(Re-)negotiating Masculinities in the Kampoeng: Medical Mercenaries and the Aceh War, c. 1880–1890

ABSTRACT Around 300 physicians from Switzerland, the German as well as the Austro-Hungarian Empire joined the Dutch Colonial Army between 1814 and 1914. While their motives to volunteer in the first place could widely differ, many among them eagerly published on their experiences as medical officers ‘Far East’, presenting their alleged heroic deeds and the struggles they faced as medical men in the tropics to a broad readership in Germanophone Europe. This article zooms in on the lives of three such ‘medical mercenaries’ deployed in Aceh, where the Dutch fought one of the longest, most costly, and deadly wars in their Imperial history: the Swiss Dr. Heinrich Erni, Austrian Dr. Heinrich Breitenstein, and Prussian Dr. Friedrich Wilhelm Stammeshaus. By analysing their testimonies of the daily lives in the military camps, it asks how European masculinities were forged, challenged, and contested through medicine and medical experts in colonial wars fought in from a European perspective remote, unknown tropical outdoor spaces.


Introduction
The doctor […] must suppress the storm in his soul; he must not defend his life; he must save the lives of those close to him, he lets the bullets whiz around his ears, he does not think of his lifehe must remain calm; he is braver because he does not have to fight, he is braver because he cannot fight […]. 1 In 1876, the Austrian medical doctor Heinrich Breitenstein decided to join the Dutch Colonial Army (KNIL) as a medical officer to serve in colonised Indonesia, where he would spend a total of 21 years. 2In the late nineteenth century, dozens of physicians from Germanophone Europe volunteered to aid the Dutch Empire in its struggle against the Sultanate of Aceh in northwestern Sumatra, the most costly and resource-intensive war in the history of Dutch imperialism in Southeast Asia. 3 In his memoirs quoted above, Breitenstein himself ascribes physicians a particularly crucial role in the Aceh War.And in some ways, he was right in his assessment: thousands of European and indigenous soldiers troops serving the Dutch troops succumbed to the persistent Acehnese resistance fighters' klewang and an even greater number died of allegedly tropical, epidemic diseases.
Historians have attributed medicine a somewhat special part in the broader history of imperial conquest.Labelled one of the 'tools of empire' by historian Daniel Headrick, medicinealong with other 'modern' technologies such as high-tech weapons or transport technologieswas key in the consolidation of empire in the second half of the nineteenth century. 4In recent years, a large and even growing body of literature has challenged notions of modernity as well as 'modern' technologies such as medicine as exclusively European developments by pointing to the significance of non-European environments and epistemologies in the making of medical knowledge. 5Relatedly, a growing number of historians have observed that, from the late nineteenth century onwards, developments in 'Western' science and medicine were the result of transnationalor transimperialexchanges, linking actors and institutions beyond the clear-cut boundaries of individual nation states or empires. 6As the case of Breitenstein and his fellow 'medical mercenaries' in Dutch services exemplifies, it was not just medical discourses that moved beyond national and imperial borders via transnationally read scientific publications, but, first and foremost, individual physicians carrying, transforming and encountering 'novel' practices and theories related to health and the human body across nations and empires.
Simultaneously, historians of gender and science have stressed the ideological character of male, scientific identities as well as their discursive power in constructing hierarchical differences between genders, classes, and races through science and technology. 7Colonial wars, too, were sites where hegemonic ideals of (scientific) manliness were challenged, forged, and contested, which holds just as true for non-combatant militaries such as medical officers.'As both doctors and servicemen', historian Jessica Meyer points out, 'these men held positions which gave them access to important forms of masculine authority, particularly over young working-class rankers, through officer status and professional expertise'. 8This strive for masculine authority becomes apparent in the quote cited above when Breitenstein stresses the immense 'bravery' embodied by medical officers.
