1893

Properties3
descriptionThe year of the publication of Van Heutsz's De onderwerping van Atjeh by De Gebroeders van Cleef in 's-Gravenhage and G. Kolff en Co. in Batavia — the policy tract that would become the blueprint for the pacification of Atjeh after 1898.
tagstimeline, year, aceh, colonial, achehnese, dutch, military, diplomacy, treaty, 19th-century, publication, aceh-war
aliasesYear 1893, 1893 AD, the year 1893, 1893 (year), het jaar 1893, 1893 (Van Heutsz publication)

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1893 was a pivotal year in the Dutch‑Aceh theatre. In 1893 the first volume of Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje’s foundational ethnography De Atjehers was published, while the Dutch colonial navy launched two coordinated marine operations – the Tuchtiging der Aroe‑cilanden against the Aroe Islands and the Expedition against Tamiang in the neighbouring Tamiang (Sumatra) region. These actions reflected the widening scope of the Dutch pacification effort beyond the immediate borders of Atjeh and were accompanied by notable political and religious events within Aceh.

1893 was also the year of Teuku Umar’s formal subjection to the Dutch colonial government and the founding of the allied policy — what Kruisheer in ATJEH ‘96 describes as the period September 1893–April 1896, “een zwakke basis” (a weak foundation) — that sought to subdue the interior of Groot-Atjeh with native auxiliaries armed, paid, and provisioned by the Kompeni. Beginning with Umar’s good services in clearing the XXV Moekims in August 1893, the year saw the Government Resolution of 5 September 1893 (No. 1 geheim) authorising his appointment as Panglima Prang Besar under the name Toekoe Djohan Pahalawan, the oath of loyalty of 30 September 1893 sworn by Umar and fifteen of his panglima’s, the conferment on 21 October 1893 of the leadership of the XXVI Moekims, and the conquest of Ana’ Galong on 30 November 1893 by his newly raised Legioen van T. Djohan. As described in ATJEH ‘96, 1893 thus marks both the high-water mark of the Dutch allied policy and the sowing of the very instruments — Dutch weapons, training, and a unified Achehnese command — that would, in March 1896, be turned against the Government in the defection of Teuku Umar.

Publications

Military Operations

  • Tuchtiging der Aroe‑cilanden – a punitive expedition against the Aroe Islands to suppress a rebellion that threatened Dutch shipping in the region.
  • Expedition against Tamiang – a combined land‑and‑sea operation in the Tamiang (Sumatra) area aimed at neutralising cross‑border insurgents.

Both operations were part of the broader Dutch strategy to extend control over the peripheral islands and riverine zones surrounding Aceh.

People

Places

Events

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Concepts

Other

The bloodless capture of Kaloet by Toekoe Oemar (August 1893)

The year 1893 was marked by the bloodless capture of Kaloet by the Dutch-allied Atjehnese warlord Toekoe Oemar — the principal Dutch-Atjehnese auxiliary success of the late concentratie period. The operation, documented in detail in the Atjeh-Album of 1896’s chapter De Strijd om Kaloet, succeeded where the failed Dutch assault of 1 October 1892 had failed, and did not cost een druppel bloeds meer (“another drop of blood”).

Toekoe Oemar — supported by Dutch artillery and with Dutch infantry as reserve — had, in the first days of August 1893, de geheele XXV Moekims had zuiverd van vijandelijke benden, en eenige sterke bentings buiten de linie had veroverd, o.a. Boekit Trieng, Boekit Daroe, Kasoemba en Tjot-Goe (“purified the entire XXV Moekims of enemy bands, and had conquered some strong bentings outside the line, among others Boekit Trieng, Boekit Daroe, Kasoemba and Tjot-Goe”). On 4 August 4 August 1893 Toekoe Oemar invested Kaloet with approximately 1000 men, supported by the 4th Mountain Battery from the Kraton and by the fire of the guns of Lamreng and Lambaroe. On the morning of 5 August 5 August 1893 Toekoe Oemar found the benting abandoned — the Atjehnese garrison having withdrawn in the night after Toekoe Oemar’s briefje (note) threatening a hongerkuur (hunger-cure) and over de kling jagen (putting to the sword).

The same year also saw Teuku Uma’s formal submission to the Dutch government, initiating the so-called Uma period of Dutch-Atjehnese relations that would last until his 1896 defection. Lamgoet — the former seat of Teungku di Tiro — was briefly occupied by Toekoe Bantah in 1893, but Toekoe Bantah was unable to maintain himself there; it was Toekoe Oemar who, in the same year, brought Lamgoet a second time under Dutch control.

