The Netherlands Indies

689 Pages·2011·10.73 MB·English

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The Netherlands Indies
and the Great War, 1914-1918
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World War I had just broken out, but colonial authorities in the Netherlands Indies heaved N
a sigh of relief: The colonial export sector had not collapsed and war offered new economic e
t
prospects; representatives from the Islamic nationalist movement had prayed for God to bless h
e
the Netherlands but had not seized upon the occasion to incite unrest. Furthermore, the colonial r
government, impressed by such shows of loyalty, embarked upon a campaign to create a ‘native l
a
militia’, an army of Javanese to assist in repulsing a possible Japanese invasion. n
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Yet there were other problem: pilgrims stranded in Mecca, the pro-German disposition of most I
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Indonesian Muslims because of the involvement of Turkey in the war, and above all the status d
i
of the Netherlands Indies as a smuggling station used by Indian revolutionaries and German e
s
agents to subvert British rule in Asia. a
n
d
By 1917 the optimism of the first war years had disappeared. Trade restrictions, the war at
t
sea, and a worldwide lack of tonnage caused export opportunities to dwindle. Communist h
propaganda had radicalized the nationalist movement. In 1918 it seemed that the colony might e
G
cave in. Exports had ceased. Famine was a very real danger. There was increasing unrest within
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the colonial population and the army and navy. Colonial authorities turned to the nationalist e
a
movement for help, offering them drastic political concessions, forgotten as soon as the war t
ended. The political and economic independence gained by the Netherlands Indies, a result of W
problems in communications with the mother country, was also lost with the end of the war. a
r
, 1
Kees van Dijk examines how in 1917 the atmosphere of optimism in the Netherlands Indies 9
1
changed to one of unrest and dissatisfaction, and how after World War I the situation stabilized 4
to resemble pre-war political and economic circumstances. -1
9
1
Kees van Dijk (1946) has worked as a researcher at KITLV/Royal Netherlands Institute of 8
Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies since 1968 and has been professor of the history of
Islam in Indonesia at Leiden University since 1985. Among his publications are Rebellion under
the banner of Islam; The Darul Islam in Indonesia (Leiden, KITLV Press 1981) and A country in
despair; Indonesia between 1997 and 2000 (Leiden, KITLV Press 2001).
ISBN 978-90-6718-308-6
ISBN 978-90-6718-308-6
Kees van Dijk
9 789067 183086
9 789067 183086
THE NETHERLANDS IND IES AND THE GREAT WAR

V E R H A N D E L I N G E N
VAN HET KONINKLIJK INSTITUUT
VOOR TAAL-, LAND- EN VOLKENKUNDE
254
kees dijk
van
THE NETHERLANDS INDIES AND
THE GREAT WAR
1914-1918
KITLV Press
Leiden
2007
Published by:
KITLV Press
Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde
(Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies)
P.O. Box 9515
2300 RA Leiden
The Netherlands
website: www.kitlv.nl
e-mail: [email protected]
KITLV is an institute of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
(KNAW)
Cover: Creja ontwerpen, Leiderdorp
ISBN 978 90 6718 308 6
© 2007 Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information
storage and retrieval system, without permission from the copyright owner.
Printed in the Netherlands
Contents
Introduction
I The colonial race 1
II A new century, a new elan 19
III Indiërs 45
IV The threat from the north 73
V The Dutch fleet 91
VI August 1914 125
VII Guarding strict neutrality 165
VIII The European community in the Netherlands Indies 201
IX Loyal subjects 231