This study aims at bringing together these current trends in transnational and transimperial approaches in the history of colonial medicine and the history of gender and science by analysing how competing masculinities were (re-)negotiated in the context of health and medicine in the Aceh War (1873-1904/14)  in northwestern Sumatra.For this purpose, it will focus on the published memoirs of two 'medical mercenaries', the Austrian-Hungarian Dr. Heinrich Breitenstein and the Swiss Dr. Heinrich Erni, as well as letters by the Prussian Dr. Friedrich Wilhelm Stammeshaus, who volunteered to join the Dutch War in Aceh in the late nineteenth century.A first aim of this paper is to investigate the relationship between the construction of European masculinities and 'Western' medicine in the tropics through the testimonies of medical officers, who, as educated, non-combatant, bourgeois men, occupied a 'mediating position' in the 'imperial social formation'. 9By zooming in on the struggles European men of medicine encountered in the 'colonial field', the paper aims at illuminating, to put it in the words of historian Brett Bennet, 'the uncertainties, inconsistencies, modifications, and contradictions that afflicted Western efforts to impose its will on other peoples'. 10Second, applying a transimperial perspective, this paper reconstructs the ways in which ideals of imperial masculinities and imaginaries reached into countries such as Switzerland, Habsburg Empire and the German States and later Empire situated 'at the margins of imperial Europe'. 11he first section gives a brief overview of the relationship between the Dutch East Indies and Germanophone Europe and of the sources considered here to illuminate the ways in which colonial ideals of manliness reached into these European 'hinterlands' of Empire.Section two zooms in on the daily lives of medical officers in the camps and kampoengs (villages) in northwestern Sumatra.On the one hand, it analyses the ways in which German, Austrian, and Swiss medical officers positioned themselves as non-combatant militaries in an 'exotic' and 'unknown' environment serving a 'foreign' imperial power.On the other hand, it points to the fragile nature of European medicine in the tropics, where 'tropical' diseasesin particular beriberileft European medical men severely frustrated in the light of lacking effective cures.The third section focuses on the medicalisation of 'vices'.In the military camps, the temptations posed by alcohol consumption and prostitution among European soldiers caused great concern among European medical professionals.The main aim is to investigate the discursive strategies applied by medical officers to solidify and enhance their own social standing and authority as bourgeois men in the colonial social order through the control of the bodies of lower class 'white subalterns'. 12The following section discusses medical officers' views on indigenous women they encountered in the surroundings of the military camps.While they carefully endorsed the presence of Njai, indigenous 'housekeepers' who lived in concubinage with soldiers, as a means for European soldiers to uphold a 'respectable' lifestyle, their urge to assert their own physical distance from local women reflects medical officers' struggles to maintain a bourgeois lifestyle in the 'morally depraved' tropics.Furthermore, the important role of feminised, indigenous medical traditions in the Dutch East Indies' society threatened their self-perception as superior men of science.

The Dutch East Indies and Germanophone Europe
The Aceh War (1873-1904/14) in northwestern Sumatra was a particularly momentous war theatre in the history of Dutch imperialism in Southeast Asia.Not only did it take the Dutch more than 40 years to violently 'pacify' the Acehnese guerrilla resistance. 13(Seemingly) epidemic and tropical diseases such as malaria, cholera or beriberi could cost the lives of entire regiments.Meanwhile, the Dutch Colonial Army (KNIL) was not able to meet its high demands for physicians (and other military personnel) with volunteers from the Netherlands alone.Consequently, the KNIL intensified its efforts to recruit medical practitioners in Europe.The German States and Empire, the Habsburg Empire, and Switzerlandtogether with Belgiumhistorically belonged to the main recruiting areas following the Dutch Empire's demand for soldiers, engineers and physicians. 14As recent historical research has demonstrated, even countries with no, late, or scattered empires of their own such as Switzerland or various Nordic countries were, despite being regarded as 'outsiders' in the imperial world order, deeply enmeshed in the colonial projects of their imperial neighbours. 15The colonial endeavours of Heinrich Breitensten, Heinrich Erni, and Friedrich Wilhelm Stammeshaus, all of them 'foreigners' in the Dutch Empire, too, have to be considered in the light of such global, imperial labour markets.
Germanophone mercenaries' motives for joining the KNIL in the first place were manifold.In his letters to his parents, the Prussian Friedrich Wilhelm Stammeshaus, for example, mentions 'financial burdens', which he accumulated during his time as a medical student and frat boy. 16The Swiss Conrad Kläsi, on the other hand, wrote in his application to the Swiss Federal Council that he wished to conduct 'natural scientific research' in the Dutch East Indies. 17In most cases, however, the sources are largely silent as to why medical professionals from Switzerland, Austria-Hungary and the German States and Empire initially decided to serve a foreign army in the Far East.What we do know is that once they arrived in or returned from the Indies, many medical mercenaries shared their experiences in Aceh with their relatives in Europe or published (mostly German-language) travelogues and memoirs on their alleged adventures.
