(Old page) East Indies Crisis - do not edit
| East Indies Crisis | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Silent War | |||||||
 Two Dutch soldiers in Malaya watching the Krijgspeerd helicopters come in after a battle. | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 Kingdom of the Netherlands Britain The Philippines |
Soendanese Liberation Front Russia Pinang Thai | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
|
Cornelis van Langen Willem Middendorp |
Soedjojo Soesanto Soerjadi Nazir Kasan Said Narajau Junaid Siahaija Pieter-Bas Teterissa Bassil Patawala | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
|
Netherlands 3,581,929 Total number deployed in the East Indies |
1960-1967: 2,400,000 (estimated) | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
|
Killed: 294,918 Missing: 149,582 Total Casualties 444,500 |
Civilian dead: 8,000,000-11,000,000 (official) ~5,205,000 wounded (Estimated) Military dead: 1,690,624 Total Casualties 9,391,694 - 11,895,624 | ||||||
The East Indies Crisis (Malay Roman: Prang Hindia Belanda), also known as the War of the Soenda Archipelago or the Anti-Dutch Liberation War, and also known as the Indian War in the Netherlands (Dutch: Indische Oorlog) was a military conflict fought between the Netherlands and pro-independence forces in Soenda. The conflict lasted sixteen years, making it the largest largest colonial conflict fought in the 20th century, and is also considered to be one of the most destructive wars in modern history. The East Indies Crisis was also concurrent with the rise of popular visual media, being the first "internationally perceptible" war.
Background
Social changes & the Djohor Uprising
In the aftermath of the great war, the Netherlands suffered greatly in a short time. The lowlands campaign, combined with the eventual grinding down of the French advance along the Rhine had exhausted the Netherland's industrial capacity. Its factories in the south were either destroyed or badly damaged, its production centers in the north working overtime to provide the goods needed to rebuild the south. All of this required raw natural resources, thus that more pressure was put upon the Dutch East Indies, the crown jewel in the Dutch empire to deliver the resources to rebuild the Netherlands.
This pressure led to a series of reforms that would change how the east indies were governed. The first of the reforms started in 1941, would see a large-scale centralization of governance in the east indies. Many former client states and protectorates in the region were stripped of their remaining powers and confined to increasingly just a ceremonial role.
All of these reforms had a simple goal, to make the extraction of resources from the east indies more effective and increase productivity. It would see the mass mechanization of the agricultural sector, which led to mass internal migration and urbanization as many traditional rural communities were uprooted. Swelling the urban population immensely to a point that many cities simply did not have the resources to deal with the migrants leading to the growth of shantytowns and other informal housing. This, in turn, led to a rise in crime, poverty and resentment towards the Dutch colonial authorities who did not provide adequate public services or attempt to remedy the growing social ills.
Unrest in Djohor
As the 40's progressed there was little sign that the social ills of the East Indies would be changing and the political neutering of the traditional local sultanates and kingdoms led to constant internal political struggle. The Sultanate of Djohor felt many of these problems intensely with both heavy elite dissatisfaction with their now powerless position and high levels of social unrest in the rapidly urbanizing cities of the region. In the late 40s the Sultan started to gather allies among different anti-colonial political parties as well as staff the royal guard and provincial police with supporters. In particular the Sultan started to gain followers and allies in the conservative Santri Islamic anti-colonial Partai Rakyat Islam Johor (PRIJ). Using their privileged position close the Sultan, the party (along with other political actors unhappy with heavy handed Dutch reforms started to sway the sultan towards revolt. They argued that the Netherlands was weak due to internal political upheaval, the lingering economic effects of the great war and a geopolitical refocusing of key military assets towards Europe. The Sultan was eventually convinced and after a year of preparations in secret, gathering arms and consolidating their position they decided to strike.
On the 4th of May 1952 in the early hours of the morning, local Dutch administrators across Djohor were killed in their beds and Dutch loyalist police forces were arrested and executed. This was the start of what would become known as the Djohor uprising, or as it's known in Soenda “The Butchering of Djohor”.
