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

| casualties2 = '''Civilian dead:''' 8,000,000-11,000,000 (official)<br> ~5,205,000 wounded (Estimated) <br>'''Military dead:''' 1,690,624 <br> '''Total Casualties''' 14,895,624 - 17,895,624

}}

 

 

The East Indies Crisis was also the first televised war with people seeing the extent of the fighting and the brutality of it every night on their TVs. This shaped not just the Netherlands ‘ public perception of the war but also the global perception of the war, it showed to the world that this war and all wars are a brutal affair. The war left millions dead and even more homeless and wounded and it is seen today by historians as one of the most brutal wars fought in the 20th century. While the reasons for its end are still debated today the generally accepted narrative is that the Netherlands itself pulled out and eventually realized what it had done and stopped the war. It left behind an archipelago forever changed and never to be the same again.

The conflict emerged from the “''Indische opstand van 1943''” or Indian uprising of 1943, which was fought between Dutch colonial forces mainly the KNIL (Koninklijk Nederlandsch-Indisch Leger), and rebelling sultanates their militia’s and revolutionaries across the archipelago. It in turn happened as a direct result of a change in the Dutch rule which before 1942 was indirect with the sultans retaining a large degree of autonomy in their sultanates/Kingdoms. Dutch colonial administration was concerned with turning a profit and economic exploitation and thus their presence outside of Java was often relegated to administration or a military garrison if it was a major city. Yet the system was inefficient and riddled with corruption and thus in late 1941 from the Netherlands an order was given to reform the system and centralize it. This move an unpopular one and the Sultans did protests but it was ignored and thus in 1943 the sultans lost their official government power and were relegated to ceremonial roles. This was not taken lightly and what followed where a series of uprisings across Sumatra, Malaya, and Celebs. These uprisings or revolutions were possible due to the influx of arms from the great war, yet despite the relative nature of the opposition Dutch colonial forces KNIL brutally suppressed and crushed the rebelling sultanates and factions. Through 1943 entire rebel sultanates were put to the torch, royal families that ruled for centuries were extinguished and only those that surrendered or remained loyal would retain some form of wealth and status. It was this brutal suppression that laid the groundwork for the uprising in 1960, as a new generation of revolutionary had been born from it, trained and equipped by the Russians they would slowly be built up through the 1950s and spread themselves waiting for the moment to strike. In February of 1960, it was their moment when in the north of Sumatra near the border with British Aceh several towns killed their Dutch administrators promoting the KNIL to respond and it was there that the conflict in many people their eyes started.

 

What started out as a relatively small and contained uprising to northern Sumatra in February 1960 had by January 1st, 1962 turned into an open revolt. the KNIL had been pushed out of the northern & central interior and was relegated to the coast with the southern parts of Sumatra still under their full control. While initially, this would not warrant further expansion, by this time small uprisings in Malaya, Borneo, and Celebs had been crushed stretching the KNIL her limited manpower. On the 1st of February 1962, the Staten-Generaal of the Netherlands approved 120.000 European Dutch soldiers to be sent to the indies to aid the KNIL in squashing the revolt and to bring back Dutch control to the archipelago. through the year it seemed to go well with Dutch forces crushing any revolts on the islands and regaining control over central Sumatra. This was done through a relative standard colonial campaign, they first secured the major population centers and worked from there. Yet unbeknownst to the Dutch forces, the Liberation was only growing in their numbers by recruiting from the countryside, which still was not fully under Dutch control, yet it was seen at that time as a winnable campaign. All changed when on new Year eve 1963 a major conventional assault by the Liberation Front was launched against major areas of Dutch control in central and northern Sumatra, most notably Padang in northwest Sumatra and Pekanbaru in central Sumatra. This conventional assault caught the Dutch forces off guard as the liberation front used older Russian tanks, heavy weapons such as artillery and mortar's. Due to the surprise and the fact that it was New Year’s eve the Dutch ability to respond was limited and it suffered for it as it lost control over Padang and Pekanbaru, it created thus a frontline across Jambi and the interior of southern Sumatra.

 

==== New Year Offensive ====

[[File:A soldier in Sumatra during the new years offensive.jpg|thumb|A Dutch soldier near Palembang during the fighting around the city in late February.]]

 

(To be worked on)

== Phase of Fire ==

[[File:Cornelis van Langen 1.jpg|thumb|Colonel (later General) Cornelis van Langen in 1964, he is often cited as one of the founders of the modern Netherlands military doctrine, that to this day is roughly based on his original doctrine. ]]

 

 

Before its implementation, around the New Year’s offensive (Nieuwejaars offensief), the KNIL and the Landmacht were fighting a war of reconquering lost lands. It had the aim to retake the territory lost to the East Indies Liberation Front. This meant that progress was slow and casualties were high, higher than could be sustained in the long term. The high number of casualties was due to the EILF her home-field advantage, for it knew the terrain and the locals and got warned whenever a Dutch patrol was nearby and then attacked. It at the same time tied down large numbers of valuable troops in the middle of Sumatra and parts of Malaya, wasting them away in the jungle where they only were target practice for the EILF.

