Kees van Dijk The Netherlands Indies and the Great War, 1914-1918 THE NETHERLANDS INDIES AND THE GREAT WAR V E R H A N D E L I N G E N V A N H E T K O N I N K L I J K I N S T I T U U T VOOR TAAL-, LAND- EN VOLKENKUNDE 254 kees van dijk THE NETHERLANDS INDIES AND THE GREAT WAR 1914-1918 KITLV Press Leiden 2007 Published by: KITLV Press Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde (Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies) P.O. Box 9515 2300 RA Leiden The Netherlands website: www.kitlv.nl e-mail: kitlvpress@kitlv.nl KITLV is an institute of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) Cover: Creja ontwerpen, Leiderdorp ISBN 978 90 6718 308 6 © 2007 Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the copyright owner. Printed in the Netherlands Contents Introduction I The colonial race 1 II A new century, a new elan 19 III Indiërs 45 IV The threat from the north 73 V The Dutch fleet 91 VI August 1914 125 VII Guarding strict neutrality 165 VIII The European community in the Netherlands Indies 201 IX Loyal subjects 231 X A native militia 255 XI The Turkish factor 287 XII The German menace 317 XIII The consequences of economic warfare 353 XIV Adjusting to economic warfare 381 XV The dangers of war and shipping 403 XVI Gloomy prospects 427 XVII Growing domestic unrest 453 XVIII The end of Dutch international shipping and trade 487 XIX Rice and sugar 515 XX Restlessness 543 XXI November 1918 579 XXII Peace: Missed opportunities 613 Bibliography 631 General index 647 Index of geographical names 659 Index of personal names 669 Contents vi Introduction Topics of books often present themselves by chance. My dissertation about the Darul Islam rebellion in Indonesia was the result of research I had started for a book about Guided Democracy in Indonesia. Similarly, while trying to trace the origins of groups active in the Netherlands Indies in the 1920s which espoused a mixture of Communism and Islam, I became interested in the question of what had been the consequences of World War One for the Netherlands Indies. Initially I thought, as did almost everyone with whom I discussed the subject, that the war had virtually passed the colony by. Gradually I began to realize that this was not true and that the war had deeply affected the domestic political situation, had temporarily fundamen- tally changed the relationship between motherland and colony, and had had a great effect on the economic performance of the Netherlands Indies. In this book, these political and economic developments in the Netherlands Indies between 1914 and 1918 and the domestic and international factors which influenced them are traced using Dutch- and Malay-language news- papers published in the Netherlands Indies, contemporary reports and books, and archival material. What I wanted to map out was simple: what developments in the colony were effectuated, stimulated, curbed or halted by a war which was being fought in faraway Europe. The questions I asked myself and the realities of the war fought implied that it was impossible to concentrate on domestic colonial politics. Much of what happened in the Netherlands Indies in those years and many of the perceptions people had about their current situation and future were related to the drastic changes in the economic circumstances war brought about in the Netherlands Indies. A mixture of what appeared to be pressing political, economic, and inter- national issues defined the response of the Colonial Government and of the ordinary Dutch people in the colony to the nationalist movement. The Great War broke out at a moment when Dutch people in the Netherlands Indies were having to come to terms with a society in which a modern nationalist movement was taking shape. All population groups ‒ Indonesians, Chinese and Indo-Europeans ‒ demanded social, economic and political emancipation and a new ‘modern’ stream of Islam, which stressed that Muslim society should attain an equal footing with that of the West made its appearance. Dutch people did not have much time to get used to these developments. Though such demands had not been completely absent in earlier years, the impression was that there was a sudden, unprecedented upsurge of nationalist feeling. The contemporary international constella- tion complicated the Dutch response. Though the international balance of power formed a guarantee of Dutch rule, there was a persistent lingering fear that one day a mightier nation might invade and seize the Netherlands Indies. In the years between 1900 and 1914, the threat posed by such an alien enemy had assumed a more concrete shape in the minds of Dutch people. The advance of Japan as a great power, since 1902 an ally of Great Britain, unnerved the Dutch public. Fear of what Japan might do only intensified during the war, providing some of the more radical Indonesian nationalist leaders with the ammunition to tease the Dutch. There was apprehension that Japan or another of the great powers could use several pretexts to act. One was that the Netherlands Indies was too weak to enforce its neutral- ity in wartime. Another was that the colonial administration neglected the interests of the Indonesian