Longbatah-Mesigit was a Dutch fortified post built around the mesigit (prayer house) of kampong Longbatah in the XXV Moekims of Groot-Atjeh. No other Dutch fortification in Groot-Atjeh suffered so long from hostile fire, from the day the troops took possession until Pel’s encircling march of February 1876 took the enemy from his strong positions facing it.
The work and the enemy across it
The post was a square redoubt of about 60 by 50 metres, breastworked with coconut-tree palisades, with round bastions at the northwest and southeast salients; a partly ready-made ditch came from the old water channel to the east, drawn into the work’s plan. The enemy’s strong position stood in the closed scrub near it: a line of sixteen small connected earth redoubts joined by trenches, with, 200 metres behind a central gap, the walled reduit containing the house of the Imam of Longbatah. Between the two stood the armoured contest of months: hostile snipers, collecting daily intelligence through gaps in the scrub, made the ranges of the bastions, and one specialist sharpshooter — the Glimmert of the Dutch — killed at will, until a post commander had, by night and with the greatest silence, baulks and planks hoisted into a big tree inside the work, a floor laid on branches by ratan, and a bullet-proof watch house with iron plates built in the top. Three good marksmen occupied it, and their plunging fire on the enemy, hitherto perfectly safe behind his lines, caused great consternation and showed him the trick; he answered uselessly and the Glimmert disappeared.
The position after February 1876
In February 1876 the great encircling march of General Pel round the IX Moekims compelled the enemy to abandon the strong position of Longbatah; by the advance of the Dutch line to Pagar-Ajer the post came to stand in the second rank. Soon after the end of March 1876 its garrison was considerably reduced and its armament taken away. In the march of Meijer’s relief column of 6–7 March it was the assembly point for the column that stormed Lambaroe, and the reserve provisions depot of the whole line in the first months of 1876.
See Also
- Longbatah
- Longbatah Zuid
- Imam Luengbata
- Storming of Lambaroe (7 March 1876)
- Guerilla warfare in Groot-Atjeh
Source
Atjeh van 26 December 1875 tot 4 September 1876, door H. F. Meijer (Breda: P. B. Nieuwenhuijs, 1883), chapters I (pp. 17–20), III and VI.