Lambaroe

Lambaroe was a settlement north of Kajoe‑leh that Dutch troops reached after occupying Kajoe‑leh on 5 February 1876. From Lambaroe the column proceeded to the Atjeh River and later to Pajar‑Ajer.

As described in Kruisheer’s ATJEH ‘96, a Dutch post called Lambarih — written in Dutch with the variant Lambaroe, though the OCR text sometimes confuses the post of Lambarih with the kampong of Lambaroe — was a Dutch post and communication point in the sagi of the XXII Moekims, established to safeguard the Lambaroe–Ana’ Galong road. Lambarih was garrisoned in 1895 by 2 officers, 50 infantry, 1 artilleryman, and 1 European hospital attendant, and was linked to the forward area by telephone. The post was a patrol destination on 10 May 1896 and served as the base of operations for Van Heutsz’s column on 17 April 1896. After the evacuation of the buitenlinie Lambarih remained part of the Geconcenteerde Linie (Concentrated Line).

Note on the shared place-name. The name Lambaroe is used in two related but distinct senses in the sources: (i) a settlement north of Kajoe‑leh reached by Dutch troops on 5 February 1876 in the course of the 1875–1876 campaign (from the Verslagen der Marine‑Vereeniging); and (ii) a Dutch post and communication point — also called Lambarih — in the XXII Moekims, garrisoned in 1895 and active throughout the spring 1896 crisis (from Kruisheer’s ATJEH ‘96). Kruisheer notes that the OCR text sometimes confuses the post of Lambarih with the kampong of Lambaroe.

The 1876 settlement

The Verslagen der Marine‑Vereeniging records that Lambaroe was reached by Dutch troops on 5 February 1876 after the occupation of Kajoe‑leh, and that from Lambaroe the column proceeded to the Atjeh River and later to Pajar‑Ajer in the course of the 1875–1876 campaign.

The Lambarih post in 1895–1896 (ATJEH ‘96 account)

Description and Location (ATJEH ‘96 account)

Lambarih lay in the sagi of the XXII Moekims on the road between Lambaroe (the kampong) and Ana’ Galong, and served as the communication post between the two. The post safeguarded the Lambaroe–Ana’ Galong road, which was the principal route by which the Ana’ Galong garrison was supplied and reinforced. The garrison in 1895 consisted of 2 officers, 50 infantry, 1 artilleryman, and 1 European hospital attendant. A telephone connection linked Lambarih to the front, making it a communication node in the Dutch command network. The post was close enough to Ana’ Galong to provide rapid reinforcement in the event of an attack — the relief detachment of 40 bayonets under Kapitein Kronouer that relieved Van Blokland’s patrol on 7 March 1896 was drawn from Lamsoet/Lambaroe.

Historical Background (ATJEH ‘96 account)

Lambarih had been constructed as part of the buitenlinie to support the Ana’ Galong garrison and to safeguard the Lambaroe–Ana’ Galong road. The post was a communication point with a telephone connection to the front, making it an important node in the Dutch command network. The proximity of Lambarih to Ana’ Galong made it the natural base for relief forces: the relief detachment under Kapitein Kronouer on 7 March 1896 was drawn from Lambarih and Lamsoet. The Blokhuis Blang Tjoet between Ana’ Galong and Lambarih (garrisoned by 20 men, exchanged daily by Ana’ Galong) was a forward extension of the Lambarih post.

Role in the 1896 Operations (ATJEH ‘96 account)

Lambarih was a key communication and reinforcement post throughout the first semester of 1896. On 7 March 1896 the relief detachment of 40 bayonets under Kapitein Kronouer — drawn from Lamsoet/Lambarih under luit. Westendorp and luit. Ketjen — marched out to relieve the beleaguered patrol of Kapitein Van Blokland at Ana’ Galong. On 17 April 1896 Lambarih served as the base of operations for Van Heutsz’s column in the lifting of Senelop and Lamsoet. On 10 May 1896 Lambarih was a patrol destination. After the evacuation of the buitenlinie in April 1896 Lambarih remained part of the Geconcenteerde Linie (Concentrated Line), and appears in the Dutch forces tables of June 1896 as a post in the line. The gin bottles with messages that Kapitein Bodemeijer floated down the Atjehrivier from Ana’ Galong were intended to reach Lambarih.

Significance (ATJEH ‘96 account)

Lambarih was the indispensable support post for the Ana’ Galong garrison and a key communication node in the buitenlinie of the XXII Moekims. Its retention after the evacuation of the outer buitenposten in April 1896 reflected its importance to the inner Geconcenteerde Linie (Concentrated Line), and its telephone connection made it a critical link in the Dutch command network. The post’s role in the 7 March 1896 relief of Van Blokland’s patrol was one of the most consequential actions of the pre-defection period.

