The Java War (Javanese: ꦥꦼꦫꦁꦗꦮ; Dutch: De Java-oorlog; Indonesian: Perang Jawa), also known in Indonesia as the Diponegoro War (Javanese: ꦥꦼꦫꦁꦢꦶꦥꦤꦼꦒꦫ; Indonesian: Perang Diponegoro), was an armed conflict in central and eastern Java from 1825 to 1830, between native Javanese rebels headed by Prince Diponegoro and the Dutch East Indies supported by Javanese princely states. It is considered a watershed in Javanese history, culture, and society.
During the early nineteenth century, declining Dutch power along with increased centralization of colonial authorities through brief French and British controls had changed the political order established after the 1755 Treaty of Giyanti, at the expense of the native Javanese princely states. After the deaths of Sultans of Yogyakarta Hamengkubuwono III and IV, along with the return of Dutch presence, Hamengkubuwono III's eldest son Diponegoro became estranged from Yogyakarta's regency of Hamengkubuwono V and with the colonial government. With a millenarian movement emerging and claimed visions of a holy war, Diponegoro would launch his rebellion following tensions caused by a government road project in July 1825.
Shortly after the outbreak of the revolt, rebel forces laid siege to Yogyakarta, which was lifted following the arrival of a large Dutch relief force under H. M. de Kock. Diponegoro and his forces moved north towards Surakarta, defeating Dutch forces in a series of engagements throughout mid-1826 before being defeated west of the city. Other leaders affiliated with the rebellion took up arms in Java's north coast and in East Java. The war transitioned into a guerilla war, with Dutch forces failing to stamp out guerilla activity due to Diponegoro's popular support and Dutch manpower shortages.
By 1827, Dutch forces began employing an extensive strategy of field fortifications (Benteng-stelsel), gradually limiting Diponegoro's ability to maneuver and control territory. The war turned against Diponegoro, and his territorial control began to shrink as rebel forces became confined to the west of Yogyakarta. Further rebel setbacks in 1828 and 1829 saw their remaining armies depleted, with many key commanders surrendering or killed in action. Following a defeat in September 1829, Diponegoro led just a small group of guerillas. During an attempt at negotiations, Diponegoro was captured while meeting with de Kock in Magelang, and he was exiled to Sulawesi where he died in 1855.
The war had disastrous consequences for Java, marking the last significant armed resistance to Dutch rule until the Indonesian National Revolution over a century later. The princely states lost much of their remaining powers and territories, giving the Dutch uncontested rule over the island. At least 200,000 Javanese civilians were killed by violence or the resulting disease and starvation, with military losses of 15,000 dead for the Dutch military and around 20,000 dead for the rebels. While the costs of waging the war for the Dutch were heavy, the implementation of the Cultivation System in its immediate aftermath generated enormous revenues for the colonial government.
Background
The 1755 Treaty of Giyanti, signed between the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and Javanese rulers, divided the Mataram Sultanate into the Vorstenlanden (princely states) of the Yogyakarta Sultanate and Surakarta Sunanate; another princely state, Mangkunegaran, was formed in 1757. Ushering in a period of peace after the Javanese Wars of Succession, the treaty led to a period of major population growth in Java. Due to relative weakness of the Dutch in the late 18th century, the princely states possessed de facto sovereignty. The Fourth Anglo-Dutch War, the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars and the VOC's dissolution in 1799 further weakened the Dutch position in the region, with colonial authorities in Batavia requesting assistance from the princely states to defend Dutch territories in Java.
In 1806, Herman Willem Daendels became Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies. Daendels aimed to weaken the princely states and prepare defences against a British invasion. He harshly enforced colonial authority, boosting anti-Dutch sentiment in the Yogyakarta court and causing an abortive armed revolt by Yogyakarta bupati Rongga Prawiradirja in 1810. In the following year, British forces occupied Java. Anglo-Yogyakarta relations soon worsened, and 1,200 British troops sacked the Yogyakarta keraton on 20 June 1812, deposing Sultan Hamengkubuwono II in favor of his son Hamengkubuwono III. During their four-year occupation of Java, the British split off part of Yogyakarta to form Pakualaman, introduced a cash-based land tax which caused hardship to peasants, and forced the princely states to limit the size of their militaries and cede territory.