population. Remembering the demise of Spain as a Colonial Power in Asia, some Dutch people feared that the Netherlands might suffer a similar fate if it did nothing to improve the chances of Indonesian society. And what if the Netherlands were to actually find itself embroiled in the war? In this context, Indonesians were more than colonial subjects. Their well- being or their contentment with their lot were now directly linked with the continuation of Dutch rule in the Archipelago. More was at stake than vague speculations about the spectre of a foreign power punishing the Netherlands for its misrule in the colony. Not ruling out a foreign invasion, and well-aware that the Dutch military position in the Netherlands Indies was weak, shortly after the outbreak of the war the colonial administration developed plans to involve Javanese conscripts in the defence of the colony. Talk of a ‘native mili- tia’ acted as catalyst: it radicalized but also split the nationalist movement, with those not rejecting conscription outright demanding better education and more political rights. Their contention was that Indonesians would only be willing to participate in the defence of the Netherlands Indies if they were imbued with the feeling that they had a motherland to defend, and ‒ but in the eyes of the Dutch administrators arguing the opposite amounted to sedi- tion ‒ that they would be worse off under another colonial overlord. The debate was staged against the background of worsening economic conditions, rising prices, and, in the last years of the war especially the pros- pect of food shortages and an unruly, if not riotous, population. Throughout the war passenger and freight trade was strictly controlled by the Allied Powers. Part of the reason for this was that Great Britain and France, work- Introduction viii ing out their measures in close concert, aimed at achieving the total economic isolation of Germany and Austria-Hungary. But there was yet another reason. British India, the Malay Peninsula and the Straits Settlements were the target of a twin conspiracy, both coordinated by Berlin. There was a Turco-German effort to incite a Holy War and subvert Allied rule in British and French colonies (and with respect to Russia directed at the Muslim population of the Caucasus and Central Asia). In tandem with this, a second plot evolved, an Indo-German conspiracy, in which Germany cooperated with Indian revolutionaries to ignite a revolt in British India. In their conspiracy the Netherlands Indies served as a kind of stepping stone, an intermediate sta- tion via which weapons bought in America and the Philippines, money, seditious pamphlets, and agents could be smuggled into India, Burma, and British Malaya. Consequently all ships entering and leaving the territorial waters in the Netherlands Indies were stopped and searched by the British Navy. Although the Dutch colonial authorities were unaware of the exact nature of the Indo-German conspiracy, they and the other Dutch people harboured their own fears. Because Germany was an ally of the Ottoman Empire, Muslims in the Netherlands Indies tended to be pro-German and anti-British, which led to the suspicion that one day Germany might try to seize power in the colony with the help of Muslim Indonesian accomplices. Even though the prevailing mood in the Netherlands Indies in the first months of the war was one of gloom about the economic prospects, the colo- nial economy did rather well during the first years of the war. Export markets in Germany and Austria-Hungary fell away and exports to Holland suffered from a British quota system imposed to prevent re-export from Holland to Germany, but alternative markets were found, again in the United States and Japan. Similarly imports from Germany dwindled, but alternative sources of supply were found in the United States and Japan. The redirection of foreign trade coupled with problems encountered in the communications by mail and telegraph also allowed the commercial and estate community in the colony some independence from headquarters in Europe. The change came in the closing months of 1916 when colonial foreign trade began to feel the consequences of Allied demands for ships and ton- nage. Colonial products could no longer be shipped, and the import of rice stagnated. Now faced with the possibility of an acute shortage of food, the Governor General of the Netherlands Indies, J.P. van Limburg Stirum, serious- ly contemplated using the option of forcing sugar and tobacco estates to reserve one-quarter of their acreage for the production of rice. The situation seemed desperate. The collapse of the export sector was hurting Indonesian producers of colonial products and estates might have to dismiss their workforce, with all the consequent social unrest this would entail. Moderate nationalists seemed to have espoused radicalism, while socialist agitators had fanned discontent in Introduction ix the army and the navy. An increase in the burning of estate crops in the field and in sheds pointed to growing rural unrest. Famine would only lead to even greater instability. Consultation with the Ministry of the Colonies in The Hague had become almost