Paul Padan, Sarawak’s 20th Century, (Sibu Taikoon: 1989)
Upon taking stock, the Kingdom of Sarawak seemed to have lucked out.
Although the Natuna, Anambas, and Spratly archipelagos were heavily contested, the main Sarawakian core remained virtually untouched from heavy fighting, with only the farthest north suffering any sort of wartime devastation. Most towns and ports remained active and peaceful, with only the harbour of Bandar Charles suffering major damage from Italian bombardment – whose aims of crippling the city were all for nought as local sailors quickly utilized their sampans and boats to deliver supplies in record time. While Italian forces did occupy the coasts of Sarawakian Sabah, they were unable to penetrate deep inland and were hounded off after only several months of fighting. All in all, Sarawak seemingly got through the Great War mostly whole and stable.
But to the locals, the damage wrought by the conflict outclassed all previous conceptions of war and destruction. True, the kingdom lost only around 19,000 citizens, but that was still around 4.7% of the entire population, which included their Rajah and the prospective heir. There was hardly a village or town across the land that didn’t lose somebody of note, and entire towns in Sarawakian Sabah were destroyed or virtually wiped off from the map by marauding Askaris. Economically, the Franco-Italian takeover of the South China Sea posed a chilly risk to the kingdom’s export economy and rice supplies, and the easy trouncing of the navy ripped apart the façade of guaranteed safety to many traders and businessmen. The last time Sarawak suffered in such a manner was during the tumultuous decade of the 1850’s, a time half-remembered inside living memory.
[1.]
Over in Sabah, the destruction reached horrific proportions: Much of the general infrastructure – as rudimentary as it was – was ruined, and the burning of forests and farmlands was matched with the inadequate or non-existent apparatus of government to heal them. It does not help that the rivers so crucial for transportation were clogged full with the wrecks of sunken gunboats. Preliminary reports suggested a local death toll of 9,000 people with the figures rising by the day, with many tribal longhouses burnt to the ground whilst the ones still standing suffered massive casualties that ripped entire communities apart. To the still-living, the shame and scarring took a personal turn as suspected combatants found themselves shunned by their families and tribal structures.
Unsurprising then that Sabah became the first priority for the new Rajah, Clayton Brooke. In fact, one of his first acts as monarch was simply to acquire emergency supplies of rice from the Dutch and Spanish Philippines just to keep the region fed.
Although the colony was declared an ‘Occupied Territory’ by the Singaporean Governor-General, there was no hiding which nation would oversee its reconstruction, especially with British interests too occupied in roiling Indochina. Sarawakian officials were quickly placed to administer the region, with Sandakan operating as the regional administrative and commercial centre (much to the chagrin of exiled Italians). Civil servants and local doctors fanned out across the land, making contact with disparate tribes and tabulating observed damages. At times, these people had to face situations beyond their grade; One such doctor, Richard Connolly of Kuching, noted in his letters how his work with a group of ‘tabulators’ earned him the respect and ire of two Dusun villages – both of which were uprooted by Askaris – whom each wanted him to take care of their sick and injured first.
Indeed, it was such altercations and the reports of revenge killings up north that quickly convinced the new Rajah to personally oversee Sabah’s peace and reconciliation ceremonies…
Catherine Margare Tonek, Clayton Brooke: The Rajah of Transition, (Bimasakti Press: 2000)
…To many Sabahans, it must have seemed strange to see a white foreigner taking part in traditional ceremonies to foster peace. More so for him to be a White Rajah, at that.
Most never realized how strange it also was for said monarch to be White Rajah in the first place.
When Clayton Brooke ascended on his father’s throne, no one was particularly surprised at his initial discomfort at being thrusted on a seat that wasn’t expected to be his. For all that Rajah Charles Brooke prepared his children for a life beyond him, it was clear just which son he favoured most as his successor. While both boys learned the craft of Sarawakian kingship from a young age, life in the late 19th-century kingdom required certain needs and expectations to which Clayton’s Brooke’s elder twin brother, Clarke, particularly excelled in fulfilling.