Account from Een Vaderlandsch Belang by H. Borel (1878)

Lambaroe was an Atjehnees kampong in the III Moekims sector, conquered on 4 February 1876 in Pel’s great winter offensive and the site of a strong enemy benteng (fortification) stormed in early March 1876 by overste Meijer’s colonne, in which the Atjehneezen lost more than 70 dead and the Dutch five dead and 41 wounded including five officers. A Dutch post was then erected at Lambaroe.

The conquest of 4 February 1876

Lambaroe was conquered on 4 February 1876 in the closing sweep of the XXV Moekims. From Toeram the Dutch had made an inval (inroad) into the III Moekims on 3 February 1876, driving the enemy out of Atoeh after a heeten strijd. The next day the colonne continued noordoostelijk: Lamrong and Lamsajoen were conquered, along with Kajoe Leh, Lambaroe and Pager Ajer Mesigit, and via Tandjoeng and Bayoer communication was established with the Longbatta-Mesigit. On 7 February 1876 the troepen returned to K. Radja after a 10-day tocht — total losses five dead and 59 wounded, “betrekkelijk gering.” The entire Sagie of the XXV Moekims was now in Dutch hands. After the Atoeh catastrophe of 13 February 1876 and the conquest of Pango the same day, Pel pressed on through Tjap Octoe on 14–15 February 1876, but the losses at Tjap Octoe made him decide not to push further eastward.

The storming of the benteng in early March 1876

In early March 1876 the communication between Pager Ajer and the Longbatta-Mesigit was broken and Kajoe Leh was ingesloten (besieged) by the enemy. Overste Meijer marched with a colonne from K. Radja to ontzet (relieve) the bedreigde posten. After the enemy was verdreven on the Pager Ajer side, the colonne stuitten at Lambaroe on a sterke benteng, which was stormenderhand (by storm) taken. The Atjehneezen left more than 70 lijken (corpses); Dutch losses were five gesneuvelden and 41 gekwetsten including five officers. Kajoe Leh was ontzet and a post was opgericht at Lambaroe. The storming was the last major offensive operation of Pel’s plan: on 10 March 1876 generaal Wiggers van Kerchem assumed militaire and civiele bestuur, and from then on the war entered another phase. The stelling K. Raba–Kwala Gigieng has remained “nagenoeg onveranderd” ever since, Borel writes in 1878.

Nineteenth-Century Historiography & Campaign Analysis

Combat History in 1875-1876

Guarding the approach to the XXII Moekims, Lambaroe was heavily fortified by Acehnese forces under Panglima Polem. During General Pel’s Campaign in Aceh, General J. L. J. H. Pel directed offensive operations toward Lambaroe.

In February 1876, during the March through the XXII Moekims, columns of the 3rd Infantry Battalion and 13th Infantry Battalion assaulted bentengs around Lambaroe, occupying the settlement and destroying supply granaries across the surrounding sawahs (Sawah Cultivation and Supply in Aceh).

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

Lambaroe was a place on the Atjeh-rivier in the XXII Moekims of Groot-Atjeh, the northern terminus of the road running to Anagaloeng on which the temporary posts of Lam Barih and Lam Soet were established.

The road to Anagaloeng

Hooijer recorded that at the repeated insistence of Toekoe Djohan a temporary post was occupied on 30 November 1893 op den bestaanden weg van Lambaroe naar Anagaloeng at Lam Barih. The traffic passing along that road gave variety to life at the post and prevented the garrison from feeling as lonely as elsewhere: men leefde er als op een soort van boerderij — they lived there as on a sort of farm.

The post of Lam Soet was erected a few days after that at Anagaloeng to secure the same road, and Hooijer noted that its establishment had indeed made safe the stretch of road from Lambaroe near Anagaloeng.

Terrain

A plate of the terrain at Anagaloeng showed the plain van af Indrapoeri tot Lambaroe, through which the winding river cut its sharply incised bed.

