It now became a real busy time for the engineers, because, besides the improvement of the defence the lodgings also had to be built for the 6 battalion reinforcements which were immediately requested from Java and in which I was assisted by my officers in the most commendable way. Although now and then a shortage of building material existed we were still allowed to taste the satisfaction that upon their arrival all the lesser military could be accommodated under a roof; all kinds of material was used; even for the crossbeams of some barrack rooms sections were made of Decauville material.
Kota Radja and surroundings were as it were a sample card of the strangest buildings and barracks. For the officer’s lodgings nothing needed to be built on; arrangements were made at which every occupier of a government’s house had to to take on a co-occupier for some reimbursement of a for his title defined rent indemnification, which although unpleasant was lucrative.
Likewise I got ltnt. col. Bendien as a co-occupier, who in 1869 at the same time with me had been appointed and sworn in in Harderwijk. He wa a nice Jew, who however was also burdened with the failure of his race; like he had the uncivilised habit to do a wee behind the flowerpots next to the pavillion which he occupied to the great annoyance of my daughters; however on the other side he was very nice and polite and Agnes appreciated him for his generous contribution to the household.
One of the first sacrifices of the executed changeover of the outposts was Ltnt. of the Constabulary Vuyck. To help the widow the sale of his goods were bidded quite high by his mates whilst his ridinghorse was being raffled; there were 80 tickets for f.10 each and I was the lucky price winner and therefore I had 2 horses in the stable, because at the departure of ltnt. col. v.d. Dutsen I had to buy his ridinghorse due to the change of cirsumstances.
It was a large horse of mixed breed which only was afraid of the tram, but otherwise perfectly trained and had a beautiful gait; it rendered me good services. Vuyck’s horse was a real rough one and I was pleased I could sell it for f. 150 to major v.d. Noords who needed it.
Already with the first supplementary troops from Java ltnt general Vetter came back again as government’s commisioner though now with complete power; his first measure however was to sack General Deykerhoff from his job. As temporary Governor he appointed colonel Stemfoort.
The period which now followed, marks itself by a large amount of losses on our side as a consequence of regularly changing the occupation of the outside postings, in which our troops were regularly brought home. As a result of these pull out parties Milly’s Piet got sick and after some time of fruitless treatments he was evacuated to Padang; we didn’t see him back in Atjeh.
Soon was now decided to harass the enemy more systematicly and to permanently occupy the points we conquered. Personally I took part of that by the capture of Gleh-Taroempas. On this occasion the beautiful house of Toekoe Oemar was set alight, whilst I was ordered to level the large campong opposite Lam-Djamoe from where these posts were mostly shot, with the ground.
Although this order went against the grain with me, I did have to obey; though I have never understood what use it was to chop down so many delicious fruittrees.
Not long after this movement General Deykerhof’s successor, appointed Gen. Dumoulin, arrived in Atjeh; his appearence was only short; a few days after his arrival at a reconnaissance undertaken in the direction of Kroeng-Raba he was overcome by sunstroke and collapsed from it within a few hours. His solemn funeral by the largest possible amount of troops made a deep impression.
The interum governor Stemfoort was promoted to Gen. Major in September 1896 and as such transferred to Semarang; as a consequence colonel van Vliet was appointed to Civil and Military governor, whilst he was supplemented with ltnt. col. Beeger.
Under their command the area was extended to Indrapoeri and a start was made with the construction of the connection with the Atjeh tram from Indrapoeri to Lambahros. Few technical problems were connected with the building of the rails and the construction made speedy headway so that also the move to occupy the reinforcement campong of Pang-Lima-Polin could be made, whose important Sagie head had surrended.
As commander of this important point ltnt. col. v. Heutsz was appointed whilst captain Tielenius-Kruithoff of the engineers was charged with the determination of the rails of the tramway from Gleh-Kambing to Selimoen.
The wedding of Milly and Piet Hendriks took place on 4th December 1896. As military commander of Loeboe-Sikaping he had not been able to get free and the wedding had to be solemnised by proxy. As representive groom the engineer Schadee would be functioning and the solemnisation of the marriage took place at my house by the Secretary Graandijk.
A few days before I had a soiree with around 80 guests at which the sisters of the bride performed a play, which was very succesful; the party was in such high spirits, that the last guests didn’t leave my house until 7 o’clock in the morning.