Diponegoro
Prince Diponegoro (born 1785) was the eldest son of Hamengkubuwono III. Through his mother, he claimed ancestry from the Wali Sanga, early apostles of Islam in Java. In 1805, Diponegoro made a pilgrimage to the southern coast of Java, and later wrote that he received visions there from Sunan Kalijaga and Nyai Roro Kidul. Diponegoro also wrote of warnings of the destruction of Yogyakarta and ruin of Java. Shortly prior to the British sack of Yogyakarta, he was offered the position of crown prince under his father, but refused the offer, passing the position on to his younger brother. Diponegoro had likely been offered the position due to the assistance he provided to the British. Hamengkubuwono III died in 1814, and with his successor still being a boy, Paku Alam I was installed as regent.
Following the restoration of Dutch rule in Java in 1816, Diponegoro's view of the Dutch and the Sultanate began deteriorating due to tax collection disputes and the arrest of a well-known religious leader. He also opposed the introduction of a land rent system in the late 1810s. A millenarian movement began to emerge in the Javanese countryside, fueled by an 1821 cholera epidemic and the eruption of Mount Merapi in 1822. A minor uprising by Diponegoro's great-uncle was suppressed in 1822. Hamengkubuwono IV died in December 1822, and with the new Sultan Hamengkubuwono V being two years old, Diponegoro was appointed one of his guardians. His relationship with other guardians was poor.
In 1823, the Dutch colonial official A. H. Smissaert was appointed as the resident in Yogyakarta. Smissaert alienated the native aristocracy by offering to represent the young Sultan in a royal ceremony, and further angered them by demanding heavy indemnities after abolishing the land rent. Diponegoro was appointed to negotiate indemnities, but the negotiations went poorly, and by 1824 Diponegoro refused to be involved.
Outbreak
Political moves from other guardians of Hamengkubuwono V in 1824 resulted in the expulsion of several of Diponegoro's allies from court. Diponegoro also experienced humiliation from Smissaert and his officials. In early 1825, Dutch authorities annexed some territory from the Sultanate as a lease, without consulting Diponegoro in his capacity as the Sultan's guardian. During this period, Diponegoro claimed to have experienced a series of visions urging him to engage in a holy war. By late 1824, he began meeting with other Yogyakartan officials to plan a rebellion, prepared armaments and supplies, and contacting armed bandit groups. On 17 June 1825, Smissaert ordered a road near Yogya to be repaired, which happened to pass by Diponegoro's estate of Tegalreja. Occasional fights broke out between the road workers and Diponegoro's men, and by July, a large number of Diponegoro's supporters began gathering at Tegalreja for military action. On 20 July, a detachment of Dutch and Yogyakartan troops was sent to Tegalreja in order to arrest Diponegoro, and after a skirmish Diponegoro retreated with his men to Selarong Cave. Diponegoro declared his rebellion on 21 July 1825.
Forces
Dutch
Upon receiving news of Diponegoro's uprising, Dutch forces in the region quickly moved to Yogyakarta. Some of the Dutch forces in the archipelago was engaged in an expedition in South Sulawesi, and they were recalled to Java. Overall Dutch military command in the Indies, under Hendrik Merkus de Kock, had 12,500 men, of which half were native Indonesian recruits whose loyalties were doubted by the Dutch. He would later receive additional troops – 3,154 European soldiers from the Netherlands and over 10,000 native auxiliaries recruited during the war. De Kock's Javanese auxiliaries were equipped similarly with Diponegoro's men, and had similar issues on loyalty to the Dutch cause. A number of the Dutch soldiers and officers were veterans of the Napoleonic Wars, who had moved to Java to seek new fortunes.
The Dutch also made heavy use of soldiers from elsewhere in the archipelago. In 1828, for instance, while auxiliaries from Java and nearby Madura numbered just over 5,000, auxiliaries were also recruited from North Sulawesi and Gorontalo (~1,300 men), Buton (700 men), and the Maluku Islands (850 men). Balinese kingdoms also provided 1,000 soldiers as mercenaries to the Dutch. Regular Dutch troops were armed with flintlock muskets, and these were also captured and used by the rebels.
Princely states
The leadership of both Yogyakarta and Surakarta were split: British historian Peter Carey listed fifteen princes of the Yogyakartan royal family which sided with Diponegoro with a similar number remaining loyal to the Sultan, while Dutch records described the Surakarta Sunan Pakubuwono VI as "ambiguous" with a court divided between Dutch and Diponegoro supporters. On the other hand, the Mangkunegaran under Mangkunegara II took a more active pro-Dutch stance in the war, with the Mangkunegaran Legion campaigning independently against rebels in Surakartan and Yogyakartan territory until its defeat in 1826. He would later be given a Military Order of William award for his role in the war. The Pakualaman under Paku Alam I similarly remained loyal to the Dutch.
