Dutch East Indies - Royal Dutch East Indies Army

Royal Dutch East Indies Army

The Royal Dutch East Indies Army (KNIL) and the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army Air Force (ML-KNIL) were established in 1830 and 1915 respectively. Naval forces of the Royal Netherlands Navy were based in Surabaya, but were never part of the KNIL. The KNIL was a separate branch of the Royal Netherlands Army, commanded by the Governor-General and funded by the colonial budget. The KNIL was not allowed to recruit Dutch conscripts and had the nature of a 'Foreign Legion' recruiting not only Dutch volunteers, but many other European nationalities (especially German, Belgian and Swiss mercenaries). While most officers were Europeans, the majority of soldiers were indigenous Indonesians, the largest contingent of which were Javanese and Sundanese.

Dutch policy before the 1870s was to take full charge of strategic points and work out treaties with the local leaders elsewhere so they would remain in control and cooperate. The policy failed in Aceh, in northern Sumatra, where the sultan tolerated pirates who raided commerce in the Strait of Malacca. Britain was a protector of Aceh and it gave the Netherlands permission to eradicate the pirates. The campaign quickly drove out the sultan but across Aceh numerous local Muslim leaders mobilized and fought the Dutch in four decades of very expensive guerrilla war, with high levels of atrocities on both sides.

Colonial military authorities tried to forestall a war against the population by means of a ‘strategy of awe’. When a guerrilla war did take place the Dutch used either a slow, violent occupation or a campaign of destruction. By 1900 the archipelago was considered "pacified" and the KNIL was mainly involved with military police tasks. The nature of the KNIL changed in 1917 when the colonial government introduced obligatory military service for all male conscripts in the European legal class and in 1922 a supplemental legal enactment introduced the creation of a ‘Home guard’ (Dutch: Landstorm) for European conscripts older than 32. Petitions to establish military service for indigenous people were rejected. The KNIL hastily and inadequately attempted to transform into modern military force able to protect the Dutch East Indies from Imperial Japanese invasion. On the eve of the Japanese invasion in December 1941, Dutch regular troops in the East Indies comprised about 1,000 officers and 34,000 men, of whom 28,000 were indigenous. During the Dutch East Indies campaign of 1941–42 the KNIL and the Allied forces were quickly defeated. All European soldiers, which in practice included all able bodied Indo-European males were interned by the Japanese as POW's. 25% of the POW's did not survive their internment.

Following World War II, a reconstituted KNIL joined with Dutch Army troops to re-establish colonial "law and order". Despite two successful military campaigns in 1947 and 1948, Dutch efforts to re-establish their colony failed and the Netherlands recognised Indonesian sovereignty in December 1949. The KNIL was disbanded by 26 July 1950 with its indigenous personnel being given the option of demobilising or joining the Indonesian military. At the time of disbandment the KNIL numbered 65,000, of whom 26,000 were incorporated into the new Indonesian Army. The remainder were either demobilised or transferred to the Netherlands Army. Key officers in the Indonesian National Armed Forces that were former KNIL soldiers include: Suharto second president of Indonesia, Nasution supreme commander of the Indonesian army and E.Kawilarang founder of the elite special forces Kopassus.