(1800–1830)
Distant Effects of Napoleonic Wars
At the beginning of the nineteenth century Bali remained relatively unaffected by the Western influences which were already transforming much of the Indonesian archipelago. Bali’s sixteenth century Hindu civilization was still inviolate to any serious religious, commercial, or political infiltration either by Muslims or by Christians. In the early decades of the century, however, there came intimations of what by mid-century amounted to the breaching of all the island’s defenses. What happened in Bali was a remote, tragic, and elsewhere almost unnoticed side-effect of the Napoleonic Wars.
The early triumphs of Napoleon occasioned the fall of the Netherlands, the extension of French influence not only into Holland itself but also into the Dutch possessions overseas, and a challenge to English power everywhere in the world. The English determined to protect themselves in India by seizing Java, thinking to foil Napoleon’s design of converting the Dutch colony into a base of Asian military operations of his own. This Java enterprise, in which the English succeeded brilliantly, several times focused incidental English and Dutch attention upon Bali. It served ever so slightly but significantly to illuminate and therefore to diminish the obscurity by which the island had previously been sheltered. Coming events were foreshadowed when the French–Dutch defenders of Java and the English challengers began to compete for Balinese allies in the forthcoming battle. The subsequent loss of Java to the English (1811) was a critical set-back to French interests in Asia and a far from unimportant episode in the defeat of Napoleon’s ambition to dominate the world. The eventual restoration of Java to the Dutch (1816) revived their own determination to dominate the whole of the Indies, inclusive of Bali, where their failure as yet to establish themselves very securely exposed them to the possibility of being forestalled by their presumed English ally. It is doubtful whether Napoleon himself had ever heard of Bali and the Balinese never identified him as their antipodal demon, but it may still be said, without doing grave damage to historicity, that Bali’s relatively serene isolation from the much troubled international scene was one of the casualties of Napoleon’s campaigns.
Daendels’ Design for Recruitment; van der Wahl’s Visit
Napoleon quite clearly signaled his own intentions with regard to Java by sending out French civilian and military personnel who quickly infiltrated the colonial administration. Napoleon himself picked a new Dutch Governor-General, Marshal Willem Daendels, appropriately known as the “Iron Marshal” and almost equally hated by the Dutch and the Indonesians. On behalf of the French, Daendels undertook enormously costly defense works which resulted in the swift completion of a military highway stretching the length of Java, the strengthening of many military garrisons, and the deaths of thousands of Javanese conscripted for corvée. Napoleon sent French troops under French commanders to reinforce the long neglected and badly demoralized Dutch garrisons which were stationed in all the important settlements. Daendels himself devised a scheme to import Balinese manpower to support the European troops. He commissioned a certain Captain van der Wahl of the Dragoons as his special agent to negotiate with the Balinese radjas.
Captain van der Wahl arrived in Bali in 1808 with instructions, it seems, merely to arrange with the radjas for recruitment (presumably by purchase) of Balinese soldiers and workers (i.e. slaves) for service with the joint Dutch–French forces. The doughty captain brilliantly over-fulfilled his mission. He succeeded in negotiating a very curious treaty of friendship and alliance with the Radja of Badung, who, as will be noted later, was always the most susceptible of all the radjas of the time to European blandishments. In return for the promise of military aid against his enemies, both domestic and foreign, and in return also for recognition as Susuhunan (Emperor) of Bali—a dignity which attached traditionally to the Dewa Agung, the Radja of Klungkung—the Radja of Badung placed himself and his realm under the personal protection of Marshal Daendels and the personal direction of Captain van der Wahl. At the same time the Radja designated van der Wahl as his private representative for dealing with foreigners, handling commerce, and working administrative reforms. The terms of the treaty reward word-by-word reading as an exercise of self-projection into the psychology of early Western negotiations with Balinese royalty:
Treaty of Friendship between Sri Paducca Goesti Moerah Made Pamatjoetan, Radja of Bali Badong and Captain of the Dragoons van der Wahl, Commissioner of Willem Daendels, Marshal of Holland, Privy Counselor of the Foreign Service, Holder of the Great Cross of the Order of the Dutch Kingdom, High Officer of the Legion of Honor of the French Kingdom, Governor-General of the Indies and Commander-in-Chief of the King’s Army and Navy therein.
(1.) Sri Paducca Goesti Moerah Made Pamatjoetan, Radja of Bali Badong in consideration of the trust and fatherly concern which the Dutch Government has constantly manifested in him as a friend and associate, and also in consideration of the high qualities and honorable sentiments of His Excellency Herman Willem Daendels, Marshal of Holland and concurrently Governor-General of the Indies, joins himself and his entire kingdom with the Dutch Government, seeking not only that he himself be taken under His Excellency’s personal protection but also his children, in life and death to be regarded as friends and kinsmen of His Excellency the Marshal and Governor-General, who accepts him and his into his most estimable fatherly protection.
(2.) Captain of the Dragoons van der Wahl undertakes that in half a month after the signing of this treaty Sri Paducca G.M.M. Pamatjoetan, Radja Bali Badong shall be proclaimed as Susuhunan of all Bali, the act to be signed by His Excellency the Marshal and Governor-General over the Great Seal.
(3.) Sri Paducca G.M.M.P., Radja of Bali Badong authorizes Captain of the Dragoons van der Wahl to build houses, forts, and batteries, to land cannons and troops of such kind and number as His Excellency the Marshal and Governor-General may see fit.
(4.) Sri Paducca G.M.M.P., Radja of Bali Badong, as of now places under Captain of the Dragoons van der Wahl all Chinese and other foreign residents with the power of administering them for their own well-being.
(5.) Sri Paducca G.M.M.P. shall receive from the Captain of the Dragoons van der Wahl all that he has need of from Batavia and Semarang, paying for it the price set by the aforesaid Captain.
(6.) Sri Paducca G.M.M.P. requests the aforesaid Captain to assume responsibility for the increase of the kingdom’s revenues and the improvement of its internal policy.
(7.) Captain of the Dragoons van der Wahl undertakes in the name of His Excellency the Marshal and Governor-General to protect Sri Paducca G.M.M.P., Radja of Bali Badong against his foreign and domestic enemies.
(Translated from the Dutch text as published in Annex C of Dr. E. Utrecht’s Sedjarah Hukum, etc., pp. 306–307.)
Had this quite outrageous agreement ever been implemented, the Island of Bali would have been converted into a fiefdom of the Iron Marshal with the dubious Captain of the Dragoons as regent. But Daendels was recalled and replaced shortly thereafter, the Captain vanished, the English conquered and ruled the Indies, and it served everyone’s purposes to forget this improbable arrangement. Nor did the Dutch choose to revive it when Napoleon was overthrown and the English handed back their empire in order to bolster the post-Napoleonic Dutch-English alliance, in which the Dutch, without the Indies, would have been a crippled and crippling partner.
English Occupation; Raffles and Crawfurd
Whether or not he was aware of Daendels’ overtures to the Balinese, and in all probability he was, Sir Stamford Raffles, the mastermind of the English invasion and the Lieutenant Governor-General of the occupation (1811–1816), entered into preliminary personal correspondence with certain of the