During British rule, the Sultanate of Yogyakarta alone was able to raise around 10,000 soldiers on a short notice. The cessions of land in 1812 had weakened the states, however. Throughout the war itself, the raising of troops by the princely states was limited, and were primarily small units policing secured territories. The Mangkunegaran Legion offered more troops, but due to lack of armaments, they were not raised. Dutch commanders throughout the war complained of the performance of troops provided by the Sunanate. Out of around 9,000 native auxiliary troops recorded by the Dutch in 1828, about 2,500 were part of the Mangkunegaran Legion.
Rebels
Diponegoro's forces quickly gathered at Selarong, with the Dutch reporting that "no fewer than seventy" members of the royal family joining him with their armed retinues. The men had limited numbers of firearms, being primarily equipped with Javanese traditional weapons such as bamboo spears. However, Diponegoro's men would also employ captured Dutch firearms and artillery. The rebels followed the organizational structure of the janissary units of the Ottoman Empire. Diponegoro subdivided his forces to sixteen commanders of noble origin, covering their own areas with a nominal force and appanage of 1,000 men and 10,000 households each, plus six units of royal guards. Diponegoro himself had a personal bodyguard of 300 to 400 cavalrymen and a similar number of armed men from a priestly order.
Overall military command was not held by Diponegoro, instead, it was held by Sentot Prawirodirdjo, son of the late rebel Rongga Prawiradirdja, late in the war. Other senior rebel leaders included Kyai Maja, Diponegoro's spiritual adviser, and Diponegoro's uncle Prince Jayakusuma. The army was initially financed through contributions from Javanese aristocrats siding with Diponegoro. Many villages also sided with Diponegoro's forces, and as these had been fortified prior to the war to prevent bandit raids, they became useful strongpoints for the rebellion. They also took control of abandoned Mataram forts.
During the guerilla war, rebels favored hiding in grassy areas near roads before using snipers to ambush Dutch formations, with cavalry units camouflaged by bamboo fences and local villagers armed with farming implements joining the fight to cut off Dutch lines of retreat. The villagers would also construct roadblocks from felled trees or sharpened bamboo stakes. Dutch authorities suspected British or American smugglers of selling firearms to Diponegoro. Rebels manufactured their own ammunition and gunpowder, while also receiving supplies from smugglers.
Course of the war
Beginnings
Diponegoro's forces in Selarong received an early morale boost by a successful ambush and destruction of a Dutch column on its way to assembling in Yogyakarta, which also allowed the rebels to capture Dutch weapons. De Kock was appointed commissioner to the princely states on 26 July, giving him authority over military operations and civil affairs in the region. By 28 July, Diponegoro's forces had moved out of Selarong, and laid siege to Yogyakarta. As Dutch forces sent reinforcements from Semarang in an attempt to relieve the siege, further uprisings aligned with Diponegoro broke out in Dutch-controlled territory recently ceded by the princely states to the north and northwest of Yogyakarta.
The Dutch relief force, accompanied by troops from Sumenep and the Mangkunegaran, arrived in Yogyakarta in 19 August and prevented the city from falling. Dutch forces also reinforced the Magelang area, suppressing several uprisings there. The rebels would unsuccessfully assault Yogyakarta several times throughout August and September, until a relief force of 7,500 commanded by de Kock arrived in Yogyakarta on 25 September and ended the siege. De Kock attempted to negotiate with Diponegoro by September 1825, but Diponegoro rejected his offer. An attempt by Dutch forces to assault Selarong failed shortly after, as Diponegoro had evacuated his hideout. De Kock continued his attempt to capture Diponegoro throughout late 1825 and 1826, but despite a series of skirmishes and battles, failed to capture him. Dutch forces also captured in June 1826 a rebel strongpoint at Pleret, Mataram's old capital, following an assault.
Diponegoro's army began to march northwards, killing a large number of Yogyakartan nobles in an ambush, destroying a Dutch column near Mount Merapi and seizing a Dutch strongpoint. He linked up with a rebel force commanded by Kyai Maja and moved to assault de Kock's headquarters in Surakarta. However, disagreements between Kyai Maja and Diponegoro caused delays which allowed Dutch forces to concentrate in Surakarta. Diponegoro was defeated near Gawok west of Surakarta on 15 October 1826, shattering his numerical advantage and severely limiting the rebels' ability to engage in offensive operations.