Chain of Command

Chain of command The military system of the Dutch East India Company 1655-1663 Tristan Mostert Master´s thesis, Department of History, Research Master of the History of European Expansion and Global Interaction Committee Prof. F. Gaastra, Prof. L. Blussé Submitted June 2007 Universiteit Leiden Foreword Cleaning up the last few footnotes of my thesis, adding the last few illustrations, and slowly starting to consider whom I had to thank for all this, the first thought that occurred to me was that in the first place I had to thank everyone around me for their patience with this project. From the day I consider this thesis project to have really started off, we are one-and-a-half years down the line. If we take Umberto Eco’s word for it, who in his How to write a thesis stated that anywhere between six months and three years is acceptable for writing a master’s thesis (and added the sound advice that, if one was unable to finish it within that time, one might consider just copying someone else’s), I am of course right on schedule. Nonetheless, I am very aware that many of the people around me would have hoped for this thesis to have been finished rather sooner. I can only be thankful that in spite of this, everyone kept on having faith in the whole venture, even when I had lost this faith myself for a while. My advisors’ patience was probably tested most by the delays. Particularly with Femme Gaastra, however, I never noticed the slightest hint of annoyance with this, and was all the while aided not only with advice and comments but also insight into unpublished articles and his personal notes on the Generale Eis. Leonard Blussé, who spent part of this time abroad but closely followed the progress of my thesis even on the other side of the Atlantic, was more openly annoyed with the slack pace with which the whole thing proceeded, but always combined his remarks to that effect with extensive comments and advice on the content of the thesis, thus inspiring some resolve to finally finish it, and also greatly contributing to the final result. I can only hope that they now consider this final result to have been worth the wait. For this final result I am also greatly indebted to Geoffrey Parker, whose book The Military Revolu- tion inspired the initial idea for this thesis, and with whom I was subsequently privileged to study for three months at Ohio State University. The entire entire setup and method for this thesis came into being there, and his tutorial on VOC warfare was extremely inspiring and profoundly influenced the way in which I look at my topic. Furthermore I wish to thank my parents, not only for their patience with, and faith in the project, but also for indefinitely lending me their laptop when mine broke down in the middle of my archival research (I’m done with it, I’ll give it back), proofreading several chapters, and supplying me with the tools to make this thesis look as it does now. Studying together with Bram, Jonathan, Maaike and Romkje made writing the whole thing a lot more pleasant. The bet with Melanie over who would finish his or her thesis first, might have been finally won by her, but definitely sped up the final stretch. And finally I wish to thank my brother James, who, as a preliminary graduation gift, is currently aiding me in turning this thesis into what will hopefully become the coollest web- resource on VOC-history so far. iii Contents I. An undecided battle 1 The problems of the current discourse 4 The VOC: a European organisation? 5 Towards a new coherent picture of VOC warfare 6 Synopsis 9 II. The wars of the Company 10 Capital 10 Political structure and culture 11 War with whom? And why? 15 Military hardware and personnel 17 Ships 17 Soldiers 19 Local troops 22 Allies 25 Fortresses 27 Artillery and artillerists 32 Gunpowder 34 Conclusion 37 III. From patria to Asia 38 Introduction: the decision-making process and the rhythm of the return fleet 38 Providing the supplies: soldiers, ships and armament 42 Communication, administration and secrecy 54 Calling the shots: political interaction 58 Conclusion 74 IV. Onto the battlefield 76 Northern Ceylon: starving Jaffanapatnam 77 Makassar: finding a modus vivendi by all means necessary 84 Quilon and Cochin: a penal expedition and a failed siege 92 ‘The shameful fall of fort Zeelandia’ 101 The Mozambique-expedition: battling the monsoon 109 The second siege of Cochin 114 Conclusion 121 v V. Conclusion 124 Appendix A: on the tables 127 Table 1 127 Tables 2 through 4 127 Table 5 128 Bibliography 129 Printed works 129 Archival references 133 Web references 133 Illustrations 133 vi I An undecided battle Since the Dutch colonial era came to an end in the ‘40s of the last century, relatively little attention has been given to the warfare of the Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (Dutch East India Company, henceforth VOC) by Dutch historians. Whereas, during the colonial era, the military history of the Dutch overseas was