In 1888, only shortly after ending his service with the KNIL, the Swiss Heinrich Erni would publish parts of his memoirs entitled Die Behandlung der Verwundeten im Kriege der Niederländer gegen das Sultanat Atjeh, that were based on the diaries he kept during his stay in Aceh. 18The publication was distributed by the Basel-based publishing house Benno Schwabe (today's Schwabe Verlag), that focussed on literary and scientific publications. 19In his published memoirs, Erni acquainted a Swiss readership with the history and agendas of Dutch Imperialism in Aceh, the encounters with indigenous and European populations, and, of course, his own heroic deeds in Dutch services.
Heinrich Breitenstein, too, published memoirs that were allegedly based on the diaries he kept in the Dutch East Indies. 20After leaving the Dutch East Indies and relocating to Karlsbad, a small town in today's Czech Republic, the Th.Grieben's Verlag based in Leipzig published the trilogy 21 Jahre in Indien.Aus dem Tagebuche eines Militärarztes, each focusing on one of the islands Breitenstein was stationed on: Borneo (part 1, 1899), Java (part 2, 1900) and Sumatra (part 3, 1902).Breitenstein justifies the need for his books by stating that 'many a work has been written in this genre', however none so far in the German language.The third actor considered here, Friedrich Wilhelm Stammeshaus, did not choose to publish on his experiences as a medical officer in Aceh.He did, however, frequently send letters to his Prussian relatives, that, in addition to the published memoirs, form the basis of the analysis to follow.
Of course, there are many pitfalls in basing historical analysis on sources such as memoirs or travelogues written from a European perspective.As has been noted by Mary Louise Pratt, the representations of the non-European world in travelogues are viewed through 'imperial eyes'. 21Notwithstanding the attached risk of reproducing Eurocentric narratives, I believe that a close reading of these sources against the grain allows differentiation.While struggling for a hegemonic position in the 'imperial social formation', the actors under consideration here found themselves in a constant process of negotiating their social standing towards their Dutch superiors, the European lower classes, and the indigenous populations they encountered.Furthermore, F.W. Stammeshaus' personal letters allow a small, yet illuminating glimpse into the intimate interpersonal connections medical officers forged in Aceh that further destabilises European medical professionals' claims to viewing the Indies through a rational, objective, male gaze.Taken together, I thus hope that unearthing the contradictions in their claims to white, male hegemony in a colonial context simultaneously allows to shed light on the fragility of European, male, imperial identities.

Fighting Two Kinds of Enemies: Medical Mercenaries in Aceh
Atjeh is a voracious boil for Holland that defies all firm calculation.Either Holland must abandon the occupation of Atjeh altogether, since […] the Dutch-Indian army in Atjeh is melting like snow at the constant attacks of the enemy population and the devastation wrought by the beri-beri disease.[…] Or else Holland will once again muster a mighty battle. 22ile they were, being 'foreigners', 'colonial outsiders' in the Dutch East Indies' European society, medical mercenaries were active participants in the Dutch struggle against the Acehnese resistance.In a sense of what the historian Martin Brossenbroek coined 'living tools of empire', medical officers were crucial assets to the Dutch Colonial Army as they secured the survival of its troops. 23he accounts of Germanophone medical mercenaries in Aceh reflect their ambivalent position in the Dutch East Indies as they oscillate between a certain sense of rational distance from this 'foreign' and violent war and a simultaneous sense of belonging to European civilisation vis-à-vis the Acehnese enemy.The Swiss physician Heinrich Erni, for example, expresses a certain sympathy for the Acehnese resistance fighters when he admires their 'tall, husky figure' and expresses his 'greatest respect for [their] bravery and endurance' 24 while criticising the Dutch troops who 'did not treat the Acehnese people who fell into their hands very gently either'. 25At the same time, Erni fears that with Aceh 'falls the glory of Holland in India', that he strongly admires throughout his published memoirs by, for example, repeatedly stressing the hospitals, railways, and other infrastructures established by the Dutch in Aceh.Furthermore, despite his partial admiration of their bravery and endurance, Erni points to the 'fanaticism' of the predominantly Muslim Acehnese, whose belief 'that they will enter paradise after death on the battlefield' made them 'foolhardy'. 26Heinrich Breitenstein largely agrees with Erni's views on the Acehnese fanaticism, adding that: Just as in Java and on the other islands of the Indian archipelago the great multitude of the people […] the domination of the Dutch government, because they can enjoy personal security under its sceptre, and have nothing to fear for their buffalo, for their wife and daughter, while their own prince is and remains a despot, and in Atjeh it is not only the princes but also the priests who suck the people dry under all possible and impossible pretexts. 