In the 17th century, the Netherlands became one of the largest maritime powers in Europe. Several trading companies, responsible for the country's overseas trade and engaged in essentially colonial expansion in South and Southeast Asia, in 1602 were merged into the Dutch East India Company. On the island of Java, the city of Batavia (now Jakarta) was founded, which became an outpost of the Dutch expansion in Indonesia. By the end of the 60s of the 17th century, the Dutch East India Company had become a serious organization with its own merchant and military fleet and ten thousand private armed forces. However, the defeat of the Netherlands against the more powerful British Empire contributed to the gradual weakening and disintegration of the Dutch East India Company. In 1798, the property of the company was nationalized by the Netherlands, which at that time bore the name of the Batavian Republic.
Indonesia under Dutch rule
By the beginning of the 19th century, the Dutch East Indies was, first of all, a network of military trading posts on the coast of the Indonesian islands, but the Dutch practically did not advance deep into the latter. The situation changed during the first half of the 19th century. By the middle of the 19th century, the Netherlands, having finally suppressed the resistance of the local sultans and rajahs, subordinated to its influence the most developed islands of the Malay archipelago, which are now part of Indonesia. In 1859, 2/3 of the possessions in Indonesia, which had previously belonged to Portugal, were also included in the Dutch East Indies. Thus, the Portuguese lost the rivalry for influence on the islands of the Malay Archipelago to the Netherlands.
In parallel with the ousting of the British and Portuguese from Indonesia, the colonial expansion into the interior of the islands continued. Naturally, the Indonesian population met the colonization with desperate and long-term resistance. To maintain order in the colony and its defense from external opponents, among which there could well be the colonial troops of European countries competing with the Netherlands for influence in the Malay Archipelago, it took the creation of armed forces intended directly for operations within the territory of the Dutch East Indies. Like other European powers with overseas territorial possessions, the Netherlands began to form colonial troops.
On March 10, 1830, the corresponding royal decree was signed to create the Royal Dutch East Indies Army (Dutch abbreviation - KNIL). Like the colonial troops of a number of other states, the Royal Dutch East India Army was not part of the armed forces of the metropolis. The main tasks of the KNIL were the conquest of the interior territories of the Indonesian islands, the fight against the rebels and the maintenance of order in the colony, the protection of the colonial possessions from possible encroachments from external enemies. During the XIX - XX centuries. the colonial troops of the Dutch East Indies participated in a number of campaigns in the Malay Archipelago, including the Padri Wars in 1821-1845, the Javanese War of 1825-1830, the suppression of resistance on the island of Bali in 1849, the Aceh War in north of Sumatra in 1873-1904, the annexation of Lombok and Karangsem in 1894, the conquest of the southwestern part of the island of Sulawesi in 1905-1906, the final "pacification" of Bali in 1906-1908, the conquest of West Papua in 1920- e.
Bali's "pacification" of 1906-1908, carried out by the colonial forces, received widespread coverage in the world press because of the atrocities committed by Dutch soldiers against the Balinese independence fighters. During the "Bali operation" in 1906The two kingdoms of South Bali, Badung and Tabanan, were finally subjugated, and in 1908 the Dutch East Indian army put an end to the history of the largest state on the island of Bali - the kingdom of Klungkung. Incidentally, one of the key reasons for the active resistance of the Balinese Rajas to the Dutch colonial expansion was the desire of the East Indies authorities to control the opium trade in the region.
When the conquest of the Malay Archipelago could be considered a fait accompli, the use of KNIL continued, primarily in police operations against rebel groups and large gangs. Also, the tasks of the colonial troops included the suppression of constant mass popular uprisings that broke out in various parts of the Dutch East Indies. That is, in general, they performed the same functions that were inherent in the colonial troops of other European powers based in African, Asian and Latin American colonies.
Manning the East Indian Army
The Royal Dutch East India Army had its own manning system. So, in the 19th century, the recruitment of colonial troops was carried out, first of all, at the expense of Dutch volunteers and mercenaries from other European countries, primarily the Belgians, Swiss, and Germans. It is known that the French poet Arthur Rimbaud was also recruited to serve on the island of Java. When the colonial administration waged a long and difficult war against the Muslim sultanate of Aceh in the northwestern tip of Sumatra, the number of colonial troops reached 12,000 soldiers and officers recruited in Europe.