When both boys became old enough to administer the kingdom’s Divisions, the elder twin showed a strong bent towards initiative and daring-do while the younger son preferred prudence and counsel. It was also Clarke whom sat in Supreme Council meetings alongside his father to learn the intricacies of ruling, as well as accompanying him more times on punitive expeditions to understand tribal relations.
[2]
And with that, young Clayton Brooke grew up in his brother’s shadow, and it perhaps was this that drove him to head north during his first months as Rajah; to be suddenly thrusted into a position of absolute authority must have been bewildering. Still, his decision – and his uncertain promises of returning back – raised a fair number of eyebrows, and there were a few rumours circulating on how, besides a desire for communal peace, Clayton’s sojourn was an attempt to escape from his new responsibilities in Kuching.
But other historians have also posited something much darker.
Since the final conclusion of Sarawak’s war, many contemporaries noted how Clayton’s personality took a sombre turn. He became melancholic, distant, anxious, and refused to answer letters even from his own friends and family. His sister Lily Brooke’s public slap of him when he finally arrived in Kuching was a shocking act of familial discord, but it came from a position of anxiety and distress after weeks of discordant communication. As she herself said in later life, “something altered him at Sandakan.”
From the reports, letters, and observations of the time, several historians have since diagnosed Clayton with some mild form of shell shock, otherwise more known as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Undoubtedly, his personal witnessing of his father and twin brother’s death may have deeply affected him, though some have also pinned it to the terrifying results of marauding Askaris across Italian Sabah. Given the brutality of Bornean warfare and the non-existence of Sarawakian psychiatry in 1905, it is more impressive that he only suffered mild trauma from the event.
Nevertheless, this might more fitly explain his journey to war-torn Sabah. The peace and reconciliation ceremonies were meant to piece together destroyed communities, but it may also have been a way to process bereavement for the new Rajah. From the settlement of new communities, to talking to separated chiefs and elders, to the overseeing of spiritual ceremonies that honoured the dead, to the sharing of rice wine and boar meat to survivors, and the retelling of stories old and new, the work may have been – if not therapeutic, than at least, perhaps, allow Clayton Brooke the space and time to come to terms with his late father and brother.
In the meanwhile, his work as Rajah was helped somewhat by a somewhat unexpected pillar: Lily Brooke, the Dayang of Sarawak. While not trained in the art of ruling, the eldest daughter of the Brooke siblings was not far behind in observing the language and basics of governance, and she herself inherited some of her father’s headstrong personality. At the time, there were no codified laws of succession for Sarawak; it was expected instead for the current Rajah to handpick his successor, and the culture of the time did not allow women, however respectable, to hold high office.
That is, until the Great War. With Rajah Charles and his sons waging war with warriors in the far north, the exercise of governance was transferred to the Supreme Council, with Ranee Margaret holding office as the ceremonial interim ruler of Sarawak. While an emergency measure driven by unexpected circumstances, this marked the first time ever of a woman occupying the kingdom’s highest post, and it may have played a role in Lily’s decision to dabble in government. During the first weeks, she offered advice to her anxious brother and slipped in notes detailing her opinions on certain issues.
[3] When Clayton Brooke took off to oversee Sabah, it was Lily who relayed some of the happenings in Kuching that were unmentioned in the official missives.
This unnatural influence raised eyebrows in the eclectic Astana court. Ex-Bruneian nobles and Dayak chieftains whom waited hours to have the Supreme Council’s ear were unamused at the notion of a woman having a direct line to the Rajah. “It was not a woman’s way to be so involved in the running of this kingdom.” Recalled Syarif Supan, an ex-Bruneian descent of
Laksamana (noble admiral) stock a few decades afterwards. “And to see someone like her, with so much influence, while we were trying to get the Rajah our time, was improper. What does she know about local troubles and triumphs?”
Nevertheless, this line of influence played a part on steering Clayton in policy in his most vulnerable time, and it may have played a part in his reaction to the happenings brewing in Brunei….
Fatimah Ebrahim, British Brunei, (Macmillan Workshop: 1991)
…The fall of Italian Brunei was intended to sweep away the old guard in favour of a British-allied protectorate. Instead, the collapse of the old overlordship left more questions than answers.
