Toengkoeb

Toengkoeb — written in Dutch as Toengkoeb — was a Dutch temporary post and kampong in the sagi of the XXVI Moekims, the residence of the head of the XIII Moekims Toengkoeb and one of the principal former residences of Teungkoe di Tiroe. As described in Kruisheer’s ATJEH ‘96, Toengkoeb was garrisoned in 1895 by 2 officers, 52 infantry, and 1 hospital attendant (with no artillery), and was occupied by the Dutch to prevent the religious-warriors from re-settling and to control the hoeloebalang T. Tjoet Toengkoeb. The post was successfully re-supplied on 16 April 1896, was evacuated on 21 April 1896 and handed over to Toekoe Nja Banta, was the site of the night surprise of Benting Batoe of 28–29 April 1896, and was the location of the bentengs Perampoean and Batoe demolished by the Genie under Captain Zelle on 20 June 1896.

Toengkoep was one of the Dutch forward posts of Groot-Atjeh razed in the spring of 1896 after the relief of its garrison, before the Beradin operation. P. H. R. Beuming names it in the list of former outposts — Sennelop, Lamsoet, Anak Galoeng, Lambarih, Biloel, Lamkoenjit, Kroeng Gloempang, Tjot Rang and Toengkoep — together with the intervening blockhouses.

Evacuation in the Concentration Strategy (February 1885)

Prior to its role as a 1895–1896 buitenpost, Toengkoeb had been a more distant Dutch post in the eastern reaches of the XXVI Moekims. During the concentration of 1884–1885, the post was evacuated on 21 February 1885, without casualties. Located only 1½ palen (approximately 3 kilometers) from Lamjong, the communications road to Lamjong was unprotected on both sides — acknowledged as “slechts van zeer gering belang” (only of very minor importance) due to the short distance, but illustrating the broader pattern of isolated positions the concentration addressed. Following evacuation, the XXVI Moekims remained outside the geconcentreerde stelling (concentrated position), and the eastern approaches were no longer directly observed.

Description and Location

Toengkoeb lay in the sagi of the XXVI Moekims and was the residence of the head of the XIII Moekims Toengkoeb. The post was a crossroads commanding the eastern approaches of the XXVI Moekims toward the XIII Moekims Toengkoeb and the V Moekims Montassik. The garrison in 1895 consisted of 2 officers, 52 infantry, and 1 hospital attendant; there was no artillery. The fortification of Batoe lay approximately 400 metres west of the kruispunt, and the benteng Perampoean was nearby. The kampong of Kroeng-Kali, containing the house of the hoeloebalang T. Tjoet Toengkoeb, lay to the south. The post was linked by road to Tjot Rang and Kroeng Gloempang in the eastern buitenlinie.

Historical Background

Toengkoeb had been one of the principal residences of Teungkoe di Tiroe after the Dutch concentration. After Tiroe’s death the post was occupied by the Dutch to prevent the religious-warriors from re-settling and to control the hoeloebalang T. Tjoet Toengkoeb. The post was a temporary rather than a permanent buitenpost, reflecting the Dutch intention to withdraw from the XXVI Moekims once the authority of the friendly ulèëbalang Toekoe Nja Banta could be re-established. The garrison was exchanged on 16 March 1896.

Role in the 1896 Operations

Toengkoeb was one of the eastern buitenposten besieged in the spring of 1896. On 16 March 1896 the garrison was exchanged. On 16 April 1896 the post was successfully re-supplied. On 20 April 1896 Toengkoeb, Tjot Rang, and Kroeng Gloempang were lifted by order of the Regeeringscommissaris Vetter. On 21 April 1896 Toengkoeb was evacuated and handed over to Toekoe Nja Banta, who thereby became responsible for the defence of the eastern approaches of the XXVI Moekims. On 28 April–29 April 1896 the night surprise of Benting Batoe was conducted by a column from Pakan Kroeng Tjoet under Captain Zelle’s engineers, in which the benteng of Batoe approximately 400 metres west of the kruispunt was surprised by night attack. On 30 April 1896 the expedition to the XIII Moekims Toengkoeb moved against the benteng of Batoe from Boekit Karang. On 4 May 1896 the second expedition renewed the attack. On 20 June 1896 the bentengs Perampoean and Batoe near Toengkoeb were demolished by the Genie under Captain Zelle. On 17 June 1896 Toengkoeb served as a reference point for the tuchtiging of the V Moekims Montassik.