impossible. The mail and telegraph communications between the Netherlands Indies and Holland either hardly functioned or did not exist at all. Communication between the Ministry and the Governor General by mail could take weeks, if not months, to reach its destination, communication by telegram was also disrupted from time to time. Circumstances had of necessity provided the colony with some political independence. In his efforts to solve the crisis Van Limburg Stirum turned to the leaders of the nationalist movement. In 1918, in what came to be known as the ‘November promises’, a change in the relationship between motherland and colony and greater political participation of the leaders of the nationalist movement were held out as an inducement. The Colonial Government also pledged itself to look into working conditions and labour relations in the Netherlands Indies and draft labour legislation to protect the economically vulnerable. This all proved to be empty words. After the war had ended, and the spectre of a socialist revolution in Holland and large-scale unrest in the Netherlands Indies which the colonial authorities had considered a realistic possibility had passed, the promises degenerated into mere prospects which were not realized. No greater degree of economic or political independence of the Netherlands Indies was to be granted, while instead of closer cooperation with the nationalist movement a period of repres- sion dawned. All colonies in Asia experienced the political and economic effects of the war in Europe. Even the educational system had to adjust to changing circumstances. There is an enormous amount of literature about World War One and its warfare at sea and on land but little has been written about the consequences of the war in the colonies, except there when the colonies them- selves became battlefields. One exception is Peter Hopkirk’s Like hidden fire; The plot to bring down the British empire, but in it the emphasis is on ‘the plot’ itself, not on the political climate in which such a conspiracy could prosper; the rise of a nationalist movement and the upwelling of a new self-confidence in the Islamic community. He also pays scant attention to the impact of the Turco-German conspiracy in the Netherlands Indies. A colourful personal- ity like E.F.E. Douwes Dekker, who played a role in the Indo-German plans, though admittedly a minor one, is not mentioned. In literature about the Netherlands Indies, World War One is usually mentioned only incidentally; a few figures in a long series of statistical data or a few pages in a detailed study of domestic developments in the colony. The war is there, but at the same time it is absent. It is mentioned, but not elaborated upon. In a good overview of Indonesia’s economic history, Introduction x Introduction Indonesië , by Palte and Tempelman, only one paragraph is devoted to World War One in which its is explained that it halted the robust economic expan- sion of the Netherlands Indies (which was not true initially). This formed one of the motivations to start this study (Palte and Tempelman 1978:31). In another detailed Dutch study of Indonesia’s economic history, Burger’s Sociologisch-economische geschiedenis van Indonesia (1975), World War One is mentioned only a very few times, and in around half of the cases merely serves as a time-marker, to indicate the end of a period before the war or the beginning of a trend which commenced after 1918. Aspects of what happened in the Netherlands Indies during the Great War are dealt with by other authors, but part of this literature is in Dutch and Indonesian which makes it inaccessible to people who do not read these languages. The birth of the Indonesian nationalist movement, which also figures prominently in this book has been the subject of many studies. An undoubted classic is Robert Van Niel’s The emergence of the modern Indonesian elite. It is a political history in which, by definition, the role of international economic developments which influenced domestic politics are mentioned only in passing and the Great War and its consequences are not dealt with as determiners on their own. He mentions that, in the course of the war, ‘Dutch colonial relations became highly dependent upon the whims of the British Mistress of the Seas’, but goes no further than stating that ‘the pres- sures of war forced the British to curtail and restrict neutral shipping’, not mentioning two important other reasons behind the Allied policy to control international sea traffic: the economic isolation of Germany and the role the Netherlands Indies was assigned in the Indo-German plans to subvert British rule in South Asia (Van Niel 1984:10). Similar remarks can be made about another important study: Akira Nagazumi’s Bangkitnya nasionalisme Indonesia (1989) It concentrates on the formative years of the nationalist organization Boedi Oetomo, while the attention of members of Dutch community and their fears and disappointment with the turn taken by the nationalist move- ment is actually primarily concerned with another more radical organiza- tion, Sarekat Islam. By concentrating on the Indonesian society, such studies do mean that insufficient