Since Aceh was considered the most religiously "fanatical" state in the Malay Archipelago, with a long tradition of political sovereignty and considered the "citadel of Islam" in Indonesia, the resistance of its inhabitants was especially strong. Realizing that the colonial troops manned in Europe, due to their numbers, could not cope with the Aceh resistance, the colonial administration began to recruit the natives for military service. 23,000 Indonesian soldiers were recruited, primarily natives of Java, Ambon and Manado. In addition, African mercenaries arrived in Indonesia from the Ivory Coast and the territory of modern Ghana - the so-called "Dutch Guinea", which remained under the rule of the Netherlands until 1871.
The end of the Acekh war also contributed to the end of the practice of hiring soldiers and officers from other European countries. The Royal Dutch East Indian Army began to be recruited from the inhabitants of the Netherlands, the Dutch colonists in Indonesia, the Dutch-Indonesian mestizos and the Indonesians themselves. Despite the fact that it was decided not to send Dutch soldiers from the metropolis to serve in the Dutch East Indies, volunteers from the Netherlands still served in the colonial forces.
In 1890, a special department was created in the Netherlands itself, whose competence included the recruitment and training of future soldiers of the colonial army, as well as their re-rehabilitation and adaptation to a peaceful life in Dutch society after the end of their contract service. As for the natives, the colonial authorities gave preference when recruiting for military service the Javanese as representatives of the most civilized ethnos, in addition to everything early included in the colony (1830, while many islands were finally colonized only a century later - in the 1920s.) and Ambonians - as a Christianized ethnos under the cultural influence of the Dutch.
In addition, African mercenaries were also recruited. The latter were recruited, first of all, among the representatives of the Ashanti people living in the territory of modern Ghana. The inhabitants of Indonesia called the African shooters who served in the Royal Dutch East India Army "Black Dutch". The skin color and physical characteristics of African mercenaries terrified the local population, but the high cost of transporting soldiers from the west coast of Africa to Indonesia ultimately contributed to the gradual refusal of the colonial authorities of the Dutch East Indies to recruit the East Indian army, including African mercenaries.
The Christian part of Indonesia, primarily the South Molluk Islands and Timor, has traditionally been considered the most reliable contingent of troops for the Royal Dutch East Indies Army. The most reliable contingent was the Ambonians. Despite the fact that the inhabitants of the Ambon Islands resisted Dutch colonial expansion until the beginning of the 19th century, they eventually became the most reliable allies of the colonial administration among the indigenous population. This was due to the fact that, firstly, at least half of the Ambonians adopted Christianity, and secondly, the Ambonians strongly interfered with other Indonesians and Europeans, which turned them into the so-called. "Colonial" ethnos. Taking part in the suppression of the actions of the Indonesian peoples on other islands, the Ambonians earned the full confidence of the colonial administration and, thereby, secured themselves privileges, becoming the category of the local population closest to the Europeans. In addition to military service, Ambonians were actively involved in business, many of them became rich and Europeanized.
Javanese, Sundanese, Sumatran soldiers who professed Islam received less salary compared to representatives of the Christian peoples of Indonesia, which should have stimulated them to adopt Christianity, but in fact it only sowed internal contradictions among the military contingent based on religious hostility and material competition … As for the officer corps, it was staffed almost exclusively by the Dutch, as well as European colonists living on the island, and Indo-Dutch mestizos. At the beginning of World War II, the Royal Dutch East Indies Army numbered about 1,000 officers and 34,000 non-commissioned officers and soldiers. At the same time, 28,000 military personnel were representatives of indigenous peoples of Indonesia, 7,000 - Dutch and representatives of other non-indigenous peoples.
Colonial navy uprisings
The multiethnic composition of the colonial army repeatedly became a source of numerous problems for the Dutch administration, but it could not change the system of manning the armed forces stationed in the colony in any way. European mercenaries and volunteers simply would not have been enough to cover the needs of the Royal Dutch East India Army in the enlisted and non-commissioned officers. Therefore, it was necessary to come to terms with the service in the ranks of the colonial troops of the Indonesians, many of whom, for quite understandable reasons, were by no means really loyal to the colonial authorities. The most conflict-prone contingent were military sailors.