Account from De onderwerping van Atjeh (Van Heutsz, 1893) — the policy tract’s publication

1893 was also the year of the publication of J. B. van Heutsz’s De onderwerping van Atjeh — the policy tract in which the future Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies set out, twenty years into the Atjeh-oorlog, his diagnosis of why the war had become a chronic colonial ulcer and his prescription for ending it. The book was published in 1893 at ‘s-Gravenhage by De Gebroeders Van Cleef and at Batavia by G. Kolff en Co. — the title-page bears both houses in parallel — and was printed by the Typ. Zuidholl. Boek- en Handelsdrukkerij. The book was signed off by its author at the end of October 1892 — “October 1892. J. B. VAN HEUTSZ” — and was published the following year.

The title page

The title page of the book — preserved in the OCR as it appeared in print in 1893 — fixes the author, the publishers, and the rhetorical opening of the tract:

“De onderwerping van Atjeh DOOR J. B. VAN HEUTSZ Majoor der Infanterie gewezen Chef van den Staf in Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden De Atjeh-oorlog knaagt aan ons Koloniaal bezit, hij moet eindigen. Laten wij eindelijk aan de beschaafde wereld toonen dat wij daartoe in staat zijn. DE GEBROEDERS VAN CLEEF G. KOLFF en Co. 1893. BATAVIA”.

The title page’s elements fix the book’s author, status, and provenance. The author is J. B. VAN HEUTSZ, Majoor der Infanterie, gewezen Chef van den Staf in Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden — Major of Infantry, formerly Chief of Staff in Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden. The title is the warrant of insider knowledge: Van Heutsz had served as Chef van den Staf under successive Governors and had personally witnessed every policy reversal since 1874. The dedication — De Atjeh-oorlog knaagt aan ons Koloniaal bezit, hij moet eindigen. Laten wij eindelijk aan de beschaafde wereld toonen dat wij daartoe in staat zijn — is the rhetorical lodestar of the entire tract: the Atjeh-war gnaws at our Colonial possession, it must end; let us finally show the civilised world that we are capable of doing so. The publishers — De Gebroeders Van Cleef at ‘s-Gravenhage and G. Kolff en Co. at Batavia — are the dual houses under whose imprint the book appeared, with the metropolitan house at The Hague and the colonial house at Batavia named in parallel.

The October 1892 sign-off and the prescriptive three-pillar programme

The October 1892 sign-off places the book’s composition in the immediate aftermath of the 1891 lecture by Scherer to the Indisch Genootschap (January 1891), the 23 November 1891 warning-letter of Generaal van Teijn to the Minister of Koloniën, and the 1892 appointment of an eleventh Governor of Atjeh (Generaal Pompe). Van Heutsz’s tract is, in this sense, the immediate literary response to the policy drift Van Teijn’s warning had diagnosed. The tract’s three-pillar prescription — a marine-enforced closure of the entire coast from Tamiang to Troemon, a scheepvaartregeling on the ports retained under Dutch control, and the assumption by the colonial state of the hatsil together with the opium-pacht and the abandonment of the cajoleering-policy — is the blueprint Van Heutsz would himself implement, in modified form, as Governor of Atjeh from 1898 and as Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies from 1904 to 1908.

De onderwerping van Atjeh, door J. B. van Heutsz, Majoor der Infanterie, gewezen Chef van den Staf in Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden. ‘s-Gravenhage: De Gebroeders van Cleef; Batavia: G. Kolff en Co., 1893, title page (p. 1), imprint, and October 1892 sign-off (p. 117). OCR-filename: 20260718_105749_DLP-107-De_onderwerping_van_Atjeh_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt.

Account in du Croo’s Generaal Swart (1943)

In 1893 De Atjehers was published on the Government’s order; in September 1893 Teukoe Oemar was solemnly installed as Panglima Prang Besar. Evacuations from the geconcentreerde linie numbered 2,879 men and the total war costs then amounted to 210 million guilders.

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

1893 was the year in which the Netherlands Indies government entered into alliance with Toekoe Oemar in Groot-Atjeh, conferred on him the dignity of Panglima Prang Besar under the name Toekoe Djohan Pahalawan, and began erecting temporary posts outside the geconcentreerde linie.

Chronology in Hooijer’s account

See Also

Sources

Atjeh-Album van Eigen Haard, uitgave van de N.V. Het Tijdschrift “Eigen Haard”, Amsterdam, 1896, pp. 10, 33–34 (Een Terugblik — Wat Reeds Verkregen Werd; De Strijd om Kaloet — Eene herinnering uit den Atjeh-oorlog).

De Atjehers, by C. Snouck Hurgronje, vol. I (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1893).

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. 19–20, 28, 346.

Generaal Swart, Pacificator van Atjeh (“General Swart, Pacifier of Atjeh”), by M. H. du Croo, Colonel K.N.I.L. (retired), with the collaboration of H. J. Schmidt, Titular Colonel K.N.I.L. (retired), with a foreword by His Excellency Lieutenant-General K.N.I.L. (retired) G. K. Dijkstra (Maastricht: N.V. Leiter-Nypels, 1943), passim.

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. 10, 16, 24, 26, 32, 34, 36, 38.

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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