Koninklijk Nederlandsch-Indisch Leger

The Royal Netherlands East Indies Army ( KNIL ; German  Royal Dutch Indian Army ) was at the request of the 10 March 1830 Governor General Jan van den Bosch and following adoption of the first king of the Netherlands , William I founded. Until 1836 her name was only Nederlandsch-Oost-Indian Leger , then she was given the title Koninklijk and the addition Oost was deleted.

Officer in 1849, oil painting from the Tropenmuseum Amsterdam

The KNIL did not officially belong to the Dutch land power and was not assigned to the Ministry of War . Since she was stationed in the colonies in the Dutch East Indies , she was subordinated to the Colonial Ministry.

composition

At the beginning, KNIL included eight mobile corps , an infantry battalion , a cavalry company and four mountain artillery units . Half of it consisted of Indonesian volunteers, the number of which grew steadily. The proportion of non-Dutch among the European teams was well over 50% before 1900, later around a third. Mainly the Javanese, who are considered to be warlike, and the often Christian Ambonese were recruited to the locals . The latter were also paid better until 1918. Between 1831 and 1872, 3,000 Africans from the former Dutch colony of Elmina on the Gold Coast were recruited for the KNIL, which was later referred to as Belanda Hitam , "Black Dutchman". The reputation and equipment of the troops were poor. Locals were initially only recruited into the infantry. Their strength was 1,137 Ambonese and 12,675 others in 1861, compared to 9,792 Europeans, the units were mixed from the 1880s to 1918. Mounted troops and pioneers were initially almost exclusively Europeans. Within the artillery, the proportion was always half. By 1911 the ratio had shifted to 6,573 European infantrymen versus 4,819 Ambonese and 13,789 others. The proportion of locals rose sharply during the First World War (1918: 4,400 Europeans, 9,200 Ambonese, 18,000 others), and almost 500 Indonesians were each recruited into the cavalry and as pioneers.

Calls

Dutch colonial troops in the Dutch East Indies around 1900

Curtiss CW-21B fighter of the KNIL 1941

The KNIL had its first mission in the war against the Padri in West Sumatra , in which it intervened right after its foundation until its end in 1837. In Bali (1849) and the Aceh Province in northern Sumatra (1873 to 1901) further fighting took place until the colonies were pacified. Auxiliary troops ( Marechaussee ) were still raised in the 1890s for guard services and to fight guerrillas in Aceh . They fought in "brigades" of 15-18 men under the leadership of two sergeants and were only equipped with carbines and short sabers ( Klewang ).

A KNIL regiment in Australia in 1943

KNIL unit marches through Melbourne during a flag parade in 1943

From the 20th century onwards, the KNIL saw its main task in defending the Dutch East Indies from external enemies. Within the colonies it usually only appeared as a police force. During the Chinese Boxer Rebellion , the Dutch sent KNIL units to Beijing .

After the First World War , the KNIL consisted almost exclusively of Indonesian soldiers, the majority of whom came from Java . Many residents of the South Moluccas also served in the KNIL. Minorities were black Africans (→ Belanda Hitam ) from today's Ghana , as well as Belgians , Germans and Dutch, the latter often serving as officers.

From the 1920s, the KNIL also built their own air force , which from 1939 under the name Militaire Luchtvaart van het Koninklijk Nederlands Leger Indian as (ML-KNIL) branch of service became independent.

At the beginning of the Second World War , the KNIL was equipped more modernly than the domestic Dutch army, but with its around 85,000 soldiers could only resist the oncoming Japanese until around March 1942. After that, the Dutch East Indies were completely under the control of the Japanese army . The then commander of the KNIL and commander in chief of the allied ABDACOM land forces, Hein ter Poorten , was taken prisoner. After the Japanese defeat, the KNIL fought against the Indonesian independence movement (→ Dutch-Indonesian War ).

After Indonesian sovereignty on December 27, 1949, KNIL was officially dissolved on July 26, 1950. Until then, under the new name Koninklijk Nederlands-Indonesisch Leger , she had only performed police duties in preparation for Indonesian independence.

In the Dutch regiment Van Heutsz , the KNIL traditions are still upheld today.

Colonel Alexander Evert Kawilarang founded Kesko TT in 1952 , the forerunner of the Indonesian special unit Kopassus .

Commanders of the KNIL

182? –1826 Major General Josephus van Geen 1826–1830 Lieutenant General Hendrik Merkus de Kock 183? –183? Lieutenant General Hubert de Stuers 1837–1843 Generaal-Maj. Frans David Cochius 1849–1849 Lieutenant General Andreas Michiels 1849–1852 General Karl Bernhard Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach 185? –185? Lieutenant General François de Stuers 1858–1862 Lieutenant General Jan van Swieten 186? –186? Major General A. Meis 186? –1873 Lieutenant General Willem Egbert Kroesen 1873–1874 Lieutenant General NHWS Whitton 1874–1878 Lieutenant General Gillis Pieter de Neve 1878–1883 ​​Lieutenant General Huibert Gerard Boumeester 1895–1897 Lieutenant General Jacobus Augustinus Vetter 190? -190? Lieutenant General HCP de Bruijn 1907–1909 Lieutenant General Marinus Bernardus Rost van Tonningen 1910–1914 Lieutenant General Gotfried van Daalen 1914–1916 Lieutenant General Johan Pieter Michielsen

1916–1916 Lieutenant General HC Kronover 1916–1918 Lieutenant General WR de Greve 1918–1920 Lieutenant General CH van Rietschoten 1920–1922 Lieutenant General GK Dijkstra 1922–1924 Lieutenant General FJ Kroesen 1924–1926 Lieutenant General KFE Gerth van Wijk 1926–1926 Lieutenant General WA Blits 1926–1929 Lieutenant General HL La Lau 1929–1932 Lieutenant General HA Cramer 1932–1935 Lieutenant General JC Koster 1935–1939 Lieutenant General M. Boerstra 1939–1941 Lieutenant General Gerardus Johannes Berenschot 1941–1942 Lieutenant General Hein ter Poorten 1943–1946 Lieutenant General Ludolph Hendrik van Oyen 1946–1949 General Simon Spoor 1949–1950 Lieutenant General Dirk Cornelis Buurman van Vreeden

literature

• Bosma, Ulbe: Emigration: Colonial circuits between Europe and Asia in the 19th and early 20th century , Europäische Geschichte Online , ed. from the Institute for European History (Mainz) , 2011, accessed on: May 18, 2011.

Web links

Commons : KNIL  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Officers of the KNIL 1940–45 (with many photos) (Dutch)

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Gerke Teitler: The Mixed Company. Fighting power and ethnic relations in the Dutch Colonial Army, 1890-1920. In: Karl Hack, Tobias Rettig (Eds.): Colonial Armies in Southeast Asia (= Routledge studies in the modern history of Asia. 33). Routledge, Abingdon et al. 2006, ISBN 0-415-33413-6 , pp. 146-160.