As in many other states, including the Russian Empire, the sailors were more revolutionary than the soldiers of the ground forces. This was due to the fact that people with a higher level of education and professional training were selected to serve in the navy - as a rule, former workers of industrial enterprises, transport. As for the Dutch fleet stationed in Indonesia, on the one hand, Dutch workers served on it, among whom were followers of social democratic and communist ideas, and on the other hand, representatives of the small Indonesian working class, who learned in constant communication with their Dutch colleagues have revolutionary ideas.
In 1917 g.a powerful uprising of sailors and soldiers broke out at the naval base in Surabaya. The sailors created the Councils of sailors' deputies. Of course, the uprising was brutally suppressed by the colonial military administration. However, the history of performances at naval targets in the Dutch East Indies did not stop there. In 1933, an uprising broke out on the battleship De Zeven Provinces (Seven Provinces). On January 30, 1933, at the Morokrembangan naval base, a sailor uprising took place against low salaries and discrimination on the part of Dutch officers and non-commissioned officers, suppressed by the command. The participants in the uprising were arrested. During exercises in the area of the island of Sumatra, the revolutionary committee of sailors created on the battleship De Zeven Provincien decided to raise an uprising in solidarity with the sailors of Morokrembangan. Several Dutchmen joined the Indonesian sailors, primarily those associated with communist and socialist organizations.
On February 4, 1933, while the battleship was at the base in Cotaradia, the ship's officers went ashore for a banquet. At this point, the sailors, led by the helmsman Kavilarang and the machinist Bosshart, neutralized the remaining officers of the watch and non-commissioned officers and seized the ship. The battleship went to sea and headed for Surabaya. At the same time, the ship's radio station broadcast the demands of the rebels (by the way, politicians that did not contain a raid): to raise the salaries of sailors, to end discrimination against native sailors by Dutch officers and non-commissioned officers, to release the arrested sailors who took part in the riot at the Morokrembangan naval base (this riot took place over several days earlier, January 30, 1933).
To suppress the uprising, a special group of ships was formed as part of the light cruiser Java and the destroyers Pete Hein and Everest. The commander of the group, Commander Van Dulme, led her to intercept the battleship De Zeven Provincien to the Sunda Islands region. At the same time, the command of the naval forces decided to transfer to coastal units or demobilize all Indonesian sailors and staff the ship's personnel exclusively with the Dutch. On February 10, 1933, the punitive group managed to overtake the rebel battleship. The Marines who disembarked on deck arrested the leaders of the rebellion. The battleship was towed to the port of Surabaya. Kavilarang and Bosshart, as well as other leaders of the uprising, received serious prison sentences. The uprising on the battleship "De Zeven Provincien" went down in the history of the Indonesian national liberation movement and became widely known outside Indonesia: even in the Soviet Union years later, a separate work was published, devoted to a detailed description of the events on the battleship of the East Indies squadron of the Dutch naval forces …
Before World War II
By the time of the outbreak of World War II, the number of the Royal Dutch East Indies Army, stationed in the Malay Archipelago, reached 85 thousand people. In addition to the 1,000 officers and 34,000 soldiers and non-commissioned officers of the colonial forces, this number included the military and civilian personnel of the territorial security and police units. Structurally, the Royal Dutch East Indies Army consisted of three divisions: six infantry regiments and 16 infantry battalions; a combined brigade of three infantry battalions stationed at Barisan; a small consolidated brigade consisting of two battalions of marines and two cavalry squadrons. In addition, the Royal Dutch East Indies Army had a howitzer division (105 mm heavy howitzers), an artillery division (75 mm field guns) and two mountain artillery battalions (75 mm mountain guns). Also, a "Mobile Squad" was created, armed with tanks and armored vehicles - we will talk about it in more detail below.
The colonial authorities and the military command took convulsive measures towards the modernization of the units of the East India army, hoping to turn it into a force capable of defending Dutch sovereignty in the Malay archipelago. It was clear that in the event of a war, the Royal Dutch East Indies Army was to face the Imperial Japanese Army, an enemy many times more serious than the rebel groups or even the colonial troops of other European powers.