=== Operation Slagthuis ===

 

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.

 

1972 the 9th of march marked the start of the final and most brutal phase of the war. Through the 5 years period of relative calm, yet still fighting was intense but no major offensives took place, the EILF had infiltrated and expanded their operations on Java the bastion of Dutch colonial control. This had in the 5 years resulted in several strikes, terrorist attacks, and small uprisings. These were all easily crushed but they were only small scale and thus on the whole Dutch forces were lulled in a sense of security when it came to Java. At the start of march 1972 around 83,000 Dutch soldiers both KNIL and the regular dutch army were stationed on the island. While on Borneo some 70,000 were stationed, on Celebs some 90,000 were stationed on Sumatra 120,000 were stationed and in Malaya 100,000 were station. With a total of 463,000 army personnel and some 80,000 air force and 50,000 naval personnel being stationed through the archipelago.

 

At the end of what was called the Java uprising which officially according to Dutch history ended on the 28th of March 1972, some 11,000 Dutch civilians had died, 5400 soldiers were KIA, 617 were MIA, and 19,182 were wounded. While on the EILF side the numbers sometimes disputed were far higher. According to captured documents of the EILF a total of 43,019 men died in the first 3 days, while in the last 15 days a total of 111,179 casualties  (71,192 killed and 39,987 wounded).  It is said to be some of the most brutal fighting and highest casualty rates of the war and it would set the tone for the remainder of the conflict. In regards to civilian casualties caused by the Dutch counteroffensive to this day, it is disputed, however, all agree that the numbers reach into the millions.

 

The new phase that was opened in the conflict was in general seen as a far more brutal phase of the war. With the general offensives on the other islands taking place the first weeks of this new phase were filled with constant counter-offensives by the Dutch. These offensives were rapid unforgiving and effective. It was only after the frontlines were secured that the Dutch realized the full scope of what had transpired. Not only had EILF conducted an uprising in eastern java, but they had also launched full conventional counter-offensives against their positions in Sumatra, the Malayan peninsula, Borneo, and Celebs. They now knew that not only would they face guerilla warfare but now the threat of full conventional assaults was there. While on an individual level these types of warfare could be dealt with two of them would be possible to deal with as well however it was the numbers. The Dutch were outnumbered by their own estimates by 7 to 1. To throw in the threat of conventional armored forces would put a larger strain upon their manpower and equipment sources.

 

[[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.

 

 

The march towards Batavia or the fall of Batavia as it’s sometimes called is the name given to the final months of the east indies crisis and the war its final period. The period came to an end on exactly 23:48 11 November 1976, when the last Dutch ship left the port of Batavia when the EILF finally took all of the city after a brutal siege.

 

This period of the war is considered one of the more brutal periods of the war in regards to the sheer amount of death and destruction that was carried out by both sides.

 

 

== Aftermath ==

In the Netherlands, a series of cultural shifts started to take place after the end of the war; with an entire generation of veterans (numbering around 4.7 million people) who saw the horrors of war up close. This had shocked the nation and in the years following the war many major events created tension within Dutch society including: a refugees crisis from it's former colonies, the reformation and restructuring of power within the Dutch economy, numerous social movements advocating for social, sexual and economic liberation, and a broken generation that tried to move on from the brutal conflict that had shaped the nation. There was a shift in the geopolitical landscape of the Netherlands, which following the end of the war in 1976, became a neutral nation and had to contend with the challenges of having a massive arms industry due to the war and needing to reform its economy towards civilian focused industry where possible. Its aerospace industry became focused on civilian products while still retaining experienced engineers and a well-established industrial compacity from the war. The Netherlands changed the balance of power in Europe by becoming neutral and taking it's close ally the German Confederation, with whom it shares a border, into neutrality. During and after the war, the music scene in the Netherlands radically changed with the adoption of NNL and Virginian rock & roll influences (made popular by the anti-war anthem [[Ik heb geen geluk]]) and the creation of an anti-war counter culture.

 

During the war, the scale of fighting was enormous and the Dutch military had grown from a medium-sized force of around 210.000 active troops around the world in 1960 to a military that was by 1973 unrivaled in its quality of fighting troops and had gained a reputation of brutality and effectiveness. In total, by 1973 440.000 Dutch combat troops were deployed in combat, and the army had manpower reserves of 2.7 million troops. In total, some 3.8 million Dutchmen would see active combat in the east indies. The Nationalist rebels in 1973 were able to field 1.2 million regular troops and between 5 & 7 million guerilla fighters.

 

The economic damage of the war was simply catastrophic as the Dutch left no infrastructure or anything of value intact. Through the islands, the major urban areas were simply destroyed and turned into ruins. Many cities, including the former Batavia (now known as Jayakarta) had to be completed rebuild from the ground up, and only recently have the economy of the East Indies Federation been able to recover. While it is still debated many historians do say that this has been one of the most destructive conflicts of the 20th century.

 

 

This exodus would create a series of events that would see nations like the Netherlands undergo a cultural revolution in some cases and the nation would never be the same because of it.