On ‘war task’ and ‘peace work’. The Dutch East Indies Red Cross between the colonial wars and the Second World War

Leo Van Bergen

doi:10.3989/asclepio.2014.05

Abstract

After the wars against Atjeh (1873-1907) finished, Dutch rule over the Dutch East India was total. The Dutch East Indies Red Cross (DEIRC) awaited a new task, preparing to give aid in the case of a foreign invasion. The problem was that the end of the wars against the autochthonous “rebellions” also meant the end of Red Cross visibility and in the minds of many, the end to Red Cross urgency. Aid in wars against a real opponent is from a point of public relations much more important than the preparation of aid against an unknown opponent. “Work in times of peace” had to be the answer to this problem, but this work was only in name, and not de facto different from preparation of aid in times of war. Through “peace work” the DEIRC prepared itself for the war-task. To be able to fulfil the war-task the Red Cross had to have enough doctors, nurses, and stretcher-bearers. Visible peace-work had to provide for that. It enlarged the Red Cross’ popularity and trained its volunteers. However, at the beginning of 1942, when the Japanese invaded the Dutch East Indies, it turned out to be too little, too late.

Highlights

One of the first rules of the Dutch East-Indies Red Cross (DEIRC) –set up in 1870, three years after its mother organisation in the Netherlands, the Dutch Red Cross (DRC)– was that it in case of war or other threats to the Dutch East Indies possessions, as they were called, it would contact the chiefs of the departments of War and Navy forces to see what it could do “to fulfil the needs of the Dutch land and sea forces”
For the Dutch East Indies Red Cross the times between the three major wars fought in the Dutch East-Indies –the Aceh war 1873-1907, the Second World War (1942-1945) and the war of decolonisation (1945-1949)– were times of little activity
Around and about World War I there was some deliberation on the obvious answer to this problem, work in times of peace, but the main board would not have it

Summary

INTRODUCTION

One of the first rules of the Dutch East-Indies Red Cross (DEIRC) –set up in 1870, three years after its mother organisation in the Netherlands, the Dutch Red Cross (DRC)– was that it in case of war or other threats to the Dutch East Indies possessions, as they were called, it would contact the chiefs of the departments of War and Navy forces to see what it could do “to fulfil the needs of the Dutch land and sea forces”.1 Even theoretically there was no mention whatsoever of aid to sick or wounded adversaries. It had to remain perfectly clear that the social work was a means and not a goal in itself, as the work in the polyclinics had been For this could only hinder the second most important task of every Red Cross organisation: preparing in times of peace for the aid to sick and wounded soldiers during war. Mainly due to the fact that it recruited its board members primarily from conservative, aristocratic circles, until the end of the Second World War, or even later, until February 1953 when parts of the provinces Zealand and South-Holland were flooded, it was not the people’s movement it is today To end this situation, in the whole of the Indies propaganda had to be used to make the population accept the ideal of the Red Cross and especially the work that followed from it. This question has to be answered in the negative

CONCLUSION

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