27 other words: despite being 'foreigners' in the Dutch Empire and non-combatant members of its colonial army, medical mercenaries from Germanophone Europe acknowledged the brutality of the Dutch war, and yet they identified with the 'blessings' of European rule in the tropics.Even though they expressed at times ambivalent opinions on their Oriental 'enemies', the Acehnese's 'fanatic' religion and 'despotic' nature appeared non-compatible with Christian-bourgeois virtues such as modesty, constraint, and rationality.A further, recurring motif in their reports is a certain urge to stress the importance of their own roles as physician in Aceh, with Heinrich Breitenstein writing: In its principles, the modern science of war is as much dependent on the performance of dead material as it is on that of living material; military hygiene is therefore an important part of war science, and its representativesthe military doctorsare for this reason alone an equal part of the army system. 28at is striking about Breitenstein's utterance is his emphasis on the 'scientific nature' of both warfare and medicine.This not only corresponds with the increased rationalisation of warfare, that historians have described as a typical attribute of European modernity, 29 but also with John Tosh's observation of the 'declining investment in physical violence' as a typical attribute of nineteenth century Victorian masculinity, that was replaced by bourgeois values such as respectability, constraint, and rationalityas presumably embodied by the 'scientific physician' described by Breitenstein. 30evertheless, in the context of a colonial war, experiences 'on the ground' remained relevant in the self-fashioning of European men, in particular if theyas in the case of medical officersoccupied an ambivalent position as non-combatant militaries with officer status.As has been observed by Philippa Levine, 'the colonial experience figured prominently as a place where one's manliness could be forged and tested in rigorous but heroic conditions'. 31any medical mercenaries felt the need to underline the fact that they, too, experienced violence, hardships and dangers, attempting to attribute themselves with hegemonic masculinity ideals as embodied by combatant troops.In 1888, for example, the Swiss Heinrich Erni would write in his published memoir on the Aceh War: We lived among the militaries and usually had to accompany them on their forays into enemy territory.When there was a battle, the Geneva Convention did not apply.The wounded, if they had to be left behind, were mercilessly killed by the Acehnese, their corpses mutilated and chopped into pieces.That is why the doctor always had to take everyone, dead and wounded, in his ambulance. 32much greater concern to physicians were, however, not the Acehnese 'enemies' they allegedly faced on the battlefield, but rather the tropical environment they encountered.In a letter to his brother-in-law, Friedrich Wilhelm Stammeshaus compares the war in Aceh with his experiences in the Prussian-Franco War, writing that: Once again, I find myself on the battlefield, as I did 10 years ago, but the circumstances are somewhat different.Back then, a national war with a national army to defend the fatherland, here a colonial war to subjugate a […] tribe with a mercenary army in a tropical country where, in addition to the fanatical enemy, the climate must be defeated too.33 Heinrich Erni, too, would remark that the 'unhealthy tropical climate' claimed 'way more victims than the enemy's bullet'.34 Indeed, the tropical environment, and more particularly, tropical diseases such as malaria and beriberi, deeply troubled physicians in the tropics.While malariathough still fatal in many casescould be more or less effectively treated with quinine, a medication extracted from the cinchona bark, beriberi, a vitamin B1 deficiency with diverse and contradicting symptoms that often resulted in death, left physicians in the 1880s and 1890s largely clueless.35 As a glimpse into the official reports (Koloniaal Verslag) by the Dutch colonial government reveals, beriberi caused the most illness-related absences and fatalities in Aceh on the part of the Dutch, in particular among their indigenous troops.In 1880, for example, 3290 troops stationed in Aceh fell ill with beriberi, among whom 366 succumbed to the disease, as opposed to 303 suffering from dysentery (with 99 deaths) and a mere 8 cases of 'gewalddadige dod' (violent killing).36 In a rather pessimistic manner, Heinrich Breitenstein commented: THE JOURNAL OF IMPERIAL AND COMMONWEALTH HISTORY If, therefore, out of the 870 native soldiers […] that had fallen ill with beri-beri […] 25% had died, it can be understood that a constant change of troops had to take place to be able to hold out against the brave and courageous Acehnese.[…] Unfortunately, the Indian army was too small to be able to send fresh and healthy soldiers to Aceh.