Significance

Toengkoeb was the strategic crossroads of the eastern XXVI Moekims and the principal Dutch base for operations against the XIII Moekims Toengkoeb of T. Tjoet Toengkoeb. The handover of the post to Toekoe Nja Banta on 21 April 1896 marked the Dutch policy of relying on friendly ulèëbalang as a substitute for garrisoned posts, and the demolition of the bentengs Perampoean and Batoe on 20 June 1896 removed the principal Achehnese fortifications in this sector.

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

Toengkoeb was a Dutch military post in the XIII Moekims Toengkoeb of the XXVI Moekims in Groot-Atjeh, re-occupied on 27 September 1893 in a benteng belonging to Toekoe Tjoet on ground the Dutch had abandoned in 1884 after four years of possession, and evacuated without a shot in 1896 under the leadership of Luitenant Neelmeyer.

Re-occupation

The wavering conduct of Toekoe Tjoet Toengkoeb during the 1893 campaign of Toekoe Nja Banta so often threw affairs into confusion that on 27 September 1893 it was judged necessary to have one of his bentengs at Toengkoeb occupied by Dutch troops. Hooijer observed that the soldiers thus sat once again on the spot they had abandoned in 1884, after having been lords and masters there for four years.

Contrast with the Van der Heijden period

The manner of their installation differed greatly from before. In place of the great garrison of former days there were now only two officers and fifty men quartered there, and not a single gun defended the walls; nor was any officier van gezondheid (medical officer) present — when one was needed he was fetched from the nearest post in the geconcentreerde linie, at Lamjong. In place of the liveliness and bustle that had prevailed around the old Messigit when the columns under General van der Heijden had penetrated the XXVI Moekims and raised a great encampment at Toengkoeb — containing two battalions of infantry, a detachment of cavalry, three sections of artillery, sappers, survey personnel and a train of a thousand convict labourers and coolies — it was now still and monotonous.

Description

The garrison lived als vogeltjes in een kooi — like little birds in a cage — inside a square earthen wall, rounded off only around the well with its clear and delicious drinking water, and protected against a first rush by a standing wire entanglement four metres from the wall. The officers’ quarters lay on the rampart, on which also rose a slender papaya-tree; there stood the wooden benches on which their palliasses were spread, and their sitting-room much resembled a North Holland tavern, the ground being laid with square red bricks. On the high part beneath the flagstaff stood the guard; outside it was the hut of the Chinese sutler who supplied the garrison with small comforts — beer, tobacco, pipes, tins of preserved food, fruit and side-dishes.

The kitchen under a lean-to between the flagstaff and the papaya-tree lay inside the wire but outside the wall. Along one side of the fortification the men were making a path so as to be able to take an evening walk around their post without being hindered by the prickly or wet grass; this side led to the main entrance of the benteng, opposite the kampong (village) of Toekoe Tjoet Toengkoeb. Before that entrance stood benches on which the soldiers sat to take the air when it became too close and stuffy inside the crowded space. Four watch-houses on posts had been erected around the fortification, of which only two were manned by day, when it was glowing hot beneath their little roofs.

