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Few days ago I've tried to make some quite long TL about a completely different Asia but I decided to narrow the scope a little bit involving mainly about Dutch East Indies and Europe only. How can you make the colonization process more effective and so on. The time line started in 1800. Please bear in mind that I'm still learning so please forgive me if there's any historical mistake. I hope this will not make you run away form this puny TL.

The format is just normal, nothing fancy, though I will try to make it fancier to reduce boring-ness. :)

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First Turning Point:




1798: VOC went bankrupt because of severe internal corruption and debts. The debts and the territories previously controlled by VOC were subsequently taken by the Dutch Batavian Republic. From now on the territory was called “Dutch East Indie”. City of Batavia located in Java was made the center of the new Dutch administration.

1801: Rebellious and uprising movement led by the Javanese local leader started to spring up here and there, pushing the Dutch garrison to their breaking point. Most of the movements were backed up by the islands quite huge number of population. Despite the heavy pressure given, the uprisings were usually not very organized and could be defeated easily piece by piece.



1808: A new military governor arrived at Batavia. Hermann Willem Daendels, a former general himself, quickly tried to reorganize the island weak defense to prepare the island from the British invasion. He built formidable fort in Meeste Cornelis, several magazines and planned for a massive infrastructure program, the building of Java Great Post Road. This overall building program pushed the already oppressed Javanese population further down. Great rebellion ensued when a dozen Javanese forced-labors refused to work and started attacking their Dutch superiors. When the rebellion finally ended most of the rich farm lands and infrastructure were left devastated. The planned post road was never completed in 1809.



The Original Plan

Daendels, unwilling to accept the fact that the infrastructure program could never be carried out brought thousands of forced labors from another island. But the plan was very badly planned that it only made the scarce food situation worst and famine soon ensued, killing many workers and the Javanese population. Infuriated by this he blamed the corrupt local and even the Dutch civil servants, reaching a point where he actually ordered hundreds civil servant together with their family out of the comfort in Batavia and left them starving in the countryside.

1809: Not satisfied with the result as his action hampered most of the colonial activities he ordered another massive purge to locate corrupt officials in whole Java, the plan includes several denouncements of sultans. The remaining Dutch civil servant and officials in Batavia were deeply scared that if they did anything wrong again they will all be sent out and thus they were motivated to plan the purge carefully. Hundreds of local Javanese influential figures, leaders and Sultans were listed carefully in the purge-list. Corrupt or no corrupt if they had once proved that they supported the rebellions years ago they were on the list.

At this very time Daendels also wrote dozens pages of letter to Napoleon Bonaparte on why he should send more troops and statesman to Dutch East Indies for the prospect of having a rich colony is good. Most of the evidence included in the letters was cock-and-bull talk.

When the letters arrived in Europe, the situation was completely different. At the end of the year Napoleon’s French Empire continued to expand as the last British soldiers in the Iberian Peninsula with the exception of the strong Gibraltar garrison were evacuated. Portugal had just fallen and Napoleon was free to do anything as he wishes, for now.

Napoleon, seeing the prospect of having a long term base against the British and had succeeded in defeating Austria and Britain in the Peninsular War agreed to send more troops and statesmen to East Indies albeit not knowing the rising locals tension.

But first he told Daendels to wait for two or three years more as he was trying to re-build the French Navy after Trafalgar with serious care. The reason was clear enough, not only that he was trying to have his Empire a colony he also wanted to defeat or possibly invade Great Britain once and for all.

1810: Back again in East Indies, Daendels ordered “Directive No.6378” to be executed. Swiftly without remorse the Dutch began killing and kidnapping the people on the list. Using the traditional tactic of “Divide et Impera” the Dutch was able to eliminate nearly third of the people who were supposed to be taken care manually. At one time the Dutch summoned dozens of local Bupatis (equivalent to “Count”) in one place in Madiun, Malang with the promise that they will be rewarded. Unbeknownst of the Dutch plan to the Bupatis and fired with tremendous amount of greed they all flocked to Madiun. Some chose to stay but their numbers were not big enough.

Dozens and a half drum of high-explosive were prepared and rigged secretly by the Dutch officials during midnight under the quite luxurious Wisma. When the time came in the morning and all of the Bupatis were already assembled the Dutch via the local servants started to distributing brown bags filled with fake gold coins. The doors were all locked and the first explosive, a small one was ignited outside of the building. Hearing the explosion most of the local Bupatis guards quickly ran to the site where their masters were assembled together. Chaos quickly ensued as the civilians from nearby village flocked into the area as well, trying to see what had happened.

One Dutch soldier fired intentionally fired a warning into shot to the air, creating an impression that they and the Bupatis were being attacked by someone inside the building wisma. Panicked, thinking that most of the Bupatis were still alive they all ran into the building not knowing about the second explosives that were about to explode. Satisfied with the plan the Dutch ignited the second explosive, creating a huge and spectacular explosion killing most of the Bupatis, the nearby civilians and their guards as well. The building and the surrounding area were quick to be engulfed in flame and the remaining survivors were finished by the Dutch soldiers who shot them in place cruelly. Thousands people were presumed dead.

On the other day in Yogyakarta, Raden Mas Ontowiryo – still a teenage boy – saw dozens of Dutch soldiers infiltrating the palace. Raden Mas Ontowiryo, quite an expert in Silat wounded three of the soldiers who infiltrated his father chamber but alas in the ensuing fighting his father together with most of the royals family was all killed or badly wounded. He survived and went into the jungle, determined to avenge his family.