The Djohor Uprising
With the successful neutralization of KNIL & DEI government forces in the sultanate, the Sultan's forces believed that they could consolidate their position and withstand any Dutch or colonial counter offensive. It was also the belief that the Netherlands would not be able to deploy the forces needed to deal with the uprising. Outrage and fear struck colonial authorities once news reached Batavia that Djohor had rebelled and neutralized the local DEI forces. Batavia in this period was under a great deal of pressure from the Netherlands to facilitate the exploitation of cheap natural resources from the East Indies. The Hague could not tolerate any form of rebellion, they could not allow the loss of what was in essence their temporary economic lifeline, in rebuilding the Netherlands.
The Dutch East Indies Governor-General Martien van der Goot believed that the Djohor rebellion had to be stopped in order to avoid a "domino effect" of rebellions across the East Indies. Additionally the governor- general took personal slight with the ease that the Djohor sultanate was able to dispatch the Dutch authorities in the region, which later informed DEI colonial policy in the lead up to the East Indies Crisis in the 1960s & 70s. As shown from recently released documents Governor-General Martiem van der Goot thus ordered, the commander of the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army (KNIL) Lieutenant-Generaal J.A. Vetter, the following: “Make an example out of these rebels kill them all.”
Commander Vetter, a veteran of countless wars (such as the Corean expedition, the Rhine front, the east Asian expeditions in the GW) would follow this command to the letter. It must be understood that the KNIL in 1952 was an organization that was different from itself in 1935. Experience modern wars created a battle-hardened organization that was brutally efficient in the way it carried out its operations, which was out of the norm in the regular Dutch military, with the exception of the Royal Dutch Marines and the Korps Speciale Stoot Troepen.
On May the 7th KNIL forces landed of the 9th Batavian regiment landed on the island of Singapura in front of Djohor after facing limited naval opposition. They fought with the sultan's forces stationed on the island for 6 days- and in a slow but steady push they eventually took the island for use as a forwards operations base. Over the subsequent weeks KNIL forces surrounded the city of Djohor proper winning several battles with the under equipped and poorly organized forces of the Sultan. A the end of the month, the city had been breached and the rebellion had quickly turned to urban warfare, fighting block by block, house per house, street by street leading to the partial destruction of the city.
The last week of May 1952 has later been referred to as "The Butchering of Djohor" due to the widespread atrocities committed by KNIL soldiers. Reports of mass killings of civilians, rape & torture are attested to by first hand and third party investigation of the event. Additionally the KNIL were known to utilize 'death squads' in rounding up opposition or suspected rebel forces.
KNIL soldiers showed little mercy and did not care and saw all locals as rebels resulting in wide-scale destruction & depopulation. On the 30th of May, the Djohor palace was taken by KNIL and after an alleged period of torture the sultan of Djohor and his family were executed extrajudicially.
The "Butchering of Djohor" saw widespread condemnation internationally especially from IRC aligned nations, the Muslim world and the newly formed ANAN. Additionally, the event had many 'knock on' effects within the DEI, radicalizing the Soendanese intelligentsia & many within the Muslim middle and lower classes across the colony. The event also saw the growth and expansion of National Republicanism within the East Indies as anti colonial political movements sought out a political ideology that could hopefully unify the anti imperial struggle in the East Indies with foreign supporters abroad. Several political scientists have also posited the theory that the destruction of the Partai Rakyat Islam Johor was a a massive boost to later national republican parties as the early PRIJ was the primary competitor of early national republican parties like the Partai Pembebasan Hindia Timur.
Start of the revolt
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
The New Year Offensive as it was called changed the nature of the war from a “colonial conflict” where the rebels were relegated to asymmetric warfare and the Dutch approach was one of limited action. This new phase due to the Liberation front her firm control over northern and central Sumatra. This base of operations how small as it was let the rebels to built up their potential forces and at the same time the attacked showed that the Dutch were not undefeatable, the revolution began to more properly spread across the archipelago. When the front by mid-February had stabilized the Dutch began to change their strategy and began to approach it more seriously. The first mass use of strategic bombers soon followed and shore bombardments became more and more common, the use of Search & Destroy tactics now became the norm. This phase of the war however was still primarily a guerilla conflict as the Dutch in sheer firepower outgunned any conventional force the rebels could bring to bear. This period is often seen as one of the more intense periods as across the islands from Celebs to Borneo and in the Malaya peninsula guerilla strikes became more and more common and Sumatra quickly became just one of the fronts of what was by now a full-blown uprising. From 1963 all the way up to 1967 the Dutch fought a brutal campaign against ever-increasing numbers, entire villages were burned the ground, the mass use of chemical agents such as tear gas employed, firebombing in the form of napalm was used on mass turning once green jungles into burned up husks.
