Keude Breue (also rendered Keude Breueh) was a town in the Atjeh Dependencies that served as the western terminus of the 1899 western branch of the second Atjeh tramway — the lijntje built from Sigli over Padang Tidji to Keude Breue — and as the originating point of the berglijntje from Keude Breue over the hills to Seulimeum built in the years 1904–1908 to connect the second tramway of the Dependencies with the old tramway of Great Atjeh.
Account from De Buitenbezittingen (1917) — Keude Breue
The Encyclopaedisch Bureau’s account of the Atjeh-tramway first mentions Keude Breue as the western terminus of the 1899 lijntje from Sigli: “already in 1899 from Sigli a lijntje was built westward over Padang Tidji to Keude Breue.” This lijntje, the Bureau notes, was “a piece of tramway in the Dependencies, somewhat hanging in the air” (wel wat in de lucht hangende, stuk trambaan in de Onderhoorigheden) — that is, a line without direct connection to the Great Atjeh network.
The Bureau’s account of the berglijntje gives Keude Breue its strategic significance: “this, somewhat hanging-in-the-air, piece of tramway in the Dependencies was connected in the years 1904–1908 by a berglijntje from Keude Breue over the hills to Seulimeum with the old tramway in Groot-Atjeh, by which the military administration had created a powerful instrument for achieving the complete pacification of the intersected regions.” The berglijntje from Keude Breue thus closed the strategic gap between the two halves of the Atjeh residency and made the entire Atjeh-tramway network an operational whole.
Significance
Keude Breue is, in the Encyclopaedisch Bureau’s account, the western anchor of the berglijntje — the line whose 1904–1908 construction closed the strategic gap between the Great Atjeh and Dependencies halves of the Atjeh-tramway network. The completion of the berglijntje at Keude Breue is identified by the Bureau as the moment at which the military administration acquired “a powerful instrument” for completing the pacification of Atjeh.
See Also
- Atjeh-tram
- Berglijntje Keude Breue–Seulimeum
- Seulimeum
- Padang Tidji
- Sigli
- Atjeh’s Onderhoorigheden
- Groot-Atjeh
- Pacificatie van Atjeh
- Aceh War
- 1899
- 1904
- 1908
Sources
De Buitenbezittingen 1904 tot 1914, Deel I, bewerkt door het Encyclopaedisch Bureau, Mededeelingen van het Bureau voor de Bestuurszaken der Buitenbezittingen, Aflevering X (Weltevreden: Landsdrukkerij, 1917), p. 69 (section “De Atjeh-tram”).