At the end of the year the Directives No.6378 was deemed a success by Daendels with most of the influential figures in Java killed or assassinated. He established a series of military district along Java, serving the purpose to rule the land with a strict military efficiency as well. Forts and strongholds were built, again using the local population but this time without any corrupt officials or rebellious Javanese trying to slow him down the building project was largely successful.

He also tried to complete the Great Postal Road but again because of starvation the amount of able-workers was very small and the work progressed slowly. Daendels decided to import grain from other islands notably Sulawesi and Sumatra where the same purge was also ordered to be executed albeit with lower efficiency and less success. He also introduced some kind of ration rules to the people even to the Dutch families and officials to press for the lack of food.

But nevertheless despite his hard work, he was no civil administrator and because the lack of civil servant to maintain everything the Dutch East Indies government coffers continued to deplete. Worst the overall condition of Java was just desperate, farms and plantation had no worker, colonial administration in the brink of disaster, and food scarcity.

As the last measure to prevent collapse he significantly weakened the rule on plantation and gave a sum of subsidy to the remnants of Javanese farmers. They were now allowed to fully use their own land entirely for food production. He also introduced a limited education to the new generation of population to prepare them so that they can work in the colonial administration in long-term. Because of significant decrease in corruption this measures will later prove to be workable and slowly gained its result.

Another thing that Daendels might intentionally achieve was increasing the Dutch anti-corrupt reputation among the people. Some were even grateful because they only needed to pay the tax to the official Dutch instead of being forced to pay money to the landlord and to the corrupt officials and local chiefdom.

In Batavia Daendels anxiously waited for the French reinforcement to come.



1811: At February a watch tower in the coastal area of Batavia suddenly saw several sails coming. Were they the dreaded British Royal Navy or the long waited French reinforcement? They waited and waited nervously until they could properly identify the mast flag. It was the French tri-color. The garrison cheered.

In overall there were six ships that arrived throughout February one by one. The French commodore had intentionally done so to prevent their tiny fleet from being spotted by the British Royal Navy in the voyage.

At first Daendels was unimpressed when he first saw half dozen of the frigates but he was very surprised when the three hundred French of one thousand French soldiers were in fact consisted of French Guard Voltiguer and Guard Marines detachment, including a squadron of Dragoon, veterans of the European War themselves . Accompanying them was several high-ranking French officers and several experienced France civil administrator ordered personally by Napoleon to help Daendels administration. They also delivered Napoleon reply letter that told Daendels to wait. Unbeknownst to Daendels and most of the Dutch officials, Napoleon had his own agenda.

It was the turn for Daendels French counterpart to be disappointed now when they all saw the real situation of Java. They expected everything should be all already nicely packed and tidied for them, they also warned the that the British had already occupied the Moluccas and Ambon, previously a Dutch possession. Daendels surprisingly replied “Forget every other Island, for now we have Java only and we shall defend it to death!”

And there he went riding his horse and setting up a march in Batavia. At this point several officials noted that Daendels attitude had begun to change drastically. Sometime he was as kind as an angle and sometime he was as cruel as a devil. He also began to develop a sign of serious nervous breakdown slowly.



Not far from Java was India. Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles successfully convinced Lord Minto that East Indies could prove dangerous for the British Empire hegemony once it stayed in the French hand. On April 1811 the British fleet finally departed and set sail to East Indies. The main target was not Java for the British knew that there were significant amount of strong French-Dutch soldiers in the island and that the fortification was stronger than in other island. They also heard the cruel treatment of the locals and decided that Java could be taken care of later on.

Several weeks afterward the complete and strong British force gathered at Penang, Malacca. Everything was planned carefully in details. On June the complete force crossed the Strait of Malacca and landed on Sumatra, with the help of the strong naval support the British quickly overwhelmed the local Dutch garrison. The remaining sultanate chose to stay put, sit and wait whilst they observed how the situation will develop. In just two months Sumatra was occupied and secured. Short engagement occurred when three British ships of the line tried to probe the Dutch-French defense in Batavia. The British pulled back realizing that the garrison was in fact very strong and will not be easily subdued.



The Royal Navy

At this month Raden Mas Suryo, having travelled hundreds of kilometers across Java had succeeded in reaching Batavia. He intended to wait until the British came.

Having Sumatra under control Borneo and Celebes soon followed suit but Raffles decided to focus on Sumatra first. His first reform was to eliminate the Dutch policy of forced agriculture which still largely remained in effect albeit the rule was already significantly weakened and lifted in Java under Daendels. He introduced a system of land tenure and thanks for the Daendels Purge Directives the overall corruption rate had been significantly lowered if not eliminated. The overall corruption rate in Sumatra was not as high as in Java also. With such reasons the process of implementing land tenure was not altogether difficult and achievable. The locals were happy enough to accept anything other than the Dutch especially because the British more lenient and caring policy. Soon Sumatran nobles were forced to accept that their position was in danger.

In Europe Napoleon’s naval agenda proved to be unsuccessful as the Continental System began to show crack here and there. The cost of having big and huge navy to match the RN was believed to be very difficult to achieve, if not impossible with the current condition of the French economy. Napoleon turned his sight to Russia. In the following year he will invade Russia.

To be continued...
Comments or suggestions?

I'm also planning to make a map to show the situation in Europe and in Asia. Do you guys know where I can get a good high-res blank map of them?


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