(To be worked on)
Phase of Fire
The period from 1963 up to 1967 commonly called “Phase of Fire” marked the rapid departure from it being a standard colonial conflict and instead of being something bigger. KNIL and now regular Dutch forces were not fighting colonial uprisings anymore but a well-organized foe. While in individual battles Dutch/KNIL units always came out on top it was the attrition rate that came with patrolling the central parts of Sumatra that were simply too high. Long-range patrols by the KNIL often resulted in 3 out of 10 men being killed, 4 more being wounded. This rate of attrition was simply far too high for the Netherlands to sustain what really woke the Dutch command structure up was the New Years’ offensive. The use of conventional military forces by the rebels combined with asymmetric warfare was a deadly one. While eventually the front was stabilized by mid-February 1963 the situation had not. Uprisings across the islands, from Malaya to Celebes and even Borneo were becoming more intense and organized. Dutch & KNIL forces were more and more spread thin with quelling the insurgencies. This started limiting and weakening their power projection capabilities in the region. It was around this time (April 1963) that Lieutenant-General Cornelis van Langen of the Army came with a new doctrine, a doctrine that would become known as the Lange-Doctrine and would change the face and nature of the war.
A shift in doctrine
The Lange Doctrine as it was called was as simple as it was effective. As it was implemented the Netherlands shifted its fighting style and objectives in such a way that the war become more favorable to them.
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.
The Lange-Doctrine changed the entire long-term strategic objective for the Netherlands. It would no longer focus on reconquering the territories lost from the EILF, although it was the long-term objective. Instead, it would focus its fighting power on destroying the EILF her ability to wage war. This meant that now victories where counties in the casualties caused to the EILF, it now meant that it would destroy areas of support hit supply lines hard and no longer show mercy.
This shift changed the nature of the conflict in that now the Netherlands was taking the initiative. For it transformed the military into a mobile force that could quickly react to threats, move around the peninsula rapidly and attack anywhere and often simultaneously. This was achieved by moving from a garrison force to a highly mechanized and airmobile force that had the ability to rapidly mobile a great deal of firepower. This allowed for more offensive operations to be planned and executed and would remove the many troops tied down on garrison duty spread through the archipelago. It leant upon the fact that the Netherlands would be able to maintain control of all major urban centers and all major port cities.
Cornelis van Langen proposed his idea, before the general staff on the 22nd of march 1963. It was accepted on the 23rd of march 1963 and Cornelis was given the task to implement it. On the same day, orders were sent out to all units across the East Indies, to withdrawal from the interior and focus on maintaining coastal areas, urban areas, and areas of either strategic or economic importance. The EILF noted something was happening when at once Dutch forces began to pull out of the interior. Their confusion resulted in the withdrawal being relatively peaceful without much opposition. When Dutch forces arrived in their new positions they were informed of what was to take place, this was new troops being moved in their old gear discarded and new gear being given, and a change in tactics. This resulted in the remainder of 1963 and early 1964 being relatively quiet, no major operations took place and fighting was limited to skirmishes. In this period new troops with their new equipment and tactics were rotated in and soldiers were retrained and redeployed. This massive build-up of men and material was clear for all to see yet the EILF and Russian intelligence apparatuses were not sure what it exactly was. All they knew was that the Dutch were preparing for something big.
Moving to a war footing
That something big was the complete and unprecedented reorganisation of the Dutch military her fighting forces, training infrastructure, command structure, logistical infrastructure, and doctrine. At the end of March a order had been placed at the Koolhoven Aviation Factory to increase the production of their reliable "Krijg-peerd" helicopter. This combined with other orders for armored vehicles, tanks aircraft and guns resulted in the rapid development of remarkably successful military equipment. However the mass increase in production of military equipment meant a rapid expansion of existing capabilities to not intervene with normal economic production, thus a certain limit was created and other production centers where sought abroad in Taulandt and Nieuw Nederlandt pumping a considerable amount of money into their respective industries. The most notable change was the reorganization and reformation of the Dutch national service or Dienstplicht. It was increased in its length and it now was to last 24 months of which 6 months would be spent on training and 18 months deployment, followed by reserve duties up until the age of 50. Before the new doctrine and the reforms the Dienstplicht period was 18 months total, the lengthening was done to train the soldier up to make him qualitatively better than any other in the world. It was realized that this new mobile style of warfare which included air mobility relied upon highly trained soldiers thus a longer national service period was added. Something that was not popular with the public but passed parliament. This period thus not only resulted in the increase of military spending, National service time, and the change in doctrine but also the start of an anti-war movement. All these reforms were put to the test in December of 1963 during operation Jambi when the first battle-ready units would be deployed in combat. These 12,000 men proved effective and further solidified the so-called “Hervorming van Langen”.
