The Story Of The Mataram Company Attacking The Feces Behind The Nickname "Batavia, The City Of Tahi"

The old city of Batavia-Jakarta (Wikimedia Commons)

JAKARTA - The ambition of the King of Mataram, Sultan Agung (1613-1645) to defeat the Dutch trading partnership, the VOC is unquestionable. As the host, at that time the king wanted to show who really ruled the island of Java. As a result, Mataram then attacked Batavia twice, 1628 and 1629. Unfortunately, both attacks resulted in defeat.

The most bitter defeat of the Mataram soldiers who were under the command of Tumenggung Bahureksa and Ki Mandurareja occurred in the first attack. Although in a defensive position, the Dutch accidentally used secret ammunition, namely human feces or feces. Then, the Mataram Soldier commemorated the incident by calling it "Batavia as the City of Dung."

In the first attack in 1628, Mataram soldiers, numbering in the tens of thousands, immediately tried to approach the Dutch fort, Fort Hollandia. The movement of the soldiers also seemed to be in line with the mission given by Sultan Agung. Which is where the king is known to not want an area that is not conquered by Mataram.

Due to this attack, the Governor-General of the VOC who had served twice (1619-1623 and 1627-1629) Jan Pieterszoon Coen admitted that he never underestimated Mataram soldiers. For Coen, the Mataram soldiers were a staunch enemy. In fact, Coen said that in his report to the Council of the Indies November 3, 1628.

"They carried ladders and battering implements to climb the fort or destroy the walls. They were protected by several people, who continued to fire at the camp with rifles. However, as many as 24 of us who were in the stronghold resisted. who were persistent, so that during the night all the enemies were repelled, until all the gunpowder was gone, ”wrote Coen.

Batavia past (wikimedia commons)

Quoted from Adolf Heuken SJ in the book Historical Places in Jakarta (2007), the first Mataram attack seemed less successful. This happened because Mataram did not calculate in detail the food supplies for the troops. To make matters worse, Mataram's weapons were considered less modern which resulted in the failure to seize the fort and the city of Batavia, most of which were equipped with many cannons.

In the second attack too. Mataram, which was reluctant to learn from the first attack, had the same problem, namely a lack of logistics. However, unlike in the first attack, the logistical shortcomings in the second attack were due to the capture of the Mataram spies which led to the leakage of the attack plan. In line with that, the Dutch moved more to destroy the ships carrying logistics and war supplies belonging to Mataram.

"For fear of punishment, if they return home without victory, the Sundanese soldiers (Dipati Ukur) and many Central Javanese deserted and settled around the empty Batavia. Approximately 50 percent of Sultan Agung's troops died of hunger, disease, exhaustion, punishment, and Dutch bullets. "

Batavia City of Tahi

As told by a German, Johan Neuhof in a German-language book that has been translated into Dutch, Die Gesantschaft der Ost-Indischen Geselschaft in den Vereinigten Niederlaendern an Tartarischen Cham (1669). Neuhof said that during the first Mataram attack, the VOC camp ran into chaos against the Mataram soldiers.

When the Mataram soldiers first attacked the fortress of Fort Hollandia which is at the southern end of the city embankment. Mataram soldiers seemed to have the upper hand. Due to fierce resistance, the VOC garrisons were so overwhelmed that they ran out of ammunition.

"War immediately broke out between them and at that time the Dutch, because they could be beaten by the ferocity of the natives, were forced to use the stones they got instead of iron balls (for cannons). However, these efforts have failed, ”said Thomas Stamford Raffles in his masterpiece The History of Java (1817).

Batavia City (wikimedia commons)

In this precarious situation, Sgt. Hans Madelijn born in Pfalz (Germany) got a tricky trick. Madelijn, who was then 23 years old, immediately sneaked into the soldiers' room and asked his men to bring a basket full of feces to the arena.

With all his despair, Madelijn then ordered his men to throw the feces at the bodies of the Mataram soldiers who were inflamed and crawling over the walls of Hollandia. When hit by a bullet of this type of smell, the Mataram soldiers ran away shouting angrily:

"O, a person from Hollanda de bakkalay samma tay!" - O, the demon of the Dutch fights with excrement - said the Mataram soldier in Malay. Interestingly, this language became the first Malay language to be recorded in a German-language book about Jakarta.

thanks to a fecal attack, the Mataram soldiers retreated to their camp in the interior of Batavia. This also adds to the record of the defeat of Mataram's first attack against Batavia. Because the Company troops had an unusual way of defending. In the end, the Mataram soldiers then dubbed Fort Hollandia as the "City of Tahi" which gradually spread to become Batavia, the City of Tahi.

With this victory, the Company troops made the story of their struggle to defeat the Mataram soldiers with feces as a hereditary story that was always proud of in many places. Iksaka Banu in his short story entitled 'Mawar di Kanal Macan in the book All Untuk Indies (2014), tells that the Dutch soldiers' eccentric tactics were always warmly discussed by Dutch soldiers in all situations.

Corner of the city of Batavia (wikimedia commons)

During one of the dialogues at a shop in Batavia, a Dutch soldier asked his colleague to recount the Batavia City Tahi incident. Come on, Lieutenant. Tell us all, how did you and Monsieur Jaques Lefebre's people hold back the invasion of Mataram? "

His colleague replied: "It's been a long time. Many places, figures, and positions have changed. I will often ask in between my stories to equalize the point of view. It must be very boring to hear. Besides, the designation was wrong. In my opinion, all the inhabitants of Batavia at that time were heroes. Especially, Sergeant Madelijn. "

Even so, this strange tactic actually made the Dutch camp a victim. Shortly after the attack many Dutch people in the city such as women, children, and dozens of people were stricken with roode loop, or dysentery. "Dung that helps, excrement kills us," muttered one of the VOC soldiers.