On the 6th December Milly left from Oleh-Leh to Padang, where she enjoyed the hospitality of family Williams, from where she was being fetched by Piet.
Did they search for the track of the Atjeh tram to Selimoen on the left banks of the Atjeh river, by the chief of staff without the engineers knowledge a connection was made with sealed roads on the right banks; ltnt.col. v. Heutsz had the command of the work, though for the building of the bridges the men still needed the help of the engineers. Now and then I made some inspection on the right banks and then v. Heutsz wanted to stop me all the time to get my advice about the road works that he had taken on; however my other jobs didn’t allow me, that I would stay away from Kota Radja longer than a day, especially on mailday.
In the beginning of June 1897 I received a telegram from my collegue J. Staal sounding :”Selamat Virtus nobilitas” and a similar one from Mr. v, Oosterzee ending in the words:” bene merenti”, whilst my friend Slot send me a replica of the Cross of the Ned. Leeuw.
Colonel v. Oorschot sent me a letter written by himself, in which he congratulated me with the decoration, which I actually should have earned 23 years earlier; was I pleased with it, the interest shown was twice as pleasant.
It so happened that in those days my 2nd daughter Carey got engaged to Jos Campioni, a very suitable known ltnt. of the constabulary, to which engagement I happily gave my consent. One and the other was sealed with a glas of champaign of which I just had a case of 12 bottles sitting in the storage room, coming from a bet with Mr. v. Oosterzee which I won.
During the period March till November 1896 of course many decorations were given out; it was customary that the Mil. Willemsorders and honourable mentions were given out at a therefore specially held parade; for this special occasion however it was decided to hand out the crosses of the Ned. Leeuw and Oranje Nassau also on the same parade; at the same time in the evening all decorated men would be jointly seated at a grand dinner in the social club.
The command of all of this was charged to ltnt. col. v. Heutsz, since the Governor v. Vliet had left for Segli on service business .
The parade ended properly, however the dinner ended in a real mess, in which decent dining was out of the question and in the end everything was smashed to bits. The main reason for this was the speech with which ltnt. col. v. Heutsz opened the dinner and in which he put the governor in a rediculous light because if his departure to Segli.
When the Governor came back the next morning he seemed to have been notified about the case, at least the different service chiefs were summoned and asked officially to report what had happened.
My co service chiefs seemed to have talked around it, however I told him the truth and afterwards went immediately to the ltnt.col. and posted him of what I had discussed with colonel v. Vliet.
This Van Heutsz has never forgiven me; the 30th September 1897 he was appointed colonel, chief of the general staff and left for Batavia.
Soon enough I experienced his influence, since he obviously made notes on the pieces I had handed in; like I received a completely undeserved remark that I didn’t visit the posts often enough. In my defence which followed I denied this strongly and mentioned the suspicion that the chief had been informed about this on the sideline, since the conclusion from my reports was not anything like it and only good information about this were to be obtained from the Governor; the answer sounded that I would not have been allowed to speak out about such a suspicion; I heard nothing further about it and so I hit the ball home.
The hostile attitude of v. Heutsz was even noticeable in his marginal notes which he placed on an advice which my future son in law Campioni had made about the Constabulary.
Meanwhile General Ressner was retired and colonel van Oorschot finally acted as chief; with which for me the wind from Batavia started to blow from a complete different direction.
In his first letter he asked me if I wanted to continue as ltnt.col. in my new position, since I was proposed for promotion, which of course I immediately confirmatively answered. However, what came, the promotion was not forthcoming, though Hoffman whom I would be overtaking was appointed to ltnt. col.; his wife was a friend of Mrs. v.d. Wijck and had known along these ways how to influence the Governor General to support the advertisement of her husband, so Hoffman was not passed and I had to wait another 2 years.
The track of the line Gleh-Kambing-Semiloen was not as easy as that of the tracks which were constructed before and the construction of this advanced not fast enough according to the gentleen v. Vliet and Beeger; more than I wanted I was invited to accompany them on their inspection of the new track.
One fine day we were resting in Indrapoeri after such an inspection when v. Vliet asked Beeger if he was satisfied, to which B. answered negatively; I mentioned that my worthy contractor Lie A Sie with was already several kilometers furhter with earth shifting, which the gentlemen had not seen; however they stuck with their opinion and I left them in their pessimistic delusion.
