(AFTERNOON ASSOCIATED PRESS CABLEGRAMS)
AMSTERDAM, Holland, Aug. 12. -- An official dispatch received here today gives an accout of a fierce battle with Achinese in Sumatra. Three hundred Achinese were killed and the Dutch loss was seven killed and fifty wounded.
Achin is a Moslem state in the northern part of the Dutch island of Sumatra. Recently the Dutch captured the Sultan, a man who had led his people in many fierce battles for over twenty years, and the above cablegram indicates that Holland is pushing forward in a desperate attempt to clean out all the Achinese. Achin has load a glorious history, which was recently told in London as follows:
"Achin has lived in history as a powerful kingdom, with an imperialism of its own and a king whose every word was law in many islands outside Achin. Elizabeth sent her greetings to the King of Achin, and envoys with confidential communications, and her successor was on such gracious terms with the King that he sent to Achin two brass cannon, which stand to this day at capital. So strong had the island in a few years of its, emerging from the position of a vassal state it broke the power of Malacca in ten expeditions, and fitted out five hundred ships, carrying sixty thousand men. It must have been one of the world's wonders, this. Achinese navy; quite a hundred of its ships were bigger than anything Europe had ever seen before. So the island state went on its way, swallowing up other states, mining gold and coining money, and encouraging wild extravagance 'in its monarchs, one of whom had a thousancl elephants of state. No country in the East, save Japan, was so righ in its not astonishing, perhaps, that the Achinese begat a pride of empire worthy of an imperial race. Pride goeth before a fall, and the fall of Achin has been complete. The days of its power have gone forever. Time was when England was interested enough in this little state to make treaties for its protection and so late as 1824 England and Holland agreed upon a treaty maintaining the independence of the kingdom, which, commercially, was in close touch with this country. It was to the port of Achin that the merchants of London directed their energies when they were seeking trade in India, and for generations the little kingdom was on friendly terms with England, who found her friendship useful."
The British withdrew their protection from Achin in 1873. In the following vear the Dutch started struggle has continued almost uninterruptedly since that time.
Credit to: The Pasific Commercial Advertiser., August 13, 1903