Lam-Lepong was an Achehnese kampong on the edge of the great sawah before Selimoen, in the valley of the Atjeh-rivier, stormed and burnt by the advance guard of the Gerlach column on 14 August 1879 during the march to Selimoen — the only kampong of the valley punished, because from it the troops had been heavily fired upon — as recorded in W. Cool and G. B. Hooijer’s Eene schoone bladzijde uit Atjeh’s geschiedenis (1889). It must be distinguished from the better-known Lepong on the west coast, the home base of Teuku Umar.
The affair of 14 August 1879
At one o’clock in the afternoon of 14 August 1879 the advance guard of the column debouched upon the extended sawah before Lam-Lepong. Scarcely had the point reached it when from the kampong, and above all from behind a great cluster of heavy stones lying beside the kampong, a fairly heavy fire was suddenly opened upon it. The point took position at once, and was quickly joined by the rest of the advance party; thus a company strong, Majoor Coblijn ordered the storm, upon which the enemy fled in haste. The company entered the kampong and punished it by burning the houses. The neighbourhood yielded no further resistance: the artillery came into battery against the kampong Lepong-Bajoe, lying behind and aside, in which direction the enemy had been seen to withdraw, and after fourteen shells and mortar-throws — of which six, probably wetted at the debarkation, failed to burst — the Dutch advanced over the rice-fields without opposition. In the conquered quarter six casks of powder and two casks of cartridges were found, and in the house of the Imam a letter, conspicuously fastened, which proved to be from the Militaire Bevelhebber, with the answer written with it, together with some bound bundles of books; all were sent afterwards to the Governor. On the passage of the troops on the following days, the lesson was plain: the populace everywhere came out peaceably — “waartoe zeker het verbranden van Lam Lepong, waaruit wij hevig beschoten waren, en het sparen van Lepong-Baijoe, dat zich niet verzette, het zijne had bijgedragen.”
Account from H. F. Meijer (1883) — Lepong of the west coast, July 1876
Meijer’s description of Lepong in the July campaign of 1876 gives its position as the mountain-enclosed landscape on the west coast of Atjeh, forming part of the territory of the IV Moekims and answering by right to the direct government of the Dutch-faithful chief Toekoe Lampasei — though since the start of the war only nominal rule had remained to him there. The roads through the landscape were very barely beaten, and enemies were constantly dwelling there, as the Voigt expedition had just recorded of its hideout country between Lepong and the ravines of Beradin.
On 25 July 1876 Major Diepenheim made the reconnaissance to Lepong from the new post of Kroeëng Raba with 4 officers and 103 men: the kampong head, his son and notables came to meet the troops offering young coconuts; women and children had remained, cattle was in the meadow. The march restored head and people of Lepong under Toekoe Lampasei’s government, let the IV Moekims’ refugee people back into their kampongs, and opened a little market beside the new post. Meijer records along the beach path foot trodden, three or four brooks waded at 15 to 20 metres’ width, and kampong Ritieōng’s steep mound.
See Also
Source
Eene schoone bladzijde uit Atjeh’s geschiedenis, door W. Cool en G. B. Hooijer (‘s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1889), pp. 49-51, 60. OCR-filename: 20260720_115822_DLP-135-Eene_schoone_bladzijde_uit_Atjeh_s_geschiedenis_Nemotron_OCR_v2_OCR.txt.