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

For despite the constant talks about the massive casualties that were inflicted upon the enemy, nothing seemed to stop them. Dutch soldiers were fighting for months without any rest, fighting day and night all of this in brutality that was unseen. Exhaustion, depression and an increasing amount of alcohol and drug use among the soldiers coming back, with boys being broken when coming home led to a strong anti-war sentiment. All of this combined with the condemnation the Netherlands got on the international stage, led to the bucket overflowing. After 13 years of war, a truly massive anti-war protest took place in Amsterdam

On the 18th of April 1974, the Netherlands saw its largest anti-war protest to date. It was not just the regular protests, the students the pacifist and the like that came. They were joined by the roughly 3.4 veterans of this war, all who were relatively young, joined by their fathers who often themselves either fought in the east or were veterans from the great war, joined by their mothers, wives, girlfriends, friends and all those loved once’s of those that were fighting. People no longer wanted to see their sons, brothers and friends die in the far east. People at this point simply had enough of war after 13 years of seeing the war on their TVs had fundamentally changed the Dutch nation.

[[File:Protest I.jpg|thumb|A large group of Dutch citizen in Den Haag protesting the war, they where just one many. As the picture shows people from all ages joined in the protests.]]

These protests were so large that for the entire day the nation was shut down, public transport was jammed, and cities had turned into ghost towns. All the while in the Hague, Amsterdam and Rotterdam the police forces were unwilling to do anything against their own friends in many cases they even joined the protestors. In other words, the government was in chaos.

They were so large that prime minister Geert Dijkman ordered his cabinet and the military to prepare for a revolution he so feared. It was at this moment tho that the military general staff made clear they would not fire upon their own men, for these protestors were often wearing their uniforms. These protests had their intended effect eventually and caused a silent revolution of April, within the same month a vote of no confidence passed the second chamber and a new election was scheduled for the 17th of juli 1974

Despite their best efforts the party of the old prime minister de “Conservatieve anti revolutionare partij or CARP, stood no change. They were soundly defeated by the Partij voor Democracy “PVD” led by former veteran turned politician Koen Haverman who on the 25th of July 1974 become the new prime minister of the Netherlands. Out of the 150 seats in the second chamber, the PVD won a total of 83 ensuring that no coalition was needed and allowing them to push their agenda forward. Their agenda was simple on paper, pull out of the archipelago, in reality, tho this would be a hard one to achieve.[[File:Koen Haverman 3.jpg|alt=Barend Biesheuvel is used as a stand in for the PM|thumb|Koen Haverman the new prime minister of the Netherlands meeting with the monarch]]

With the ascension of Koen Haverman with his Partij van Democratie the Dutch policy on the east indies crisis, or as it was known in the Hague “De oorlog” or the war radically changed almost overnight. Koen Haverman won his election partly by stating they would find a way to pull out of the conflict. A conflict that had taken the best of the Netherlands her youth and swallowed it whole, only leaving behind broken and scattered boys who had seen far too much at a far too young age. It had put a strain on the Netherlands her social services and culture and people, who have watched it all for nearly 16 years on their Tvs were tired of it. Koen Haverman, who himself fought in the war during the early stages knew the horror of it and thus the moment he was appointed by the monarch began to work on a way to get the Netherlands out.

Pulling the Netherlands out was however the hard part, for it was easier said than done. The situation at the time of Haverman coming into office was a dire one. The EILF was conducting their largest continuous offensive in the war so far, the Netherlands was engaged on all fronts soldiers were fighting for months and months, and all pretenses of civility were dropped. Casualty reports coming in were grim, pictures coming in were grimmer and all the news coming in on video was dark and too intense to even show on TV. Battles raging on Sumatra and Borneo and Celebs were brutal and it is said that when Haverman for the first time viewed the classified reports of the war he vomited. The reports contained numbers so gruesome and tactics and fighting on that were against everything that the Netherlands claimed to uphold.

He thus ordered the commanders of the military to come up with a plan to pull the Dutch forces out in such a manner that they would not be attacked from the rear. The immediate answer by that time Commander of the Armed Forces <u>Generaal Cornelis van Langen</u>, was that it would be hard bloody, and require a lot of time. Yet Haverman was determined he wanted the Dutch their forces out of the war. Thus van Langen despite his own involvement in the creation of Dutch strategy started with his team to work on a plan to pull the Netherlands out of the war. He worked tirelessly and by November 1974 some 4 months after the initial order was given they had a plan. In those 4 months, however, the fighting continued across the East Indies and the Dutch forces seemed to show less and less mercy. van Langen dubbed the plan '''Operatie Vertrek-I''' (Leaving One), it was a detailed set of objectives that would see the pullout in phases of Dutch forces while also taking into account civilians. It would take roughly 1.6 years to complete as nothing was to be left behind, it would be done in phases and it would continuously require the Dutch forces to keep on fighting with a higher degree of intensity as to not give off any idea to the enemy. He proposed the plan to the cabinet of Haverman and on the 1st of December 1974, it was accepted and made official military policy.[[File:Troops under fire.jpg|thumb|A soldier watching air support drop its payload upon the enemy her positions, somewhere around Malakka.]]

==Fall of Batavia (1976)==

“De laaste ronde” De Bataafse evacuatie” or the fall of Batavia as its sometimes called is the name given to the final months of fighting of the East indies crisis. the period is often said to have ended at exactly 23:48 11 November 1976, when the last Dutch ship left the port of Batavia and when the Soendanese rebels took over the city after a brutal siege.

Historians mark the start of “De laaste ronde” when prime minister Haberman accepted the Krijgmacht her so-called “vertrek” operation. The operation in detail laid out the withdrawal of Dutch & KNIL forces from the various theatres in the archipelago, it was not a complete withdrawal but rather a slow methodical withdrawal toward strategic and defensible positions. It would be from there that the final departure would be organized. During this time the Dutch would maintain full-on air and naval supremacy and keep raids at a maximum. On paper this plan was good in practice tho once implemented it became a bloody affair as the fighting withdrawals were intense. Dutch soldiers had fought in an archipelago for 16 brutal years, indoctrinated by over a decade of propaganda were unwilling to just let go without a fight. the final battles and operations were thus often considered brutal as entire stockpiles of munitions were emptied.