Diponegoro Fighting against the Dutch When did he start fighting the Dutch? Mount Merapi's eruption in 1822 and a cholera epidemic in 1824 furthered the view that a cataclysm is inbound,
Was he successful in his fight against the Dutch?
Was Diponegoro successful in his fight against the Dutch?
Dutch colonial rule was becoming unpopular among local farmers because of tax rises, crop failures and among Javanese nobles because the Dutch colonial authorities deprived them of their right to lease land. Diponogoro was widely believed to be the Ratu Adil, the just ruler predicted in the Pralembang Jayabaya. Mount Merapi's eruption in 1822 and a cholera epidemic in 1824 furthered the view that a cataclysm is inbound, eliciting widespread support for Diponegoro. In the days leading up to the war's outbreak, no action was taken by local Dutch officials although rumors of his upcoming insurrection had been floating about. Prophesies and stories, ranging from visions from the tomb of Sultan Ageng Tirtayasa to his contact with Nyai Roro Kidul, spread across the populace. The beginning of the war saw large losses on the side of the Dutch, due to their lack of coherent strategy and commitment in fighting Diponegoro's guerrilla warfare. Ambushes were set up, and food supplies were denied to the Dutch troops. The Dutch finally committed themselves to controlling the spreading rebellion by increasing the number of troops and sending General De Kock to stop the insurgency. De Kock developed a strategy of fortified camps (benteng) and mobile forces. Heavily fortified and well-defended soldiers occupied key landmarks to limit the movement of Diponegoro's troops while mobile forces tried to find and fight the rebels. From 1829, Diponegoro definitively lost the initiative and he was put in a defensive position; first in Ungaran, then in the palace of the Resident in Semarang, before finally retreating to Batavia. Many troops and leaders were defeated or deserted. CANNOTANSWER
Diponegoro definitively lost the initiative
Prince Diponegoro (; born Bendara Raden Mas Mustahar, ; later Bendara Raden Mas Antawirya ; 11 November 1785 – 8 January 1855), also known as Dipanegara, was a Javanese prince who opposed the Dutch colonial rule. The eldest son of the Yogyakartan Sultan Hamengkubuwono III, he played an important role in the Java War between 1825 and 1830. After his defeat and capture, he was exiled to Makassar, where he died, 69 years old.

His five-year struggle against the Dutch control of Java has become celebrated by Indonesians throughout the years, acting as a source of inspiration for the fighters in the Indonesian National Revolution and nationalism in modern-day Indonesia among others. He is a national hero in Indonesia.

Early life 

Diponegoro was born on 11 November 1785 in Yogyakarta, and was the eldest son of Sultan Hamengkubuwono III of Yogyakarta. During his youth at the Yogyakartan court, major occurrences such as the dissolution of the VOC, the British invasion of Java, and subsequent return to Dutch rule took place. During the invasion, the Sultan Hamengkubuwono II, pushed aside in his power on 1810 in favor of Diponegoro's father, used the general disruption to regain control. In 1812 however he was once more removed from the throne and exiled off-Java by the British forces. In this process, Diponegoro acted as an adviser to his father and had apparently provided aid to the British forces to the point where Raffles offered him the Sultan title which he declined, perhaps due to the fact that his father was still reigning.

When the sultan died in 1814, Diponegoro was passed over for the succession to the throne in favor of his younger half brother, Hamengkubuwono IV (r. 1814–1821), who was supported by the Dutch despite the late Sultan's urging for Diponegoro to be the next Sultan. Being a devout Muslim, Diponegoro was alarmed by the relaxing of religious observance at his half brother's court in contrast with his own life of seclusion, as well as by the court's pro-Dutch policy.

In 1821, famine and plague spread in Java. Hamengkubuwono IV died in 1822 under mysterious circumstances, leaving only an infant son as heir. When the year-old boy was appointed as Sultan Hamengkubuwono V, there was a dispute over his guardianship. Diponegoro was again passed over, though he believed he had been promised the right to succeed his half brother - even though such a succession was illegal under Islamic rules. This series of natural disasters and political upheavals finally erupted into full-scale rebellion.

Fighting against the Dutch 

Dutch colonial rule was becoming unpopular among local farmers because of tax rises, crop failures and among Javanese nobles because the Dutch colonial authorities deprived them of their right to lease land. Diponogoro was widely believed to be the Ratu Adil, the just ruler predicted in the Pralembang Jayabaya. Mount Merapi's eruption in 1822 and a cholera epidemic in 1824 furthered the view that a cataclysm was imminent, eliciting widespread support for Diponegoro.

