaloet, het berichte Kaloet

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