The Missigit Longbatta (also written Longbatta-Missigit, Longbatta-Mesigit) was the mosque (missigit, from Arabic masjid) of the kampong Longbatta to the south-east of Kota Radja, which was captured by Dutch troops on 31 December 31 December 1874 and was thereafter fortified and held by the Dutch as a redoubt enclosing the mosque. The conversion of the Missigit into a fortified benting — see Missigit Longbatta operation — was the work of Tweede-Luitenant C. J. Snijders of the Compagnie Mineurs en Sappeurs in the first two weeks of January 1875. The continued resistance of the Atjehers to its loss — “wilden niet lijdelijk in het verlies van hun heiligdom berusten” — gave the work its peculiar character: a fortified sanctuary in daily combat with its former proprietors.
The Building
At the time of its capture the Missigit stood within a low earthwork “die nagenoeg de gedaante had van een regthoek, waarvan de langste zijde ongeveer 30, de kortste 25 strekkende meter vuurlijn telde.” It was thus a small rectangular enclosure of about 30 × 25 metres, with the mosque building at its centre. The biographer Van den Berg describes it as a “bedehuis” — a house of prayer — and notes that, by the time of its capture, it had already been “door artillerievuur reeds ten deele vernield” — partially ruined by artillery fire.
The Fortified Redoubt
The fortified redoubt constructed by Snijders between 1 and 13 January 13 January 1875 was traced as a langwerpige redoute about 50 × 60 metres enclosing the mosque. The technical detail is preserved in the eyewitness lecture of Eerste-Luitenant T. W. G. Merz and is given in full on the operation page. The east front was given a wet ditch fed by an existing water conduit; the south-east and north-west saillants were worked up as cirkel-bastions; the entrance was placed on the north-east side and closed by a travers with Friesche ruiters; the north side was fitted with kitchens and latrines in an old Atjehese outwork; and the whole was to be surrounded by a horizontal wire entanglement with a two-metre-wide ranjoe planting, every man being required to deliver 30 ranjoes a day in his free time. The Missigit itself was fitted up as officers’ quarters; the rest of the garrison and the coolies bivouacked in the open until the bamboo barracks (covered with asphalt-felt) could be built.
Significance
The Missigit Longbatta is one of the best-documented instances of the Dutch conversion of an Atjehese mosque into a fortified post during the Atjeh-oorlog. The conversion of a missigit into a redoubt enclosing it — preserving the building as officers’ quarters while throwing up breastworks around it — illustrates the practical accommodation of Dutch engineer practice to the religious-cum-military character of Atjehese resistance. The continued Atjehese counter-attacks on the work, including the night assault of 10/11 January 11 January 1875 that pressed to within 50 metres of the parapet, illustrate the symbolic as well as strategic importance of the site.
Sources
Onze vestiging in Atjeh, critisch beschreven, by G. F. W. Borel, Kapitein der Artillerie. ‘s-Gravenhage: D. A. Thieme, 1878. pp. 95, 131, 137, 144, 200, 226–238, 248, 263, 269, 322–323.
Account from Verstege’s Een beroep op het Nederlandsche volk (1886)
Verstege mentions this post as the most advanced inland fortification of the Dutch position at the end of April 1875: the southern chain of the chain of posts from Oleh-leh (Oedjong Palanggahan, Soerian, Poe-oe, Blangey, Bang Tjoen Tjoet, Setoe Zuid, Lamara-Oleyloe, Lohong) ended here, and from Longbatta-Missigit eastward the chain passed by Blang-Tjoet and Long Zaita-Zuid upstream along the left bank of the Atjeh river to Kota Alam (see Verstege’s folding map of Groot-Atjeh (1886)).
See Also
- Longbatta
- Imam of Longbatta
- Missigit
- Benting
- Cornelis Jacobus Snijders
- J. L. J. H. Pel
- W. J. C. Leers
- T. W. G. Merz
- Missigit Longbatta operation (31 December 1874 – 13 January 1875)
- Benting Kota Alam operation (13 November 1874)
- Lamara Olejlo fortification (15 February 1875)
- Ranjoe
- Bamboe-doerie
- Bataillon Mineurs en Sappeurs
- Aceh War
- Koeta Radja
- 1874
- 1875
- Stelling-Pel
- Lamara Olejlo
- Setee
- Lemboe
- Klewang
- Night attack on Longbatta-Mesigit (22 November 1875)
- Battle of Longbatta (31 December 1874)
- Pel’s offensive against the VI, IV and IX Moekims (1875–1876)
- Generaal Pel
Source
Lecture by Eerste-Luitenant T. W. G. Merz, Orgaan der Officiersvereeniging, October 1935, as cited in C. A. Bannink, “Grepen uit den Atjeh-oorlog,” Orgaan der Officiersvereeniging (1936), and in D. van den Berg, Cornelis Jacobus Snijders (1852–1939): Een leven in dienst van zijn Land en zijn Volk (Voorburg: September 1944), pp. 28–32. Koninklijke Bibliotheek shelfmark 0301 4872.
Een beroep op het Nederlandsche volk in zake het Atjeh-vraagstuk, door J. J. W. E. Verstege (Amsterdam: J. H. de Bussy, 1886), p. 53. OCR: DLP-158.