light is shed on the discussions among Dutch individuals and policy makers about colonial and international events. Sometimes their opin- ions give only fleeting insights of the paternalistic view held by many Dutch people in the colony. In other instances, and World War One when the Dutch community in the Netherlands Indies desperately sought answers to what its members perceived as serious foreign and domestic threats, is one of these, they are highly relevant. One of the examples is the plan to recruit Javanese conscripts, which played a crucial role in the Dutch reaction to the nationalist movement and provided Indonesian leaders with a good argument to press xi Introduction for their demands. Van Niel and also Larson (1987), in his well-researched study of political developments in Surakarta between 1912 and 1942, focus on Indonesian opinions about raising a native militia. In yet another classic study about the Indonesian nationalist movement in which some of the char- acters discussed in this book also play a prominent role, Takashi Shiraishi’s analysis (1990) of popular radicalism in Java between 1912 and 1926, the native militia plan is virtually not touched upon. When Shiraishi does men- tion it, support for a militia tends to be linked to the ‘loyalist’ nationalist organization, Boedi Oetomo. It does not emphasize that leaders of the more unruly Sarekat Islam also spoke out in favour of the idea and that the clash of opinions within Sarekat Islam was one of the main factors which contributed to the rift in this organization and upsurge in personal animosities among its leaders. Not discussing the reasons why the Dutch colonial administration wanted such an institution, and launched a campaign to drum up popular support for it tends to obscure the fact that the idea was born of the relief, or may be we should write because of the realization, that nationalists could be loyal and royalist colonial subjects and be very concerned with the hard- ship they were sure people in Holland were suffering after the outbreak of war. Moreover, Indonesian nationalists won extra room to manoeuvre, at the height of the militia campaign and also again later in the war, because the Colonial Government needed their cooperation to keep an alien enemy at bay and to maintain domestic law and order. Zooming in on the four years of the Great War allows me to encompass within one study domestic and international political and economic devel- opments, providing a broader background against which the militia discus- sion and other events evolved in the Netherlands Indies. It also illustrates how much politically and economically the Netherlands Indies was part of a ‘globalized’ world and how much the actual or dreaded consequences of war influenced the courses of action taken by Dutch administrators and by nationalist leaders. Taking such an approach also means that the unselfish aspects of the so- called Ethical Policy, about which so much has been written and said, shifts into the background. Many of its Dutch proponents certainly were ‘ethically’ motivated. But taking into account perceived foreign threats during the First World War and in the years leading up to it, and the prospect of economic and political disaster in the later years of the war, allow no other conclusion than that many of the concessions and promises made were the expedient consequence of Realpolitik ; a fact that was well understood by the leaders of the Indonesian nationalist movement. This topic has been taken up by Jan van Baal. Trying to explain Dutch ‘ethical colonialism’ and its altruistic aspects, he likens the Colonial State to a modern enterprise in which prior- ity is given to the continuation of the company and not to the interests of xii Introduction its shareholders: profit is first and foremost used to ensure the company’s preservation and expansion (Van Baal 1976:101-2). Another metaphor for the Netherlands Indies in the first two decades of the twentieth century is also possible: a company quoted on the stock exchange fearing a hostile take-over bid and to prevent this follows a course of action which nowadays is dubbed ‘winning the hearts and the minds of the people’, in an effort to remove what are perceived to be the causes of rebellions and terrorist movements. Following this introduction, Chapters I, II, III, IV and V sketch the pre- war developments which influenced the political climate in the Netherlands Indies at the outbreak of the war: the international colonial race; the growing strength of the emancipation movement especially among Indonesians and Indo-Europeans; the rise of Japan as a contemporary superpower; and the dis- cussions about the defence of the Netherlands Indies. Chapters VI to IX deal with the immediate response to the war by the colonial administration and members of European and non-European communities. Chapters X, XI and XII discuss two topics which throughout the war were perceived to be markers of identity and loyalty: the native militia and the role of Islam. In this section, the consequences of the war for the pilgrimage are explored. The following four chapters concentrate on the effects of the war on the colonial