(Old page) East Indies Crisis - do not edit: Difference between revisions

The Langen Doctrine would see a shift in warfare with mobility and overwhelming firepower being key. The goal is to destroy the rebels their ability to wage war by hitting their supply lines and areas of operations. All the while using air power and mobile forces to prevent Dutch forces from being tied down in areas. This emphasis on mobility Langen argued would allow them to respond rapidly to insurgent activity, all the while making it possible to shift quickly between offensive and defensive operations. The doctrine shift was proposed to the general staff in march of 1963 and accepted on the 22nd of March. On the same day, orders were given to all units in the indies to move towards defensible positions and hold on to the urban centers and defend them at all costs. Van Langen has estimated that for this doctrine to be effective a period of 10 months would need to be spent on training the soldiers, getting the equipment, and getting the airpower in place.  Through 1963 and early 1964 the fighting in the archipelago changed into something more static. This period put the rebels off and for a while activities even seized as their intelligence networks were unable to determine what was happing, all that they knew from their Russian sources was that the Dutch were preparing for something.

 

 

==== Operation Blink ====

''The assault on Jambi''

 

On August 18th, 1967 the rebels attempted a major conventional assault upon Malakka yet after 2 weeks of fighting around the city it was halted. This was up to then the largest conventional battle and is often seen as the end of the “Phase of fire”. The failed assault costed the lives of 23,000 regular rebel soldiers while the Dutch only lost 1200. Through the entire phase by modern estimates cost the lives of 4.7 million civilians 1.3 million rebels and 22.000 Dutch/KNIL soldiers.

Despite the enormous amount of enemies killed, the general notion was that for every rebel killed 2 would take its place. Despite the kill ratio of 1 in 7 the numbers began to increase and increase. Russian support in the last years of the wars even came in air power and thus the first real air battles were fought above Sumatra. It was this period of fighting the sheer amount of brutality on both sides but mainly in the eyes of the world and more importantly the home front the Dutch that changed it all. An entire generation of young men in their prime did not go to college but fought in the Indies witnessed atrocities brutality and the death of their brothers in arms. The general mood in the Netherlands had since 1974 turned sower, the older generation began to be outnumbered as more and more veterans became able to vote. Eventually, in March 1975, after a vote of no confidence was given to the ruling party, a new party backed by Veterans and the mothers and fathers of the sons that were fighting, many of these newest conscripts their own fathers had fought in the war it had in fact become a multigenerational thing. It becomes so unpopular that even the military, knew that it would not survive if it went against the will of the government.

 

 

Eventually, by October 1976 the Dutch forces all across Java were centered around Batavia. Operation “Thuiskomst” or homecoming was launched by the navy to get all the civilians and loyalists out as the remainder of Java fell to the rebels and it was one big bloodbath. Dutch forces held the line against repeated Rebel assaults, rescue operations across the islands were launched by the navy and remainder army units to get all Dutch loyalists out. For despite scaling down the navy in the area still had supremacy. In total in these last months of fighting 67.000 rebels, regulars died fighting, and across the island of Java millions, more died in purges, and the chaos that ensued entire KNIL units went rogue and killed hundreds of thousands in revenge. Eventually, by the 11th of November at 23:48, the last boat the destroyer “Blauwe Maan” left filled to the brim with civilians as the port finally fell to the rebels. This marked the end of 370 years of the Dutch presence in the east indies