The work progressed thanks to the fine command of my subordinate officers, especially captain de Vos in such a way that I telegraphed my chief of arms after a couple of months a message that the first work train had reached Selimoen. Captain v. Vliet would have had a strange look on his face, when as a result of that he was telegraphicly ordered to express to me the satisfaction of the Commander of Arms for the speed taken at the construction of the railway part in question.
In the beginning of the year 1898 I received the Governor’s order to erect a captain’s post in Kroeng-Raja. A government’s steamer was made available for my use, with which the troops under command of captain van Geuns were transported and in which the neccessary materials were loaded. A controller of BB. also came along for the connection of the locals; I have forgotten his name.
v. Geuns went first ashore though landed at a much more Easterly location than we had agreed upon. There was no resistance at all and the result was only that the agreed upon location which also was clearly the correct one for the emplacement of the post, was reached too late; however the unloading of the materiaals happened so fast that the troops were still under cover before night time.
V. Geuns straight away got in the clinch with the controller and there were hardly any crossbeams standing or v. G. was already writing a secret letter to his chief about the case, with which single copy in the war history I couldn’t resist to wish him luck.
The next morning I did a reconnaissence trip to the hilly terrain about 2000 m. away, which was separated by an arm from the emplacement and found a creek from which drinkingwater for the occupation could be taken and in which a waterpump for the waterpipes could be made. After having given the neccessary instructions to the remaining military superviser Papa, I already returned to Great Atjeh and from there sent the neccessary pipes and taps for the waterworks.
Several days later v. Vliet rang to announce that the waterworks didn’t give any water and so I left again to Kroeng Raja and found that the pipes on one point were above the pressure line, which mistake immediately was corrected by digging in slightly underneath the pipes.
On the 30th March 1898 colonel v. Heutsz was appointed to civil and military governor of Atjeh and dependents. As a result of this decision the chie,f who was informed about my relation with v. Heutsz, asked if I nevertheless didn’t want to be transferred; I answered negatively and added, that I would show v. Heutsz, that he needed me.
At the same time the order came from the Army administration to do what was neccessary for the preparation of a seperate expedition to Pedir.
This preparation in which engineer’s captain Wijnhoff in Segli was charged, costed my workers a lot of affort in which they acquitted themselves in a fantastic way.
During this period the marriage of Carey and Jos Campioni was contracted by Secretary Craandijk at my house; large festivities were not attached to it; the witnesses and secretary with their wives were invited at the wedding dinner.
I do only remember the strange speech of Dim Scheuer, who toasted the secretary Craandijk, who now for the 2nd time contracted a marriage at my home. After the dinner was finished the young married couple departed for Roempit with the directory’s car of the Atjeh tram and were held up in Panteh Perak in a rather strange way by Pastor Verbraak, who was under the impression that a transport with wounded had passed his house. At such an event he was always present and I guess to be correct here to pay tribute to the good old Pastor.
In the meantime the exploitations in Segli were progressing in force and from Batavia came the order that the service chiefs would join on time in Segli to wait for new orders from the Governor, who would arrive there on the 30th May. The service chiefs were at the given time joined on a government steamship in the street of Segli, though learnt quite soon that the governor had already arrived the evening before, but had steamed on to Greater Atjeh, after spiteful comments at my adres about not being properly present, placed to captain Wijnhoff.
For us service chiefs there was nothing left to do than to follow the example of our boss and to return to Greater Atjeh where we still arrived on time to be present at the administration’s changeover.
A few days later I was told to accompany the Governor on an inspection of Segli, where everything was checked in detail. When finished I got a compliment without more ado about the careful manner, in which the preparation had taken place: he had never seen such a beautiful bouveac; the result of this was a friendlier attitude towards me.
Meanwhile the tram to Selimoen approached it’s completion and with the search for the track over the water parting to the plains of Segli was quietly continued. Here I came against the poblem that the terrain was not surveyed beforehand, which until now was no problem in the flat country.
I mentioned this to the governor requesting to apply for a topographic brigade to tacheometrically survey the terrain.