Account from H. F. Meijer (1883) — the kampong, the battle and the Dutch post of 7 March 1876

Meijer describes Lambaroe as the southwesternmost point of the kampong series in the XXV Moekims, dominating the sawah plains between Kajoe-Lē and Lamtengah and those west and north of it, with the kampongs from Lamsajoeng northward. The enemy held it with a heavy occupation: two fortifications, of which the chief one stood twenty paces from the southwest corner of the kampong edge at 300–400 paces from the Atjeh River, about halfway between the Dutch posts of Mesigit Pagar-Ajer and Kajoe-Lē. From 7 March 1876 the Dutch post of the same name — a square redoubt of 42 by 45 metres with two round bastions on a dry point some hundred metres from the conquered enemy work — rose on the small sawah field outside the kampong edge; communications with Kota Radja and with the neighbouring posts were restored and made safe by a three-metre road, and the post became the quarters of the commander of the south-east line and one of its two reserve vivres depots. The river water channel of the district, running north from Biloel through the sawahs, passes a little north of Lambaroe by a nipah bush and ends in the brook Kroeëng Tandjong.

The same day’s initial Dutch garrison — the left half of the 8th Infantry Battalion and a section of mountain artillery — lay partly under sheds in the conquered enemy work, a stinking mud pool full of chewed sugar cane, until quarters were brought from Kota Radja. Soon after, sawahs around the post stood a foot of water: the days of Meijer’s operation were the wettest of that summer.

Account from Verstege’s Een beroep op het Nederlandsche volk (1886)

Verstege adds the tram and line details of the concentration: since mid-1884 Lambaroe had been connected with Kota Radja by the steam tramway; at the execution of the concentration the tramline from Kota Radja was lengthened to Ketapang Doewa and from there on one side to Lamdjame and on the other to Lambaroe itself; Lambaroe was one of the eighteen semi-permanently built posts of the line occupied on 1 March 1885 (after the line’s southernmost edge had been withdrawn from Djerir to Lambaroe — “niet minder dan bijna 13 kilometers afstand” — “not less than nearly thirteen kilometres”), and it was for the speed of the tram between Ketapang Doewa and Lambaroe that the outer post Tjot-Goe was provisionally retained; see Completion of the concentrated position (March 1885), Atjeh-tram and the clearing disasters between Lambaroe and Siroen of 6 April 1885 in Guerilla raids inside the concentration line (1885).

Account from Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu

Place 7 km from Koeta Radja; reached by the 1885 extension of the Atjeh-tram. Extended to Seulimeum in 1898.

Source: J. Jongejans, Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu (Baarn: Hollandia Drukkerij N.V., c. 1938), pp. 291.

Sources

The Achehnese, Vol. I, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.

Onze vestiging in Atjeh, critisch beschreven, by G. F. W. Borel, Kapitein der Artillerie. ‘s-Gravenhage: D. A. Thieme, 1878. pp. 327–329, 336–337.

ATJEH ‘96, door A. Kruisheer, Kapitein der Infanterie O.I.L., met 2 kaarten en 4 portretten (Weltevreden: N.V. Boekhandel Visser & Co, 1913). Instituut Kern, Leiden. OCR-filename: 20260715_163243_DLP-89-Atjeh_96_Met_2_kaarten_en4_DOORA_KRUISHEER_Kapiteinder_Infanterie_nemoretriever-ocr-v1_OCR.txt, pp. 22, 27, 28, 30, 35, 38–40, 42, 51, 55, 62, 63, 66, 75–76, 92, 100, 144, 335.

Atjeh gedurende de tweede expeditie en later, Een Oud Officier, Batavia: Ogilvie & Co., 1876, pp. 14-20, 60-65.

Verslagen der Marine‑Vereeniging III 1889‑1890, pp. 229‑233. 20260707_232246_DLP-55-De_geschiedenis_van_het_Nederlandsche_Korps_Mariniers_van_1665_1945_OCR.txt, pages 138‑141.

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. 38, 40, 49-50.

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.

De Geconcentreerde Stelling in Groot-Atjeh, ‘s-Gravenhage: De Gebroeders Van Cleef, 1885, pp. 9–12, 17–19.

Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu, by J. Jongejans, Oud-Resident van het Gewest Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden, with a foreword by Dr. H. Colijn (Baarn: Hollandia Drukkerij N.V., c. 1938), pp. 291.

Een beroep op het Nederlandsche volk in zake het Atjeh-vraagstuk, door J. J. W. E. Verstege (Amsterdam: J. H. de Bussy, 1886), pp. 80-83, 109. OCR: DLP-158.

tags	place, 19th-century, aceh, aceh-war, achehnese, battlefield, buitenlinie, colonial, dutch, fortification, military, settlement, village, xxii-moekims, locality, pantun, kampong, groot-atjeh
aliases	Fort Lambaroe, Kampung Lambaroe, Lambarih, Lambaro, V Moekims Montassik post, Lam Baro, Lam-Baro, Lam Baro (locality), Lambaroc, Lambaroe on the Atjeh river

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