For one, there was the matter of the sultanate’s status. As a formerly Italian protectorate captured through allied force, there were many questions as to Brunei’s future. Should it remain a protectorate? An allied independent state? An occupied polity with an interim administration, to be resolved later? The nearby Kingdom of Sarawak was particularly keen on its right to be involved in the issue… before events in Sabah shifted their attention.
For the sultanate’s court, this was a consequential decision. While they did rebel against the incumbent administration out of a dislike for Italian rule, the spark that triggered it was the threat from Charles Brooke before his forces reached the city: that the neighbouring Kingdom of Sarawak would swallow Brunei whole unless they completely surrendered. Given the Brooke family’s past actions in carving up the Bornean Empire, it was a grievous threat too dangerous to ignore. The fear of
annihilation, not grudging subservience, was what tipped the sultanate to expel their former protectors in favour of the British.
But with Sarawak and the British distracted on more dire issues, a compromise was ultimately chosen: the Singapore administration placed the polity as an ’Occupied Territory’ and shunted a functionary there as a British ‘Advisor’, but the sultan and royal court could act
as per their former powers and only had to give up their prerogative on foreign affairs.
However, such a path was complicated by another quibble. During the opening days of the Great War, the royal court sent secret delegations to the Ottoman consuls in Aceh and Riau-Lingga
[4] , requesting the Sublime Porte to place them under their protective umbrella. However, the swiftness of the War flat-footed everyone and quickly rendered the attempt moot, yet there was still no official reply from the delegates at Kutaraja and Penyengat Inderasakti. The fact that both the Malacca Straits and the South China Sea became naval battlegrounds, coupled with regional undersea telegraph cables being cut by the Franco-Italian armadas, hampered communication with the outside world. As the weeks passed, the palace court had no idea if any Ottoman aid would arrive, if at all.
In fact, it was only in late September that oceanic conditions were calm enough for the delegations to return. Their received answer was disheartening: though the Ottoman representatives were receptive, and while extra caches of weapons could be secretly shipped to Brunei from Aceh if the court wished so, no formal help would arrive. The Ottoman Empire has too much on their plate to care for Borneo. Because of this, both Sultan Aqamaddin and his heir finally swallowed their pride and, in late 1905, requested to Singapore’s Governor-General to accept Brunei as a British protectorate. The royals would retain their internal power while relinquishing foreign affairs, and Sarawak would be denied the annexation it so craved.
But the devil lay in the details.
As talks began, it became clear that the court had a vested interest in the petroleum wells of Seria. Brunei supported itself in more recent decades through generous stipends from Sarawak and Italy, but now they demanded a great cut from the petroleum profits to prop-up courtly expenses. This clashed heavily with the newly-administered oil barons – almost all of whom were from the Oil Policy enclave of Miri – whom were unwilling to give away control. In fact, the last months of 1905 saw multiple petitions from the oil corporations to Sarawak and Singapore, imploring them to expand the corporate enclave into Bruneian territory and thus, expand their production and profits. But with both sides too busy with other matters, the issue simmered.
Four things would change this impasse. The first was the death of Charles Brooke and his son and heir, Clarke Brooke during the battle of Sandakan. The second was the death of Sultan Aqamaddin in the following January at the age of 81, shocking the court and depriving it of a steady hand
[5]. The third was the whispers of disturbances deep in Sabah and north-central Borneo, while the fourth came in the person of a firebrand imam from the Sulu Sultanate…
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Notes:
Blarg, I initially imagined seeing this installment written out within a week of my recovery, but personal stuff coupled with a job offer delayed this for a while. Enjoy! Also, since this might be my last update before Eid week, I'll say it here while I still can: Happy Hari Raya Aidilfilri, everyone!
Also, the photo I used for Clayton Brooke is actually that of OTL Charles Vyner Brooke, with a teeny bit of photoediting.
1. See
post #166 for the rebellions of the 1850’s.
2. For more info on the Brooke twins, see
post #1153.
3. For one example of this, see the end of
post #1506.
4. See the last instalment in
post #1201.
5. Sultan Aqamaddin died in the 10th of May 1906 IOTL, but the circumstances of the region has given enough stress for his lifespan to be shortened by a few months.