[…] With such heavy loss of life, everything stood helpless in the face of this invisible enemy; public opinion, the Dutch government and the Indian government loudly demanded a remedy, because otherwise the army would be worn out in Aceh or Sumatra's north coast would have to be abandoned.Since the military medical corps in Aceh itself knew of no remedy for this dreadful condition, the inspector of the civil medical service was sent to Aceh in September to study the disease and make suggestions for its improvement. 37 becomes clear in Breitenstein's analysis of the devastating effects of beriberi, medical officers in Aceh were highly frustrated when facing the pathogenic particularities of tropical Sumatra.Their status as non-combatant militaries as well as their simultaneous helplessness when facing diseases such as beriberi threatened their claims to two elements of hegemonic masculinities: military bravery and self-sacrifice, on the one hand, and scientific rationality, on the other.
Fighting Two Kinds of Vices: Alcohol, Sexuality, and the European Lower-Classes In the context of asymmetric guerrilla warfare in Aceh, European soldiers and officers always had to be alert to hostile attacks.Nevertheless, their daily lives in the kampoengs in northwestern Sumatra were predominantly characterised by monotony and boredom.Many European soldiers in Aceh would thus kill time by jointly singing songs and drinking alcohol. 38The KNIL troops were handed out alcohol to endure the hardships of their day-long expeditions into the jungles of the Malay Archipelago: 'There was no setting out without the morning ration of gin.In the course of the morning, a second drink was passed out, an extra tot of gin, intended to renew the troops' energy'. 39any upper-and middle class Europeans in the colonies observed the 'licentious' behaviour of these 'white subalterns'in particular lower-class European soldiers and sailorswith a high degree of concern, as it threatened the myth of European superiority on which their rule over the colonies was ideologically based. 40This applies just as much to medical officers who were in charge of controlling the bodies of European lower-class soldiers in hospitals and on expeditions.'Most officers', historian Erica Wald observes in the case of military medicine in colonial India, 'held strong class assumptions that meant that they viewed the soldiers as brutish, barely controllable louts'. 41At the same time, the nineteenth century 'was a time of growing hostility to alcohol.Religious, feminist, and welfare campaigners pointed to the physical and spiritual misery liquor strewed in its path, and the temperance pledge became a watchword of serious respectability'. 42ome medical officers in the Dutch East Indies, too, would follow the calls for abstinence shared by their contemporaries in Europe.In 1895, a number of 'noble officers' founded the Amethysten Vereeniging (Amethyst Association), a society dedicated to uplifting 'mindere militairen' (lower-rank soldiers) in the Dutch Colonial Army.In the first paragraph of its statutes, the society declares its main purpose which is 'to counteract alcoholism in society and especially the abuse of alcoholic beverages by the Dutch East Indies Army and Navy and thus to contribute to the eradication of alcoholism'. 43At the forefront of the society's foundation was the German medical officer Dr. Fiebig, who regularly shared his 'scientific' (sic!) views on the moral and healthrelated urgency of abstinence among KNIL militaries in the Dutch East Indies press as well as in public talks. 44owever, most of Fiebig's colleagues did not share his radical views on complete abstinence.Commenting on Fiebig's Amethyst Association, Heinrich Breitenstein wrote that I doubt whether this association will and can successfully propagate its theories.Dr. Fiebig condemns the use of alcohol in any form, at any time and under any circumstances, i.e. he finds alcohol not only superfluous but even harmful, even in the hands of doctors.Dr. Fiebig therefore goes too far, he misses the point and loses a large part of his supporters in precisely those circles which are called upon to support his plans to counteract the harmful influence of the abuse of alcohol, which he would have had if he had stuck to the actual circumstances. 45stead, Breitenstein shares the conviction that alcohol, if consumed in moderation, can even benefit one's health in the tropics.'When I had annoyance upon annoyance in Muarah Teweh', he commented his time in remote Borneo, 'I lost my appetite; but a little glass of wine stimulated it to such an extent that I could eat something […]'. 46HIs colleague Heinrich Erni largely agreed, pointing to the fact that '[o]ne may be zealous against this use of liquor as one wishes, but it is nevertheless true that a glass of it, drunk before the meal, promotes digestion, which is very slack due to the warm climate and needs stimulation'.He would add that even officers 'drank their liquor, usually before lunch or dinner'.This of course did not mean that they regarded excessive alcohol consumption among European soldiers as per se unproblematic.'It is clear', Erni wrote, 'that abuse is harmful, especially in a climate where the liver is already suffering enough'. 47Breitenstein even goes as far as to describe chronic alcoholism as a 'bogey man' (Schreckensgespenst), haunting a great number of European troops trying to relieve their pain and boredom. 48Justifying his own occasional alcohol consumption, he however adds that '[i]f I have, or have had, the strength of character [Charakterstärke] to drink wine with pleasure, and my means permitted me to drink wine in any quantity, and yet to make only a modest use of it, then I may cautiously appeal to everyone to do the same'. 49Or, in other words: other than the lower-class soldiers who were easily tempted by the vices encountered in the barracks, medical officers claimed to embody bourgeois virtues such as constraint and temperance, that allowed them to consume alcohol in a respectable and even healthy manner.Discourses surrounding alcohol consumption in the barracks demonstrate that European masculinities always intersected with other identity markers such as class, whereas the lower-class soldiers, despite being European men, held a marginal position in the racialized, gendered, colonial social order.