X A native militia 255
XI The Turkish factor 287
XII The German menace 317
XIII The consequences of economic warfare 353
XIV Adjusting to economic warfare 381
XV The dangers of war and shipping 403
XVI Gloomy prospects 427
XVII Growing domestic unrest 453
XVIII The end of Dutch international shipping and trade 487
vi Contents
XIX Rice and sugar 515
XX Restlessness 543
XXI November 1918 579
XXII Peace: Missed opportunities 613
Bibliography 631
General index 647
Index of geographical names 659
Index of personal names 669
Introduction
Topics of books often present themselves by chance. My dissertation about
the Darul Islam rebellion in Indonesia was the result of research I had started
for a book about Guided Democracy in Indonesia. Similarly, while trying
to trace the origins of groups active in the Netherlands Indies in the 1920s
which espoused a mixture of Communism and Islam, I became interested
in the question of what had been the consequences of World War One for
the Netherlands Indies. Initially I thought, as did almost everyone with
whom I discussed the subject, that the war had virtually passed the colony
by. Gradually I began to realize that this was not true and that the war had
deeply affected the domestic political situation, had temporarily fundamen-
tally changed the relationship between motherland and colony, and had had
a great effect on the economic performance of the Netherlands Indies.
In this book, these political and economic developments in the Netherlands
Indies between 1914 and 1918 and the domestic and international factors
which influenced them are traced using Dutch- and Malay-language news-
papers published in the Netherlands Indies, contemporary reports and
books, and archival material. What I wanted to map out was simple: what
developments in the colony were effectuated, stimulated, curbed or halted
by a war which was being fought in faraway Europe. The questions I asked
myself and the realities of the war fought implied that it was impossible to
concentrate on domestic colonial politics. Much of what happened in the
Netherlands Indies in those years and many of the perceptions people had
about their current situation and future were related to the drastic changes
in the economic circumstances war brought about in the Netherlands Indies.
A mixture of what appeared to be pressing political, economic, and inter-
national issues defined the response of the Colonial Government and of the
ordinary Dutch people in the colony to the nationalist movement.
The Great War broke out at a moment when Dutch people in the
Netherlands Indies were having to come to terms with a society in which
a modern nationalist movement was taking shape. All population groups ‒
Indonesians, Chinese and Indo-Europeans ‒ demanded social, economic and
political emancipation and a new ‘modern’ stream of Islam, which stressed
viii Introduction
that Muslim society should attain an equal footing with that of the West
made its appearance. Dutch people did not have much time to get used to
these developments. Though such demands had not been completely absent
in earlier years, the impression was that there was a sudden, unprecedented
upsurge of nationalist feeling. The contemporary international constella-
tion complicated the Dutch response. Though the international balance of
power formed a guarantee of Dutch rule, there was a persistent lingering
fear that one day a mightier nation might invade and seize the Netherlands
Indies. In the years between 1900 and 1914, the threat posed by such an alien
enemy had assumed a more concrete shape in the minds of Dutch people.
The advance of Japan as a great power, since 1902 an ally of Great Britain,
unnerved the Dutch public. Fear of what Japan might do only intensified
during the war, providing some of the more radical Indonesian nationalist
leaders with the ammunition to tease the Dutch. There was apprehension
that Japan or another of the great powers could use several pretexts to act.
One was that the Netherlands Indies was too weak to enforce its neutral-
ity in wartime. Another was that the colonial administration neglected the
interests of the Indonesian population. Remembering the demise of Spain
as a Colonial Power in Asia, some Dutch people feared that the Netherlands
might suffer a similar fate if it did nothing to improve the chances of
Indonesian society. And what if the Netherlands were to actually find itself
embroiled in the war?
In this context, Indonesians were more than colonial subjects. Their well-
being or their contentment with their lot were now directly linked with the
continuation of Dutch rule in the Archipelago. More was at stake than vague
speculations about the spectre of a foreign power punishing the Netherlands
for its misrule in the colony. Not ruling out a foreign invasion, and well-aware
that the Dutch military position in the Netherlands Indies was weak, shortly
after the outbreak of the war the colonial administration developed plans to
involve Javanese conscripts in the defence of the colony. Talk of a ‘native mili-
tia’ acted as catalyst: it radicalized but also split the nationalist movement,
with those not rejecting conscription outright demanding better education
and more political rights. Their contention was that Indonesians would only
be willing to participate in the defence of the Netherlands Indies if they were
imbued with the feeling that they had a motherland to defend, and ‒ but in
the eyes of the Dutch administrators arguing the opposite amounted to sedi-
tion ‒ that they would be worse off under another colonial overlord.
The debate was staged against the background of worsening economic
conditions, rising prices, and, in the last years of the war especially the pros-
pect of food shortages and an unruly, if not riotous, population. Throughout
the war passenger and freight trade was strictly controlled by the Allied
Powers. Part of the reason for this was that Great Britain and France, work-
Introduction ix
ing out their measures in close concert, aimed at achieving the total economic
isolation of Germany and Austria-Hungary. But there was yet another reason.
British India, the Malay Peninsula and the Straits Settlements were the target
of a twin conspiracy, both coordinated by Berlin. There was a Turco-German
effort to incite a Holy War and subvert Allied rule in British and French
colonies (and with respect to Russia directed at the Muslim population of
the Caucasus and Central Asia). In tandem with this, a second plot evolved,
an Indo-German conspiracy, in which Germany cooperated with Indian
revolutionaries to ignite a revolt in British India. In their conspiracy the
Netherlands Indies served as a kind of stepping stone, an intermediate sta-
tion via which weapons bought in America and the Philippines, money,
seditious pamphlets, and agents could be smuggled into India, Burma, and
British Malaya. Consequently all ships entering and leaving the territorial
waters in the Netherlands Indies were stopped and searched by the British
Navy. Although the Dutch colonial authorities were unaware of the exact
nature of the Indo-German conspiracy, they and the other Dutch people
harboured their own fears. Because Germany was an ally of the Ottoman
Empire, Muslims in the Netherlands Indies tended to be pro-German and
anti-British, which led to the suspicion that one day Germany might try to
seize power in the colony with the help of Muslim Indonesian accomplices.
Even though the prevailing mood in the Netherlands Indies in the first
months of the war was one of gloom about the economic prospects, the colo-
nial economy did rather well during the first years of the war. Export markets
in Germany and Austria-Hungary fell away and exports to Holland suffered
from a British quota system imposed to prevent re-export from Holland to
Germany, but alternative markets were found, again in the United States and
Japan. Similarly imports from Germany dwindled, but alternative sources
of supply were found in the United States and Japan. The redirection of
foreign trade coupled with problems encountered in the communications by
mail and telegraph also allowed the commercial and estate community in the
colony some independence from headquarters in Europe.
The change came in the closing months of 1916 when colonial foreign
trade began to feel the consequences of Allied demands for ships and ton-
nage. Colonial products could no longer be shipped, and the import of rice
stagnated. Now faced with the possibility of an acute shortage of food, the
Governor General of the Netherlands Indies, J.P. van Limburg Stirum, serious-
ly contemplated using the option of forcing sugar and tobacco estates to reserve
one-quarter of their acreage for the production of rice. The situation seemed
desperate. The collapse of the export sector was hurting Indonesian producers
of colonial products and estates might have to dismiss their workforce, with all
the consequent social unrest this would entail. Moderate nationalists seemed
to have espoused radicalism, while socialist agitators had fanned discontent in