economy. Matters touched upon are the problems encountered in maintaining international trade and in keeping open communications between motherland and colony, a theme that will re-appear in Chapter XVIII. The radicalization of the nationalist movement, the role of leftist agitation, and the growing unrest among soldiers and sailors in the later years are discussed in Chapters XVII, XIX and XX. These chapters also deal with how the inhabitants of the Netherlands Indies reacted to deteriorating economic circumstances in that period and how the Colonial Government coped with the prospect that rice imports might fall away, inevi- tably leading to food shortages. The response of the colonial administration to a revolutionary fervour which reached an unprecedented intensity in the Netherlands Indies in 1918 and to the total collapse of the colonial economy which seemed irrevocable at that time are the subjects of Chapter XXI. The idea that the Netherlands Indies not only resembled a company quoted at the stock exchange fearing a hostile take-over but also one fighting labour unrest is hopefully conveyed in Chapter XXII in which some post-war developments of items discussed earlier are traced. Introductions to books are not complete without expressing some gratitude. So many people helped me, it is impossible to thank them all. Two exceptions have to be made: the staff of the KITLV, which as always has been extremely helpful, and Rosemary Robson who edited my English. xiii chapter i The colonial race I have drawn a coloured map of the various colonies which surround our Indian Archipelago, and when one sees those colours, one has to immediately admit that a draughtsman with his wits about him would easily be able to draft a strik- ing picture of the risk we run. To the left, to the west, one descries the form of a snake, these are the English colonies, which lour threateningly from Singapore to Sumatra. On the other side is a gaping maw, the shape of Australia, which applies the Monroe Doctrine to New Guinea, in the vicinity like a hungry wolf Germany also lies in wait for us, and Japan, of which in former days nobody took any notice, turns out to have become a Big Power which can pose a real threat, while the greedy Yankee, who sticks at nothing, has already appeared in our near vicinity. It was a frightening world that the socialist H.H. van Kol unfolded in Dutch Parliament in November 904. The message was clear: other powers were encroaching on the Netherlands Indies, and might not stop at its borders. What was happening had started a number of decades earlier. Since the 880s anxious Dutchmen had witnessed how mightier nations were carving up the world among themselves, and in doing so establishing themselves in regions which were uncomfortably close to the Netherlands Indies. The politi- cal and economic rivalries between the major European states had spread to parts of the world which up to that moment had been left untouched. At first this was mainly a competition between Great Britain, France, Germany, and Russia, though other states such as the United States and Italy then and before also figured in the scenarios constructed by Dutchmen about nations which wanted to establish settlements in the Dutch sphere of influence in Southeast Asia. By the end of the 890s the two contemporary non-European Powers, the United States of America and Japan, had joined in. Colonies, protectorates, and spheres of influence represented the status symbol of a modern self-assured nation. Colonial expansion was considered synonymous with the winning of overseas markets and economic growth. Even in Austria-Hungary people were caught up in the fever to occupy what Handelingen Tweede Kamer 904-05:207. The Netherlands Indies and the Great War 2 in the European vocabulary of those days was termed ‘empty’ land: regions inhabited by what were called uncivilized or semi-civilized peoples, governed by their own chiefs and rulers. There was not only the ‘scramble for Africa’, but also a ‘grab’ for the Pacific and East Asia, and to a certain extent also for parts of the moribund Ottoman Empire. In some instances European govern- ments had taken the initiative, fearful of the intentions of their competitors on the international scene. In other cases the lead had been taken by enterprising adventurers, overseas settlers, or commercial firms, turning to the motherland to protect their newly acquired wealth and concessions or to block the advance of others. The 870s had already brought home to the Dutch how helpless the Nether- lands was when other nations were intent on territorial expansion, whether this concerned the Netherlands Indies or Holland in Europe itself. The Franco- Prussian War of 870 had led to the first major scare in decades, in Holland and in the Netherlands Indies. An occupation of Holland might very well invite other powers to snatch at the Dutch colonial possessions, as had been the case in the days of Napoleon when British rule had replaced that of the Dutch. A few years later the ‘Borneo Affair’, the acquisition by British merchants of Sabah, sent an even clearer message to the Dutch that the Netherlands was in a very weak position if it were