always a popular source of epic stories about the Dutch, heroically defeating the English and Portuguese, as well as occasionally fighting it out with nuisant local powers on distant shores, this form of history writing became somewhat unfashionable in the postwar years. Historians of Dutch overseas expansion subsequently turned their attention to other aspects of the colonial past, such as its economic system, or the interaction between the Dutch and local cultures. Along with nationalist, congratulatory accounts of the glorious Dutch colonial past, the VOC’s military history quietly left through the back door.1 Whereas historians of the Dutch colonial past grew less interested in the military aspects of their subject, this was, however, certainly not the case for the historical profession as a whole. In the course of the last few decades, the military exploits of Europeans overseas have once again become a hot topic within several realms of history. One of these realms is the world-historical debate. Seeking to explain why the West became so rich and powerful in relation to the rest of the world, many authors suspect that part of the answers they are looking for are to be found in the military balance between East and West, and by implica- tion, the military aspects of European expansion overseas. These authors, usually specialists in Eu- ropean history, have typically described the military history of European expansion as an exponent of developments that took place in Europe in the course of the early modern period. Advances in military technology, such as the development of good and cheap artillery, developments in fortifi- cation, the armed sailing vessel as well as advancements in the realm of strategy, tactics and logistics, are seen as defining for the European military performance abroad. These developments are claimed to also have given the European powers a decisive edge in warfare against non-European powers. It was therefore of great importance in tilting the global balance of power in favour of Europe, and thus both a result of and a factor in the “Rise of the West.”. 1 An excellent brief introduction into the VOC’s historiography is Jur van Goor, ‘De Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie in de historiografie’ in: Gerrit Knaap en Ger Teitler eds., De Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie: Tussen oorlog en diplomatie, verhandelingen KITLV, 197 (Leiden 2002), 9-34. 1 2 An undecided battle Although the notion that certain early modern Western military innovations gave Europe an edge from the 16th century onwards goes back a long time,2 it has once again become an issue of debate since the appearance of Geoffrey Parker’s 1988 work The Military Revolution: Military innovation and the Rise of the West 1500-1800. This study claims that the various changes in weapons technology, strategy and logistics that took place in the course of the Early Modern period, amounted to a Military Revolution.3 With the advent of European colonialism, so the argument proceeds, various aspects of this Military Revolution were subsequently exported beyond the boundaries of Europe with the advent of European colonialism, and in various ways aided the Europeans in bringing 35% of the world under their sphere of influence before 1800. In a similar vein, military historian Jeremy Black states in his introduction of War in the Early Mod- ern World 1450-1815, that, regardless of the limited impact of European colonialism up to the 18th century, the most important fact is that Europe was able to project its power, in however modest proportions, onto the rest of the world, and not the other way around. He concludes a paragraph, with the telling title “the Rise of the West”, as follows: “The Europeans remoulded the world, cre- ating new political, economic, demographic, religious and cultural spaces and links that still greatly affect the world in which we live.”4 On the other side of the spectrum, we find various authors from the realm of non-western history and historical anthropology, who look at the history of European colonial war in a wholly different light. These authors seek to create a counterbalance for what in their eyes is a one-sided and overly complacent view on the military encounters between East and West. They credit the various Asian powers with rich military traditions as well as a proficiency in tactics and strategies that, however different from the European ones, often matched the latter.5 In the case of South East Asia, authors have emphasized the early date at which various indigenous states got hold of guns and gunmakers, the alacrity with which the local military cultures incorporated the new military gadgets and strategies of their adversaries, the very relative relevance of western military tactics in jungle 2 An early example of the ‘world-historical’ approach which attributes western success to military innovations is Carlo M.

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