(Old page) East Indies Crisis - do not edit: Difference between revisions
(Old page) East Indies Crisis - do not edit (view source)
Revision as of 10:36, 29 September 2022
, 1 year ago→The Blooding: added a lot of pictures and did some reworing of the story
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this period known as the Java moorden, ended on the 9th of march when the local army forces where able to coordinate a large scale counter offensive and supression campaign. Yet when a large scale offensive was started across the peninsula on the 11th of march the supression campaign was deemed over and the major urban centers where once again under Dutch control. This did result in countless deaths across Java and would start the insurgency campaign in Java.
[[File:Ground combat.jpg|thumb|A Landmacht soldier somewhere in Kediri during the Java uprising. He like so many others was caught off guard by the sudden uprising. ]]
In response to the large scale offensive by the EILF the Dutch launched its own counter offensives. This is known as the Maart offensief, it was an offensive that would set the tone for the remainder of the war. The counter offensive took place in multiple area’s of operations, the primary theatre and where the response was the quickest was Java where the air mobile units where deployed in force to brutally supress any town. While on Sumatra and Malaya these air mobile units, in combination with armored forces pushed hard and fast and started a full clearing operation across the countryside. No more where towns exempt now the entire wrath of the Netherlands was brought to bare on the Malayan and Sumatran peninsula.
[[File:Tanks in operation.jpg|thumb|Soldiers around the fortification line outside of Semarang, these soldiers repelled attack after attack holding the city. ]]
Semarang, where the Dutch held out against the EILF insurgents, was eventually liberated in a brutal campaign that left the cities filled with death and the EILF insurgents littered the countryside. It was a brutal campaign and would eventually lead to the stability of the entire front but at a great cost for the Dutch now no longer held anything back they made no more distinction between combatans and non combatans due to the java insurgency and murders having altereded their mindset.
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
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They had been on the receiving end of not just an uprising on Eastern Java, other areas like Sumatra and the Malayan peninsula had moved from an unconventional conflict towards a conventional conflict. This transition was first noted during the 5 weeks of fighting, yet due to the chaos, these aspects were not always properly reported. Now tho it was clear that during the counter-offensive various units encountered armoured units that were standardised, forcing the soldiers to move towards a more hybrid form of warfare.
[[File:Fighting around tanks.jpg|thumb|Stier ZPKs providing cover for Landmacht soldiers in Gambang, Malayan peninsula during the 5 weeks of hell. ]]
With the introduction of this hybrid form of warfare, the entire war for the Netherlands was now different. Any pretence about this being an internal police action was now gone, in the propaganda as well as how it reported on it, it was a proper war. For while on the theatre level these assaults could be dealt with, the sheer number of armoured units and the infantry meant the Dutch were outnumbered 7 to 1. This caused a shift in the mindset of not just the commanders but also the soldiers on the ground. This began to be reflected in the operational doctrine, no longer would they spare anyone, no longer would they ask first shoot second, and no longer would they show any restraint. The new operational doctrine was simple, kill the enemy before they kill you.
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While it was not known at the time that these years, would be the final years of the war. These years tho were more brutal than any year before them. the new threats posed by the EILF, combined with the hybrid warfare, being outnumbered forced the Dutch to become more ruthless. Battles in Malaya, Sumatra, Malaysia, Borneo and Celebs would see the Dutch soldiers fight harder and harder and show less mercy. This combined with the concept of forced penetration where they moved in hard shoot up everything in heavily populated areas and move out. This created a massive spike in EILF casualties to a point where the norm in 1972 was that for every Dutch soldier that was killed 15 Soenda soldiers were killed, this however had the effect that every EILF soldier had 3 replacements waiting to take their place.
[[File:Bombing run I.jpg|thumb|Luchtmacht fighter-bombers conducted large-scale tactical strikes during the Sumatra campaigns in late 1972.]]
From 1972 up until early 1973 fighting was fierce with a pattern emerging that was different per theatre. In Malaya the fighting was considered to be on the more conventional side, the Dutch relatively had a great deal of success. Only to be pushed back to their lines due to the insurgent activities when they breached the jungles. On Celebs the war was a full-on counter-insurgency with air assault and bombing being the mode of operations preferred by the Dutch, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths and countless biomes being destroyed.
Sumatra was the place the fighting was in the form of the new hybrid warfare, it was the most intense with it being pure chaos. It was the norm there that the Dutch fought the Soenda army to a standstill and pushed them back, only to be killed in the thick interiors, resulting in the Dutch burning down almost all of the thick interior jungle of Sumatra due to their air superiority.
The scale of fighting did create a strain on the Dutch manpower supply, with ships coming each month packed with replacements. It had become a norm at this point that most soldiers fighting were doing their second or third tour. It had thus become a total war for the Dutch, it had resulted in Dutch society having
==== A change at home ====
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