In the days leading up to the war's outbreak, no action was taken by local Dutch officials although rumors of his upcoming insurrection had been floating about. Prophesies and stories, ranging from visions from the tomb of Sultan Ageng TirtayasaSultan Ageng Tirtayasa is Banten's Sultan or supposed to be Sultan Agung, the first Mataram's Sultan (predecessor of Yogyakarta and Surakarta Sultanate). to his contact with Nyai Roro Kidul, spread across the populace.

The beginning of the war saw large losses on the side of the Dutch, due to their lack of coherent strategy and commitment in fighting Diponegoro's guerrilla warfare. Ambushes were set up, and food supplies were denied to the Dutch troops.
The Dutch finally committed themselves to controlling the spreading rebellion by increasing the number of troops and sending General De Kock to stop the insurgency. De Kock developed a strategy of fortified camps (benteng) and mobile forces. Heavily fortified and well-defended soldiers occupied key landmarks to limit the movement of Diponegoro's troops while mobile forces tried to find and fight the rebels. From 1829, Diponegoro definitively lost the initiative and he was put in a defensive position; first in Ungaran, then in the palace of the Resident in Semarang, before finally retreating to Batavia. Many troops and leaders were defeated or deserted.

Capture and exile 

In 1830 Diponegoro's military was as good as beaten and negotiations were started. Diponegoro demanded to have a free state under a sultan and wanted to become the Muslim leader (caliph) for the whole of Java. In March 1830 he was invited to negotiate under a flag of truce. He accepted and met at the town of Magelang but was taken prisoner on 28 March despite the flag of truce. De Kock claims that he had warned several Javanese nobles to tell Diponegoro he had to lessen his previous demands or that he would be forced to take other measures.

Circumstances of Diponegoro's arrest were seen differently by himself and the Dutch. The former saw the arrest as a betrayal due to the flag of truce, while the latter declared that he had surrendered. Imagery of the event, by Javanese Raden Saleh and Dutch Nicolaas Pieneman, depicted Diponegoro differently - the former visualizing him as a defiant victim, the latter as a subjugated man. Immediately after his arrest, he was taken to Semarang and later to Batavia, where he was detained at the basement of what is today the Jakarta History Museum. On 1830, he was taken to Manado, Sulawesi by ship.

After several years in Manado, he was moved to Makassar in July 1833 where he was kept within Fort Rotterdam due to the Dutch believing that the prison was not strong enough to contain him. Despite his prisoner status, his wife Ratnaningsih and some of his followers accompanied him into exile and he received high-profile visitors including 16 year old Dutch Prince Henry in 1837. Diponegoro also composed manuscripts on Javanese history and wrote his autobiography, Babad Diponegoro, during his exile. His physical health deteriorated due to old age, and he died on 8 January 1855, where he died, 69 years old.

Before he died, Diponegoro mandated that he was to be buried in Kampung Melayu, a neighborhood then inhabited by the Chinese and the Dutch. This was followed, with the Dutch donating  of land for his graveyard which today has shrunk to just . ft.). Later, his wife and followers were also buried in the same complex. His tomb is today visited by pilgrims - often military officers and politicians.

Legacy 

Diponegoro's dynasty would survive to the present day, with their sultans holding secular powers as the governors of Special Region of Yogyakarta. In 1969, a large monument Sasana Wiratama was erected in Tegalrejo, in Yogyakarta city's perimeter, with sponsorship from the military where Diponegoro's palace was believed to have stood, although at that time there were little to show for such a building.
In 1973, under the presidency of Suharto, Diponegoro was made a National Hero of Indonesia.

Kodam IV/Diponegoro, Indonesian Army regional command for the Central Java Military Region, is named after him. The Indonesian Navy has two ships named after him. The first of these was KRI Diponegoro (306), a  commissioned in 1964 and retired in 1973. The second ship is , the lead ship of  purchased from the Netherlands. Diponegoro University in Semarang was also named after him, along with many major roads in Indonesian cities. Diponegoro is also depicted in Javanese stanzas, wayang and performing arts, including self-authored Babad Diponegoro.

The militancy of people's resistance in Java would rise again during the Indonesian Revolution, which saw the country gain independence from the Netherlands. Early Islamist political parties in Indonesia, such as the Masyumi, portrayed Diponegoro's jihad as a part of the Indonesian national struggle and by extension Islam as a prominent player in the formation of the country.