Operation Slachthuis
1967-1972 (Stalemate)
dThe next 5 years (1967-1972) were marked by the rebels and the Dutch recuperating their losses, stabilising frontlines, and modernising their fighting forces at a rapid pace. With Dutch control of Sumatra and the Malayan peninsula by 1969 was relegated to the coastal areas and urban centers. To deal with the new strategic reality of the situation, the KNIL was operationally integrated into the armed forces. At the same time, the usage of large-scale bombing raids, that devastated entire sections of the jungle became the norm. All of this was possible as the early investments were bearing the fruits of their labour, more advanced weapon systems, aerospace systems and ships were becoming available in massive numbers, combined with the increase in available manpower made allowed the Netherlands to become a larger and more high-quality force. The rebels did not sit idle, controlling the interior of Sumatra and the Malaya peninsula they were able to properly build up their forces. Moving away from just an unconditional force and towards a mixed force. While never able to beat the Dutch in an open battle their new strategic concept would be that of weakened battle, bleed the dutch with a thousand cuts rather than one punch. It was a period where fighting still was taking place and by all measures was quite intense. For the east indies crisis, it was silent, for everyone knew that both sides were preparing for the slugfest that would become the final part
Operatie: Dolle dinsdag
Location: Thaitania, rang province
Date: 5th of may 1971
Goal: Destruction of Soenda rebel training areas, and resupply depots.
Operatie Dolle Woensdag was the name given to a series of brief military incursions in Thaitania her southern frontier. It included forty major operations that had succeeded in the goal of destroying Soendanese rebel training areas, resupply areas and command and control centers in the Thaitania frontier. It however led to a rise in tensions between the Netherlands and Thaitania as well as a break of sorts in relations between Thaitania and Russia. this was due to the fact that as this operation was uncovered by the Tahitania government, they called for a military response, but Russia refused.
Final Period of the War
1972 the 9th of march could be marked as the start of the final phase of the war, a phase that at the same time is considered to be the most destructive period in the war.
In the previous 5 years, there was a relative calm in the region. While fighting was still quite common and intensive in the guerilla war sense. There were however no major EILF offensive operations, this was in hindsight due to a large reorganization of the EILF military forces, in combination with a large effort to infiltrate Java the bastion of Dutch colonial control. All that had really taken place over the past 5 years were strikes throughout Java, terrorist attacks and small-scale uprisings, all of these were however crushed. All of these due to their scale lulled the Dutch forces on the island into a false sense of security.
In 1972 the Dutch forces throughout the archipelago were quite spread, with around 83,000 KNIl & Regular Dutch soldiers stationed on Java. While on Borneo 70,000 Dutch soldiers were stationed and actively engaged. On Celebs, some 90,000 men were stationed and were still fighting quite heavily on the island. With some 120,000 men bieng stationed on Sumatra and 100,000 men being stationed in the Malayan peninsula around Djohor and Penang. With a total of 73,000 naval personal and 120,000 air force personal being stationed throughout the entire archipelico.
On the 5th of march, in eastern Java in the Jember region, all of this quite on Java changed. A large scale coordinated uprising took place across the Jember region, from her countryside region to its major urban area’s the uprising was widescale. In this uprising hatred for the Dutch and their allies reached a boiling point and in the 48 hours after the uprising started a large scale slaughter of Dutch officials, chinese and Indo’s took place. This uprising his the Dutch by suprise and there was chaos across the Dutch command structure for Java and the security it was assumed it had meant that not enough troops where available. Thus delay in their operational ability resulted in in the wide slaughter of Eurasians civilians across eastern Java with only coastal towns being able to hold out due Dutch marines being present and defending the civilians.
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.
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.