In 1936, seeking to protect themselves from possible aggression from Japan (the hegemonic claims of the "land of the rising sun" for the role of suzerain in Southeast Asia were long known), the authorities of the Dutch East Indies decided to modernize the restructuring of the Royal Dutch East Indies Army. It was decided to form six mechanized brigades. The brigade was to include motorized infantry, artillery, reconnaissance units and a tank battalion.
The military command believed that the use of tanks would significantly strengthen the power of the East Indian army and make it a serious enemy. Seventy light Vickers tanks were ordered from Great Britain just on the eve of World War II, and fighting prevented most of the shipment from being delivered to Indonesia. Only twenty tanks arrived. The British government confiscated the rest of the party for its own use. Then the authorities of the Dutch East Indies turned to the United States for help. An agreement was concluded with the Marmon-Herrington company, which supplied military equipment to the Dutch East Indies.
According to this agreement, signed in 1939, it was planned to deliver by 1943 a huge number of tanks - 628 pieces. These were the following vehicles: CTLS-4 with a single turret (crew - driver and gunner); triple CTMS-1TBI and medium quadruple MTLS-1GI4. The end of 1941 was marked by the beginning of acceptance of the first batches of tanks in the United States. However, the very first ship, sent from the United States with tanks on board, ran aground when approaching the port, as a result of which most (18 of 25) vehicles were damaged and only 7 vehicles were usable without repair procedures.
The creation of tank units required from the Royal Dutch East Indies Army and the availability of trained military personnel capable of serving in tank units in their professional qualities. By 1941, when the Dutch East Indies received the first tanks, 30 officers and 500 non-commissioned officers and soldiers were trained in the armored profile of the East India Army. They were trained on previously purchased English Vickers. But even for one tank battalion, despite the presence of personnel, there were not enough tanks.
Therefore, 7 tanks that survived the unloading of the ship, together with 17 Vickers purchased in Great Britain, made up the Mobile Detachment, which included a tank squadron, a motorized infantry company (150 soldiers and officers, 16 armored trucks), a reconnaissance platoon (three armored vehicles), an anti-tank artillery battery and a mountain artillery battery. During the Japanese invasion of the Dutch East Indies, the "Mobile Detachment" under the command of Captain G. Wolfhost, together with the 5th Infantry Battalion of the East Indies Army, entered into battle with the Japanese 230th Infantry Regiment. Despite the initial success, the Mobile Detachment ultimately had to retreat, leaving 14 killed, 13 tanks, 1 armored car and 5 armored personnel carriers disabled. After that, the command redeployed the detachment to Bandung and no longer threw it into combat operations until the surrender of the Dutch East Indies to the Japanese.
The Second World War
After the Netherlands was occupied by Nazi Germany, the military-political position of the Dutch East Indies began to deteriorate rapidly - after all, the channels of military and economic assistance from the metropolis were blocked, in addition to everything Germany, until the end of the 1930s, remained one of the key military - trading partners of the Netherlands, now, for obvious reasons, ceased to be such. On the other hand, Japan has become more active, which has long been going to "get its hands on" practically the entire Asia-Pacific region. The Imperial Japanese Navy delivered units of the Japanese army to the shores of the islands of the Malay Archipelago.
The very course of the operation in the Dutch East Indies was quite swift. In 1941, Japanese aviation began flying over Borneo, after which Japanese troops invaded the island with the goal of seizing oil enterprises. Then the airport on the island of Sulawesi was captured. A detachment of 324 Japanese defeated 1,500 marines of the Royal Dutch East Indies Army. In March 1942, battles began for Batavia (Jakarta), which on March 8 ended with the surrender of the capital of the Dutch East Indies. General Poten, who commanded its defense, surrendered along with a garrison of 93,000 men.
During the 1941-1942 campaign. practically the entire East India army was defeated by the Japanese. Dutch soldiers, as well as soldiers and non-commissioned officers from among the Christian ethnic groups of Indonesia, were interned in prisoner of war camps, and up to 25% of prisoners of war died. A small part of the soldiers, mainly from among the representatives of the Indonesian peoples, were able to escape into the jungle and continue the guerrilla war against the Japanese invaders. Some units managed to hold out completely independently, without any help from the allies, until Indonesia was liberated from Japanese occupation.
