Kota Pohama was the Dutch island post in the lagune of Gigieng, established in February 1876 by lt.-kol. Engel to seal off access to the mouth of the Kroeng Tjoet and complete the closure of the Kwala Gigieng that had been reached on 26 February 1876. Together with the post at Kwala Gigieng itself, it shut the gemeenschap (communication) between sea and mouth of the Kroeng Tjoet, ending the contraband supply to the XXVI Moekims through that channel.
The lagune and its access
The lagune of Gigieng on the north coast of Groot-Atjeh was connected to the sea through several waterways. The principal mouth at Kwala Gigieng had been closed by Engel’s colonne on 26 February 1876, but the lagune also received the Kroeng Tjoet from the interior and was accessible through the Kwala Tjangkoel waterway. As long as the lagune itself was ungarrisoned, the Atjehneezen could continue to pass boats into the Kroeng Tjoet by way of the Kwala Tjangkoel. The island of Kota Pohama in the middle of the lagune offered an ideal site for a post whose guns could command the lagune waters and prevent any movement through the Kwala Tjangkoel. The post was therefore the natural complement of the Kwala Gigieng post on the seaward side.
The establishment
After the death of Pel at Lamjoeng on 24 February 1876, Engel assumed tijdelijk oppergezag as oudste hoofdofficier and continued the march via Tjade to Kwala Gigieng, bereikt on 26 February 1876. Posts were established at Kwala Gigieng and on the island of Kota Pohama in the lagune. The establishment of the island post was the seaward completion of Pel’s afsluitingslinie from the Kroeng Raba mouth on the west coast to the Kroeng Raya mouth on the north coast, a line whose completion Pel’s death had interrupted. Together with the closure of the Kroeng Tjoet mouth, the Kota Pohama post shut the last major channel through which arms and ammunition reached the XXVI Moekims from the sea. Borel notes that the Kroeng Tjoet was “finally closed by the Dutch in 1876” — a strategic success attributable to the winter offensive of 1875–1876 and to Engel’s prompt assumption of command after Pel’s death.
Establishment in the Geconcentreerde Stelling (1884)
Following the Concentration Decision of August 1884, a new post was established at Kota-Pohama using materials brought from the evacuated post at Samalanga on the north coast. On 25 September 1884, the garrison of the former Samalanga post landed at Pohama and began construction. No significant opposition was encountered. In the new geconcentreerde stelling (concentrated position) of 1885, Kota-Pohama held a 75-man Infantry garrison armed with 2 × 12cm breech-loading guns. The post was connected to Pakan-Kroeng-Tjoet by road and to Lamjong via the ceintuurtram (girdle tramway), serving as the westernmost point of the new defensive perimeter.
Account from H. F. Meijer (1883) — the island of Kota-Pohama, 1876
Meijer gives Kota-Pohama as a flat island in the great lagune, opposite the mouth of the Kroeëng Titi Pandjang: nothing stood there but coconut trees on a flat floor; on its northernmost part lay an old, entirely ruined Atjehnese stone fort — a square redoubt with two bastions, three of whose nearly perpendicular stone faces remained standing, a metre-and-a-half to two high and a metre thick, with bamboo-thorn hedges across the island’s whole breadth, and to the south the remains of an old bridge with sound stiles and no deck. The deck boards found there proved what the commander of Moesapi had already reported: that the enemy still communicated with the islet.
Almost simultaneously with the occupation of the position at Koewala Gigiëng, in February 1876, the place was occupied, after a reconnaissance from Koewala Gigiëng found it abandoned: the garrison received provisions and munition to hold out, and materials to build. The enemy let all this not happen undisturbed: he disturbed the fortifying by rifle fire from the south side of the lagune, increasing so soon that the south face of the work had to be closed by palisade, and in April the post received a mortar because the enemy opposite kept it under such constant fire. The island post had to secure the communication between Koewala Gigiëng and Moesapi.
Account from Verstege’s Een beroep op het Nederlandsche volk (1886)
Verstege records that Kota Pohama was occupied by Dutch troops already on 25-29 September 1884, one of the first posts of the new line of the concentration, and stands first in the official list of the eighteen semi-permanent fortified posts of the March 1885 line (see Postenlinie and Completion of the concentrated position (March 1885)).
See Also
- Concentration Decision of August 1884
- Samalanga
- Geconcentreerde Stelling
- Pakan-Kroeng-Tjoet
- Lamjong
- Kwala Gigieng
- Kroeng Tjoet
- Kwala Tjangkoel
- Kroeng Raba
- Kroeng Raya
- XXVI Moekims
- Luitenant-kolonel Engel
- Generaal Pel
- Death of Generaal Pel (24 February 1876)
- Pel’s offensive against the VI, IV and IX Moekims (1875–1876)
Sources
De Geconcentreerde Stelling in Groot-Atjeh, ‘s-Gravenhage: De Gebroeders Van Cleef, 1885, pp. 24–25.
Onze vestiging in Atjeh, critisch beschreven, by G. F. W. Borel, Kapitein der Artillerie. ‘s-Gravenhage: D. A. Thieme, 1878. pp. 322–325, 336, 342–344.
Een beroep op het Nederlandsche volk in zake het Atjeh-vraagstuk, door J. J. W. E. Verstege (Amsterdam: J. H. de Bussy, 1886), p. 81. OCR: DLP-158.