“If the engineers cannot find a track I will ask for technical help from Department of Buildings and Roads.” so spoke v. Heutsz and so telegraphed to Batavia, from where immediately the so called sniffer dog, the head engineer Wyse was sent in commission. This head engineer, born a Swiss had won his spurs with the exploitation of the rack railway on the Westcoast of Sumatra and so was an allround capable judge.
Since in the lodging at Kugelaan ( Piet ) was no room I asked him to stay with us and so we had the opportunity to discuss matters at ease.
He had a large camera with him and took beautiful pictures of the interesting points and of the different works of art of the rails. After researching of what had been finished already, a 5 day trip was taken till over the water parting and we reached the Pedir plains under personal command of the colonel.
Here we stayed in a reinforced house in Gedeh-Breue in the bivouac, from where we made several excursions.
In the Pedir plain
In addition several photos were taken of the visited points. One of them shows the latest reinforcements in the Pedir area, which was occupied by Toekoe Oemar and shows that he copied the buildingstyle of the establishments of us.
( see note on next page ).
After the mentioned trip to Pedir Mr. Wyss left again to Java and quite soon he handed the report about his commission in, which of course was sent to Atjeh. After receiving it my friend v.d. Dussen who meanwhile had become chief of staff, called me in his office and congratulated me with the contents of the report; it contained nothing but praise for the way in which the engineers had constructed and managed the Atjeh tram and confirmed my idea completely, that to search for a track to connect Selimoen with the Pedir plain first tracheometric survey of the terrain in the water parting was absolutely neccessary.
Greater satisfaction I could not wish for and at a later trip on the terrain. where I stumbled on objections v. Heutsz had to wholeheartedly recognise that my opinion had been correct.
The Pedir expedition didn’t take too long and soon enough I had to take over the exploitation in Segli from Marcella; mainly existing of the construction of the tram track Segli-Gedeh-Breun. The neccessary materials for this had been ordered in Europe and arrived by SS Mossel in Oleh-Leh.
As with the unloading at Segli some difficulties were connected I went there personally.The SS Mossel was a flat one decker which was swaying about dangerously in the street sothat I needed help stepping out of the barque from one of those on board who happened to be the ship’s doctor, the later on in Tosari well known doctor ’t Loo of Barmen.
The unloading took several days due to bad weather; though luckily nothing was lost.
The Hague:
15th July 1926.
Just a week aftere the typing of my Intermezzo on page 214 I was temporarily discharged from hospital in order to recuperate of a pre operation which was clearly neccessary; this took until 2nd of June and I imagined that I still could continue with the typing of my memoires, be it by touch; it was clear to me now I can see again, that I had overestimated myself although the last 16 pages were inundated with mistakes as a result of the hitting of wrong keys. I did not want to retype these pages but was satisfied with the willing corrections of Piet, whom I hope to be able to miss now, as soon as Dr. Hazewinkel will have given me my definite glasses.
Jos Campioni, who during his marriage was commander of Roempit had after 3 weeks been transferred to Lamjong, where is young wife soon fell ill, sothat I offered her accommodation in the pavillion in my house in Nesoeh. If the service allowed such, Jos came over and so was able in the beginning of September to attend the crowning festival.
I can’t remember much about these festivals; only a large Labyrith in Gedah comes to mind, which had many attractions.
Jos meanwhile had known to organise that due to his wife’s continuing illness she would be evacuated to Batavia. As will be clear later on, this evacuation was more neccessary for Jos than for my daughter: In the beginning of 1899 Jos and Carey left for Batavia and through a fatal coincidence of circumstances I never saw my son in law again.
From Batavia the youngsters went to Soeka-Boemie, where Jos got gravely ill and still after having been in observation for a long time was sent to the Great Military Hospital in Batavia.
They held him there for several days in observation again until finally the well known surgeon Dr. Koch was consulted, who, before he even had done a punction, diagnosed a liver abcess.
On the same evening the abcess was operated on and some days later a 2 year leave to Europe on a medical certificate of urgency was requested.
On 7th June he left with Messageries Maritimes to Europe, having to leave his heavily pregnant wife behind.
Fortunately his surgeon Dr. Koch left with the same boat and so during the whole journey he was under medical supervision, whilst Dr. Koch, who accompanied him till Paris and referred him to Dr. Walter, the surgeon of the Diaconessenhuis Bronovo, under whose treatment he later on completely cured.