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
The Blooding
With the introduction of the new combat doctrine, it turned into the most brutal and deadliest phase in the conflict. It started with a general offensive initiated on the various islands by the EILF. This was countered by the Dutch by numerous counter-offensives and large-scale air operations. Eventually, this resulted in near constant fighting between the EILF and the Dutch fighting that was rapid, unforgiving, bloody and ruthless with neither side backing down. It was only after 5 weeks of nearly constant fighting that the Dutch were able to push the EILF back, recapture the ground lost and stabilise the frontlines.
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.
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.
It was also during this period that armoured clashes in the thick jungles of Sumatra became a common future and the Dutch were able to openly practice combined arms warfare again, something they were extremely well adapted to considering they created many of the modern concepts. This tho left much of the jungles of Sumatra the grave of Soenda soldiers and much of the jungle destroyed.
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.
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 dehumanised the Soenda rebels and all pretence of civility was dropped.
A change at home
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.
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.
New Minister, New Policy
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 Generaal Cornelis van Langen, 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.
Fall of Batavia (1976)
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.
Historians mark the start of the march towards Batavia when prime minister Haverman accepted the Krijgmacht her so-called Vetrek operation. The operation in detail laid out the withdrawal of Dutch & KNIL forces from the various theatres of operations in the archipelago. It was not a full withdrawal but rather a slow withdrawal that would see a pull-out and relocation overtime to strategic locations while increasing the air and naval attacks, in the end, it was planned out that from those final holdouts they would pull out entirely to safe zones. While on paper it was a good plan in practice once implemented it became a bloody affair as the fighting withdrawal was intense and the Dutch soldiers showed no mercy and in some cases the numerous KNIL units went rogue, creating cases where Dutch soldiers fought against KNIL forces.
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.
Withdrawal from Celebes
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.
Casualties
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 war exacted an enormous human cost: it’s estimated that a total of 7-10 million civilians (mostly native Indonesians) died directly in the conflict, along with a total of 144,918 Dutch soldiers (and with an additional 50,000 KNIL soldiers), with 49,000 missing in action. East Indies losses are not well known but are estimated to be in the millions. Extensive use of chemical weapons, napalm, and famines that occurred during and after the war are likely to inflate the numbers of causalities of the conflict. The war's environmental cost was massive with many jungle ecosystems being near-beyond repair. only in the modern-day are some of the jungles returning to pre-war levels of growth. Entire species went extinct as their biomes were damaged or destroyed.
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.
The East Indies refugee Crisis
In addition to the causalities of war 4.7 million civilians fled the East Indies during the war (mostly loyalist Chinese & Javanese but also almost all of the Dutch and Indo population of the East Indies). After the wars end another 250,000 to 500,000 Chinese and 250,000 Pribumi fled the East Indies between 1976 and 1985 to avoid the ethnic and political violence that the plagued the early now independent East Indies. The most popular designations for the exodus were the Netherlands mainland (in which new polders were constructed to give room to the ballooning immigrant population), New Batavia (in which vast swatches of land were set aside by the Dutch government as a "homeland" to the Indo or Eurasian population of the former East Indies whom the Dutch feared would be targeted in ethnic violence in an independent East Indies) and the Kaap Republic (which allowed many skilled immigrants from the East Indies to come to the country). Other less popular designations for the exodus were the Westerzee province of Tussenland, Taulandt, the Spanish East Indies, New Netherland, Nueva Guinea and Georgia.
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.
Foreign intervention
Due to its length and the importance of Southeast Asia, multiple parties intervened in the conflict. Rather it was a conflict in which the two great powers backed both parties, as well as a conflict where the Netherlands her allies, former colonies & Dominions where involved in. It saw the deployment of volunteers from New Netherland, Tussenland, Tauland, the Kaap, and Boschland.
Documentation
Facing them was the East Indies Liberation Front that was backed by numerous local supporters but mainly by Russia. Although the war is considered a proxy war, due to Britain and Russia using their proxies to fight one another, this view is disputed by many historians both from the East Indies Federation and the Netherlands, and The Batavosphere as a whole. In the Netherlands and in general, within the Batavosphere the conflict is seen as a separate conflict from the cold war, while heavily influenced by cold war events it stands on its own legs. This is due to a variety of reasons but mainly according to some historians the need for the Netherlands and Dutch society as a whole to rationalise their actions, to rationalise 16 years of brutal warfare and tens of thousands of Dutchmen that never came home and the hundreds of thousands that were permanently scarred by the war.