Garrison life

Despite the monotony, many soldiers chose to stay longer than the prescribed fourteen days, because life was so easy there. Patrols were sent only to neighbouring posts. No duties other than mounting guard were ordered: cleaning the quarters, repairing the rampart or buildings, and working in the little garden — where a few ingredients for the cooking were grown and a few flowers recalled other times and places — could hardly be reckoned as service. The greatest possible freedom in dress was permitted; the Europeans mostly went barefoot and thus spared their shoes expensive repairs; night-trousers and a kabaai (loose jacket) were already a formal toilet. Pay accumulated without any need to spend it and yielded a pretty sum when, on return from detacheering, it was paid out at Kota Radja. Above all, the three daily oorlams were a delight; they roused the men to play and sing once night had fallen and the tin reflectors behind the lanterns lit a small patch of the surroundings, the crickets chirped in the grass, and the unsurpassed calm of the Indies night made them feel as though floating on a ship in mid-ocean rather than housed in an advanced temporary post amid a hostile people.

Of an enemy they noticed nothing. Toekoe Tjoet sat in his kampong or travelled to and from Kota Radja, and concerned himself not at all with the post in his neighbourhood.

The tales of the old Ambonese soldier

The chief pleasure of the post, Hooijer wrote, was the story-telling of an old Ambonese warrior outside the gate, who recounted the days when Dutch soldiers had done the fighting instead of the Achehnese; when General van der Heijden had appeared at that same Toengkoeb met een wolk op zijn voorhoofd because its capture had not gone as swiftly as he expected; and when the general’s columns had advanced over the wide sawahs (wet rice-fields) on which his hearers now looked without daring to set a foot. Rising from his bench, the grey soldier would point out the kampongs (villages) across the sawahs through which the main column had passed to approach the Messigit from the rear, and the thick tree at six hundred paces where the Achehnese guide had brought the column directly opposite the strongly held house of prayer, from which fire was at once opened that killed him and two soldiers and wounded an officer and sixteen men.

Isolation in 1896

The Toengkoeb post was cut off in 1896 when the Moslemin occupied the terrain abandoned by Toekoe Tjoet’s dispersing population — a dispersal caused by Toekoe Nja Banta’s removal of Toekoe Tjoet’s wives to Lamreng — and broke communications between Kroeng Kali and Toengkoeb. Hooijer noted that a layman would probably have perceived nothing abnormal on the lonely rice-fields fringed by dark kampong trees, but that a soldier with war experience knew from the restless movements of black figures crossing the narrow dykes and grouping on rises that the Moslemin were again masters there.

Evacuation

Toengkoeb remained occupied by Dutch soldiers, but at the time of the verraad — the treason of Teukoe Oemar — it was preserved from enemy attack by the prudent and courageous conduct of Luitenant Neelmeyer, who rode by night from Pakan Kroeng Tjoet in the geconcentreerde linie to warn the garrisons of Toengkoeb and Tjot Rang. Later, under the leadership of the same officer, the garrison was withdrawn and the post evacuated zonder dat daarbij een enkel schot viel.

Sources

De Geconcentreerde Stelling in Groot-Atjeh, ‘s-Gravenhage: De Gebroeders Van Cleef, 1885, pp. 9, 28.

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. 21–22, 26, 39, 57, 60, 92–93, 119, 121–123, 144, 146, 158, 165, 292, 313–314, 317–318, 326–327, 330.

Schetsen uit den strijd op Groot-Atjeh, met speciaal vervaardigde kaart en toepasselijke photo’s, bewerkt door P. H. R. Beuming, oud-onderofficier van het Ned.-Indische Leger (Amsterdam, December 1911; uitgegeven ten bate van het te stichten Herstellingsoord voor Rijks-Ambtenaren). Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen, Br N 82-144

Acknowledgement of sources. The material in this article derives from Schetsen uit den strijd op Groot-Atjeh, met speciaal vervaardigde kaart en toepasselijke photo’s, bewerkt door P. H. R. Beuming, oud-onderofficier van het Ned.-Indische Leger (Amsterdam, December 1911). Dutch passages are quoted in the original with an English rendering.

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. 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 32, 34.

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.

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