Another part of the East Indies army managed to cross over to Australia, after which it was attached to the Australian troops. At the end of 1942, an attempt was made to reinforce the Australian special forces, who were conducting partisan warfare against the Japanese in East Timor, with Dutch troops from the East Indian Army. However, 60 Dutchmen died on Timor. In addition, in 1944-1945. small Dutch units took part in the fighting in Borneo and the island of New Guinea. Four squadrons of the Dutch East Indies were formed under the operational command of the Australian Air Force from among the pilots of the Royal Dutch East Indies Air Force and Australian ground personnel.
As for the Air Force, the aviation of the Royal Dutch East Indies Army was initially seriously inferior to the Japanese in terms of equipment, which did not prevent the Dutch pilots from fighting with dignity, defending the archipelago from the Japanese fleet, and then joining the Australian contingent. During the Battle of Semplak on January 19, 1942, Dutch pilots in 8 Buffalo aircraft fought 35 Japanese aircraft. As a result of the collision, 11 Japanese and 4 Dutch aircraft were shot down. Among the Dutch aces, Lieutenant August Deibel should be noted, who during this operation shot down three Japanese fighters. Lieutenant Deibel managed to go through the entire war, survive after two wounds, but death found him in the air after the war - in 1951 he died at the controls of a fighter in a plane crash.
When the East Indies army surrendered, it was the air force of the Dutch East Indies that remained the most combat-ready unit that passed under the Australian command. Three squadrons were formed - two squadrons of B-25 bombers and one of P-40 Kittyhawk fighters. In addition, three Dutch squadrons were created as part of the British Air Force. The British Air Force was subordinate to the 320th and 321st bomber squadrons and the 322nd fighter squadron. The latter, up to the present time, remains in the Netherlands Air Force.
Post-war period
The end of World War II was accompanied by the growth of the national liberation movement in Indonesia. Having freed themselves from the Japanese occupation, the Indonesians no longer wanted to return to the rule of the metropolis. The Netherlands, despite frantic attempts to keep the colony under its rule, was forced to make concessions to the leaders of the national liberation movement. However, the Royal Dutch East Indies Army was rebuilt and continued to exist for some time after World War II. Its soldiers and officers took part in two major military campaigns to restore colonial order in the Malay Archipelago in 1947 and 1948. However, all the efforts of the Dutch command to preserve sovereignty in the Dutch East Indies were in vain, and on December 27, 1949, the Netherlands agreed to recognize the political sovereignty of Indonesia.
On July 26, 1950, a decision was made to disband the Royal Dutch East Indies Army. At the time of disbandment, 65,000 soldiers and officers were serving in the Royal Dutch East Indies Army. Of these, 26,000 were recruited into the Republican Armed Forces of Indonesia, the remaining 39,000 were demobilized or joined the Armed Forces of the Netherlands. Native soldiers were given the opportunity to demobilize or continue serving in the armed forces of sovereign Indonesia.
However, here again interethnic contradictions made themselves felt. The new armed forces of sovereign Indonesia were dominated by Javanese Muslims - veterans of the national liberation struggle, who always had a negative attitude towards Dutch colonization. In the colonial forces, the main contingent was represented by the Christianized Ambonians and other peoples of the South Molluk Islands. Inevitable friction arises between the Ambonians and the Javanese, leading to conflicts in Makassar in April 1950 and an attempt to create an independent Republic of Southern Moluccas in July 1950. Republican troops succeeded in suppressing the Ambonians by November 1950.
After that, more than 12,500 Ambonians serving in the Royal Dutch East Indies Army, as well as their family members, were forced to emigrate from Indonesia to the Netherlands. Some of the Ambonians emigrated to Western New Guinea (Papua), which until 1962 remained under the rule of the Netherlands. The desire of the Ambonians who were in the service of the Dutch authorities to emigrate was very simple - they feared for their lives and safety in post-colonial Indonesia. As it turned out, it was not in vain: from time to time, serious unrest breaks out in the Molluk Islands, the cause of which is almost always the conflicts between the Muslim and Christian populations.