During the Royal Netherlands state visit to Indonesia in March 2020, King Willem-Alexander returned the kris of Prince Diponegoro to Indonesia, received by President Joko Widodo. His kris was long considered lost, but has now been found, after being identified by the Dutch National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden. The kris of Prince Diponegoro represents a historic importance, as a symbol of Indonesian heroic resilience and the nation's struggle for independence. The extraordinary gold-inlaid Javanese dagger previously was held as the Dutch state collection, and is now part of the collection of the Indonesian National Museum.

References

Further reading 
 Carey, P.B.R. Babad Dipanagara : an account of the outbreak of the Java War (1825-30) : the Surakarta court version of the Babad Dipanagara Kuala Lumpur: Printed for the Council of the M.B.R.A.S. by Art Printing Works, 1981. Monograph (Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Malaysian Branch); no.9.
 Sagimun M. D. Pangeran Dipanegara : pahlawan nasional Jakarta: Proyek Biografi Pahlawan Nasional, Departemen Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan, 1976. (Indonesian language)
 Yamin, M. Sedjarah peperangan Dipanegara : pahlawan kemerdekaan Indonesia Jakarta : Pembangunan, 1950. (Indonesian language)

External links

 A Dutch web page on Diponegoro
 The web site of the Prince Raden Saleh Foundation. See the page "Capture of Prince Diponegoro"
 Pictures of Prince Diponegoro & related

 
1785 births
1855 deaths
Indonesian Muslims
Javanese people
History of Java
National Heroes of Indonesia
Dutch East Indies
People from Yogyakarta
Indonesian rebels
Indonesian royalty
Tjoet Nja Meuthia (February 15, 1870 – October 24, 1910), also known as Tjut Meutia, was an Indonesian national heroine.

Life
Meutia was born in 1870 in Perlak, Aceh.  When she grew into adulthood, she married Teuku Sam Searah. They divorced not long afterward.

Against the Dutch
Cut Nyak Meutia's new husband was Cut Muhammad or Teuku Cik Tunong. Differing from his brother, Cut Muhammad did not obey the Dutch because he didn't accept their colonization of Aceh. Cut Muhammad and his wife worked hand in hand with the Acehnese to fight against the Dutch.

In 1899 Teuku Cik Tunong led a successful attack against the Dutch. In the beginning, the Dutch troops were at a loss as to what to do. In the following two years, however, Cik Tunong and his troops had not made any movements. The Dutch thought that they might have lost their spirit. Yet in 1901, Teuku Cik Tunong and his troops made a sudden attack and succeeded in destroying the Dutch defense there.

For his success, Teuku Cik Tunong was soon appointed District Chief of Keureutoe by the Sultan of Aceh. From 1901 to 1903 Teuku Cik Tunong had been the commander of some battles in the northeast of Aceh. There, he and his troops killed 10 of soldiers of the Dutch and seized 67 guns from them. Mubin and Pang Gadeng, two surrendered spies, had made Cut Nyak Meutia and her husband successful in the battles.

In 1905, Teuku Cik Tunong was caught by the Dutch and put in jail and was shot dead by them the following year.

The death of Teuku Cik Tunong had made Cut Nyak Meutia struggle with the new commander, Pang Nanggroe, who was her last husband. Pang Nanggroe was also killed in the battle on September 26, 1910. His death made Cut Nyak Meutia the new commander, with only 45 men and 13 guns left.

Cut Nyak Meutia was found by the Dutch in September 1910 at her hideaway in Paya Cicem. She resisted capture, wielding a rencong. She was killed when the Dutch troops shot her in the head and chest.

Legacy
She is now seen as a symbol of pride among Indonesian women, along with other heroines such as Raden Ayu Kartini and Cut Nyak Dhien. On May 2, 1964 she was proclaimed a National Hero of Indonesia.

She is featured on the 1,000 Indonesian Rupiah note, as part of the National Heroes series.

See also
 Aceh
 National Hero of Indonesia

References

External links
(Indonesian)
 Cut Nyak Meutia (1870–1910), Pahlawan Kemerdekaan Nasional | Ensiklopedi Tokoh Indonesia at www.tokohindonesia.com
 Jagoan! Orang Indonesia (Pahlawan) at www.jagoan.or.id

1870 births
1910 deaths
National Heroes of Indonesia
Women in war in Indonesia
Women in 19th-century warfare
Women in war 1900–1945 Muhammad Saman (1836 – 21 January 1891), better known as Teungku Chik di Tiro (usually spelt Cik di Tiro in Indonesia), was an Acehnese guerrilla  fighter. On 6 November 1973 he was declared a National Hero of Indonesia.