to become embroiled in a conflict over the boundaries of its colonial territory or sphere of influence with stronger adversaries. Next came the occupation of the eastern part of New Guinea, the object of a mini colonial race between Germany and Great Britain. Initially the new German Empire had no colonial aspirations. The 860s and 870s had seen various German citizens who had pleaded for overseas possessions, including regions in the East Indies Archipelago which were not under Dutch control, but their protestations were ignored. Formosa and Indochina had been men- tioned as were – in a series of article in the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung in February 867 – Timor and the Philippines. The Fiji Islands, Samoa and, what did upset the Dutch, Sumatra and New Guinea also did not escape the eye of the champions of a German colonial venture. Such dreams of overseas German settlements were not yet shared by the governments of Prussia and the German Empire. Invariably Prince Otto von Bismarck turned down the plethora of petitions from German businessmen and consuls abroad asking for a German annexation of spots in the Pacific and elsewhere. Had he acceded to such suggestions Germany would have become the master of parts of Fiji and Samoa, taken possession of Hokkaido in Japan, driven the defeated French out of Indochina, and acquired a foothold in China. Germany would also have established itself in Borneo, Sumatra, and the Philippines, and would have administered colonies in Africa and Latin America. 2 2 For the early German plans, see, for instance, Gründer 999:54-63. I The colonial race 3 Within ten years Bismarck changed his mind. In February 884 he gave orders for the first German protectorate in Southwest Africa to be proclaimed. At various points along the coast the German flag was hoisted with due cer- emony and a proclamation declaring the region a protectorate was read out. These ceremonies marked the beginning of an active German Kolonialpolitik In the Pacific one of the spots German attention turned to was New Guinea, of which the western half belonged to the territory of the Netherlands Indies. In August 884 Bismarck wrote to the Neu-Guinea Compagnie that its exploits would be given the same support and protection from the Empire as those in Southwest Africa (Von Koschitzky 887-88, II:22). Part of the north of the island was declared a Schutzgebiet , a word invented by Bismarck (Gründer 999:69). In the Netherlands feelings were ambivalent. There was no ambition to extend the administration over East New Guinea, but the prospect of a new neighbour, which would not be long in announcing itself now that the world had been alerted to the impotence of Holland to prevent a British intrusion in Borneo, bristled with anxieties. 3 British politicians were also not pleased. Australians were adamant that the eastern, non-Dutch portion belonged to their sphere of influence. No other country should settle there. The British government tended to concur with this position, fearing that if it were not to, political complications with the Australian colonies would be the result. In London the British statesmen were not yet very used to having Germany as a new and, as it turned out, determined colonial rival. They had missed the hint that Germany was aspiring to a piece of the colonial cake. Germany could not be stopped and an agreement over the division of East New Guinea was reached on 7 May 885. Now, Emperor Wilhelm I could formally put the German territories in New Guinea and the New Britain Archipelago under protection of the Empire. Sovereignty over the region, which had already been christened Kaiser-Wilhelms-Land in March, was del- egated to the Neu-Guinea Compagnie. On the same occasion the New Britain Archipelago was renamed the Bismarck Archipelago. At the end of November, New Ireland became Neu-Mecklenburg, New Britain Neu-Pommern and the Duke of York Islands the Neu-Lauenburg group. These names were chosen, the Dutch Ambassador in Berlin informed his government, because the most of the crew of the ships which sailed to these islands originated from these areas. 4 As a Dutch newspaper had written in 880 it be ‘better to have colonial rivals as distant friends rather than as immediate neighbours’. 5 There was no escaping the fact that in the closing years of the nineteenth century such new 3 De Indische Gids 879, I:778-9. 4 P.P. van der Hoeven to A.P.C. van Karnebeek, NA, Kol. Openbaar, Vb. 6-2-885 8. 5 Algemeen Handelsblad, cited in De Indische Gids 880, II-2a:07. The Netherlands Indies and the Great War 4 neighbours were already gracing the scene in Borneo and New Guinea. In both cases some Dutch people could still see the bright side. Great Britain taking control in North Borneo would preclude adventurers from other nations, who were said to pose a much greater danger to Dutch rule – and Germans were the chief suspects – being able to colonize parts of North Borneo. 