Masdjid Siem — written by G. B. Hooijer as Messigit (Masdjid) Siem — was a stone mosque in the XXVI Moekims of Groot-Atjeh, on the old road running from Lamjong through Toengkoeb to Kroeng Kali, which the Moslemin held as a fortified position and which was stormed by the 3rd battalion under Overste Sievers in October 1893 at the cost of Luitenant Weyerman and three men killed and two officers and fifty men wounded.
Description
Hooijer described the building from the plate: the old stone wall was still a remnant of earlier times, but the roof — differing in form from the double broken roofs usually raised above such houses of prayer — dated from a later period, after the torch of war had passed over it. Behind the mosque lay the broad sawah (wet rice-field) plain, surrounded by heavy fruit-trees.
The action of October 1893
The mosque was one of three enemy positions on the connecting road between Kroeng Kali and Toengkoeb which Overste Sievers was to clear. Hooijer wrote that it was again as though the defenders of that stronghold drew strength from the consecration the place held in their eyes — the place which had so often been a meeting-point for the religious and worldly festivals of which they were so fond. Dutch bullets had to fly like howling hailstorms across the broad sawah plain and through the foliage of the heavy fruit-trees before they gave up their sanctuary. Luitenant Weyerman and three men of lower rank fell on that plain, and two officers and fifty men were wounded there.
That evening, in plaats van opium schuivende Moslemin — instead of opium-smoking Moslemin — the mosque sheltered tired Dutch soldiers, who were to advance the next day against the third enemy position; the enemy, however, evacuated it during the night without awaiting them.
Transfer to Toekoe Djohan
Toekoe Djohan’s troops were to garrison the mosque, since it had become only too clear that without his help the Dutch allies would not drive the fanatics from the XXVI Moekims. On 21 October 1893 he appeared with a hundred fighters to take the point over from the Dutch. Hooijer noted that the mosque was later provided, for his convenience, with a wooden palisade wall (een geverfde houten omwanding).
The terrain around Masdjid Siem
A separate plate showed the abandoned terrain around the mosque, repopulated after the recall of Toekoe Tjoet from exile — a recall that compelled the Moslemin to evacuate the fortified points they still held there. Hooijer used the image to describe the landscape of the eastern moekims: wide fields overgrown with coconut palms surrounding the lower-lying marshy rice-fields, among and between which lay the kampongs (villages), closed off by hedges of areca, coconut and other trees, filled out with thorny bushes and spine-set plants. Badly maintained footpaths wound between the similarly fenced plots into which the kampongs were divided, on which stood wooden houses resting on posts, or plantings of sugar-cane, areca, fruit-trees or rice. Against the dark green of the kampongs hidden under dense shade, the slender coconut palms shot up like fire-arrows, their waving crowns recalling the bursting of fireworks; no side-branch broke the elegant line of the stem, and a fork such as the plate showed as a curiosity occurred only rarely.
It was beneath these trees that some 2,400 auxiliary troops assembled on 2 November 1893 under Toekoe Djohan’s leadership and at Dutch expense, to drive the Sabil bands from the XXVI Moekims.
See Also
- Kroeng Kali
- Toengkoeb
- Overste Sievers
- Luitenant Weyerman
- Teukoe Oemar
- Siem
- Messigit
- Sagi der XXVI Moekims
Source
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. 32, 33, 36, 37.