Biography
Di Tiro was born to Tengku Sjech Abdullah and Siti Aisyah in Tiro, Pedir, Aceh Sultanate, in 1836. Until the age of 15, he studied with his father; he then began studying with his uncle, Teungku Chik Dayah Tjut di Tiro. After studying under several more teachers, he moved to Aceh Besar and spent two years there. By day he would study Islam and by night he would join his fellows in fighting against Dutch colonials. He was eventually called home to Tiro, where he began teaching with his uncle.

After several years as a teacher, di Tiro went on the hajj to Mecca. There, he met several Islamic leaders and other revolutionaries from Sumatra, Java, and Borneo; through discussions on imperialism and colonialism, di Tiro became more interested in fighting against the Dutch.

One day in 1880, after di Tiro returned to Tiro, a group of guerrilla fighters came through, looking for an ulama (religious leader) to lead the fight. Di Tiro volunteered and joined the guerrillas in their base in Gunung Miram. He then traveled throughout Aceh. Every time he stopped in a town, he would deliver lectures at a mosque about holy war and how it was their duty to fight against unbelievers. At the same time, he sent letters to other ulama to call them to war, determined to have driven the Dutch out of Aceh by 1883.

Soon di Tiro and the ulama had collected 6,000 soldiers to fight against the Dutch, as well as the support of the Sultan of Aceh. The Dutch, although aware of the impending rebellion, remained unaware of di Tiro's identity. Soon his troops cut communications between Dutch fortresses and established their own base in Mureu. Previous struggles in the 1870s had led the Dutch to double their numbers in Aceh.

In May 1881, di Tiro and his troops captured the Dutch fortress in Indrapuri, sparking the Aceh War. Thiw was followed by the ones in Krueng Jreu and Gle Kameng.  In response, the Dutch reinforced their fortresses in Lambaro, Aneuk Galong, and Samahani. Through 1882 and 1883, the two sides continued to fight, with the Acehnese gaining ground and taking over the island of Breuh.  In early 1883, di Tiro's forces attacked the Dutch stronghold in Kutaraja (now Banda Aceh); despite failing to take the fort, they succeeded in killing the Dutch . At the peak of the war, the Dutch controlled only  of land; before the war, they had controlled nearly all of Aceh.

In April 1884, the sultan was told that di Tiro was now leader of the people. In response, the sultan made a proclamation that he was still sultan; in August di Tiro himself declared that he had no intentions to be sultan.

By 1885, di Tiro felt that the Dutch were ready to capitulate. As such, he sent an ultimatum to Assistant Resident Van Langen, offering peace if the Dutch would convert to Islam. Although some Dutchmen came claiming that they were willing to convert, they were later discovered to be spies. In 1888 di Tiro sent another letter; this one also received no response from the Dutch leadership. He then led more expeditions against Dutch forces, despite still being unable to enter Kutaraja.

For several more years di Tiro led his troops against the Dutch; the attempts to spy on him led him to declare that he would not rest until all the Dutch were killed. On 21 January 1891, di Tiro was served poisoned food by the son of the leader of Sagi, whom the Dutch had offered a leadership position if he would kill di Tiro; despite being taken to Aneuk Galong fortress to be treated, di Tiro soon died.  He was later buried at the family graveyard in Meureu, Aceh Besar. His struggle was continued by other Acehnese figures, including Teuku Umar, Cut Nyak Dhien, and Cut Nyak Meutia, as well as his family.

Legacy
On 6 November 1973, President Suharto declared di Tiro a National Hero of Indonesia through Presidential Decree number 087/TK of 1973.  He has numerous streets named after him, including one of the main streets in the well-known suburb of  Menteng in Jakarta.

Personal life
Di Tiro had five sons: Teungku Mat Amin, Teungku Mahidin, Teungku di Tungkob, Teungku di Buket, and Teungku Lambada. Through them he was the great-grandfather of Free Aceh Movement founder Hasan di Tiro.

References
Footnotes

Bibliography

1836 births
1891 deaths
Guerrillas
Deaths by poisoning
Acehnese independence activists
National Heroes of Indonesia
People from Pidie Regency