6 A similar argument was advanced with respect to New Guinea. There were some, and the Dutch Consul General in Melbourne was one of them, who argued that the German annexation had strengthened rather than weakened the Dutch posi- tion in West New Guinea. Neither Germany nor Great Britain would allow the other to take possession of the Dutch portion of the island. Had Great Britain become the sole master of East New Guinea sooner or later serious problems might well have arisen to harass the Dutch. People who adduced these arguments thought that the German expansion in Africa and the Pacific had called a halt to what they considered the unbridled colo- nial appetite of Great Britain, to which the Netherlands Indies or part of it could possibly also fall victim. Such opinions were coupled with a certain malicious pleasure in seeing Germany outmanoeuvring Great Britain. This made it easier to accept the German colonial presence in the eastern portion of New Guinea. The appearance of Germany on the colonial stage had checked English ambitions also in the Netherlands Indies, and would, it was hoped, produce a new colonial balance in which Holland ‘tranquil and calm’ could still ‘have pride of place’. 7 The ideas among the wider public about the repercussions of the Anglo- German rivalry over the eastern portion of New Guinea resembled those entertained by the Dutch about the colony as a whole. These oscillated between fears that a mightier state, its pride wounded by developments else- where in the world, might look to territorial expansion in the Netherlands Indies to refurbish its image counterbalanced by the feeling that international rivalries formed a safeguard for the integrity of the Netherlands Indies. International rivalry between the powers intensified at the close of the century. Berlin embarked on a new phase in German foreign policy in 897: the Weltpolitik . Kaiser Wilhelm II enthusiastically took the lead in transforming the country from what had been essentially an inland continental power into a nation fired with the ambition to play a leading economic and political role on the international stage. The prestige of Germany and its emperor had to be enhanced. The German Empire should become a World Power and this should entail the acquisition of new overseas possessions. Among the regions upon which Wilhelm had set his eye were Portuguese Timor, the Sulu Archipelago, 6 De Indische Gids 882, I:28. 7 Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch Indië 889, II:29. I The colonial race 5 one or more of the larger Philippine Islands, the Caroline Islands, and Samoa (Gründer 999:90). Spurred by aspirations engendered by this ‘world policy’, the acquisition of overseas possessions and the enlargement of the German Navy, modestly launched under Bismarck, were now given a fresh stimulus. With new rivals arriving on the scene in the late nineteenth century, and suspicious of adventurers trying to carve out their own kingdom, guarding the Dutch position in the East Indies acquired a new urgency. In the previous decades the Netherlands had already slowly but surely added territories to its East Indies possessions, expanding the region over which it exercised only de jure control. In reacting to the changing situation at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, the Netherlands contended itself with consolidating its hold over the East Indian Archipelago, bringing under direct control regions it had left untouched up to then. Parts of Sumatra and Celebes, often still virtually unexplored regions which hardly any European had yet traversed, were added to the colonial territory. In some instances a considerable military force had to be mustered. In others, the threat of force sufficed. Other expeditions were sent to the smaller islands of the Archipelago to gain the submission of the local rulers who still occupied an independ- ent position. Underlining its intention naval vessels were ordered to remote corners of the Archipelago to show the rest of the world the extent of Dutch rule. All this was first and foremost a move to forestall an incursion by other nations. Regions had to be brought under Dutch rule before anybody else could settle there and claim them as theirs. The Dutch administration – in The Hague as well as in Batavia – had no aspirations to look for new ter- ritories or exclusive zones of influence elsewhere in Asia. Even in the East Indies Archipelago policy was cautious. An expansion of Dutch rule in the Archipelago was an option not all could agree on. Some, Van Kol was one of them, argued in favour of the opposite tack: a contraction of colonial pos- sessions. The Netherlands should concentrate on Java and Sumatra. Less seriously it was suggested the Netherlands Indies be made the first prize in an international lottery. 8 Upset by the difficulties the colonial army was expe- riencing in Aceh, the mood was far from bellicose. This seems to have been the prevailing feeling among the general public, though occasionally when military expeditions were being fitted out, the Netherlands went through its own spasms of jingoism. In Holland not many citizens seemed to be, and this greatly irritated their compatriots living in the Netherlands Indies, interested in what happened in the East or understood why military expeditions had to be mounted to conquer native states. The expansion of Dutch authority in 8 De Locomotief, 24-8-900.