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

 

== 1967-1972 Period of Stalemate ==

The following period which lasted for 5 years (1967-1972) was marked by both the rebels and the Dutch recuperating their losses, stabilizing frontlines, and modernizing their armed forces rapidly. Dutch control of Sumatra and the Malayan peninsula by 1967 was relegated to the coastal areas and urban centers. It was around this time that troop deployments were scaled-down and the KNIL was operationally fully integrated into the Dutch armed forces. The Dutch already by mid-1966 began to be armed with more advanced aircraft, ground weapons, artillery, and ships. Through this period the Dutch conscript system was reformed to increase the manpower mobilization abilities and the quality. At the same time, the Rebels who now controlled the interior of the Malaya peninsula and most of Sumatra began properly built up their forces and rebuilt and regrouped, turning themselves into a proper conventional force and increasing the number of guerilla fighters. At this time in 1968, they also began through Russian channels to push for a diplomatic end to the war offering a peace treaty to the Dutch which was refused. Everyone knew that this lull in the fighting, reduced to more limited but still intense guerilla warfare, was because both sides were building up their forces for what would become known as the war. a period so deadly so brutal so destructive that only in recent years the archipelago has begun to properly recover in regards to population and development.