Alcohol was not the only 'vice' that 'tempted' soldiers in the camps of Aceh.Another cause of great concern in the context of colonial military camps was the vast prevalence of venereal diseases, in particular syphilis, that was believed to threaten the health and morale of the European 'race'. 50From the perspective of colonial militaries, the spread of the disease implied a practical urgency, as syphilis resulted in disease-related shortfalls among its troops.In the 1880s, every single issue of the Dutch colonial government's yearly report lists syphilis as one of the major causes of illness among its soldiers. 51edical officers, too, noted the issue of sexually transmitted diseases and its devastating effects on the army's health.'Aceh', Heinrich Erni observes, 'is a good ground for venereal diseases, which are spread by the military women (Soldatenfrauen) who are allowed to stay in the barracks'. 52By the term Soldatenfrauen, Erni here refers to indigenous women or so-called Njai, who served European men as housekeepers and sometimes as substitute wives, and whose presence in the camps was largely tolerated, if not encouraged, by the Dutch colonial government. 53It is in the context of the broad acceptance of barrack concubinage that Heinrich Breitenstein sees the Kasernefrauen (barrack women) as a 'minor source of syphilis'.Rather, he adds: Venereal diseases only spread from those European and Malay soldiers who do not keep a "housekeeper" and are not married.The greater part of the troops are in the service of Venus vulgivaga […].The priestesses of free love [prostitutes] are recruited from the lowest strata of the Malay, half-European and half-Chinese population and are equally accessible to both nations […]. 54 Breitenstein's eyes whoother than Erni, who had stayed in the Indies for a mere 7 yearsspent 21 years in the Dutch colony, and thus became familiarised with its social customs such as interracial relationships, barrack concubinage was a way for lower-class soldiers to uphold a certain degree of European standards of 'proper' sexuality (see following section).Rather, he located the cause for syphilis in the interaction between local prostitutes 'from the lowest strata of population' with the Dutch colonial army's soldiers.These sexual interactions threatened not only the soldiers' health, but above all ideals of bourgeois, European masculine superiority and, as historian Philippe Levine summarises, were seen as a 'sign of damaged masculinity, of improper attitudes to sexuality, of a palpable misunderstanding of femininity, and of a tendency to brutalisation and lack of reason'.55 Other than the alcohol issue, whose solution directly targeted European lower-class men, the Dutch colonial government approached the issue of venereal diseases by monitoring and controlling the bodies of indigenous prostitutes.In this, the Dutch Empire would follow larger global trends in the control of venereal diseases that mainly targeted women.In 1864, for example, the British government introduced the Contagious Diseases Act that forced VDinflicted women into so-called lock hospitals, institutions that were founded solely for the purpose of isolating infected prostitutes.The lock-hospital system would spread throughout the British Empire in the decades to follow, targeting indigenous women rather than European soldiers in the containment of VD. 56 While the British Empire took a systematic approach to the control of women's bodies by establishing separate women's hospitals, the Dutch colonial government chose to integrate the containment of syphilis among its troops into its existing establishment of biopolitics.In October 1883, 'the regional and local heads of government were invited […] to enforce the regional and local laws against the detrimental effects of prostitution with the utmost severity […]'.In March of the same year, the Dutch East Indies Government 'also expressed the desire that the medical examination of prostitutes and the treatment of the sick among them should only be left to Dokter Djawa in exceptional cases.This should, as far as possible, be the task of the local European doctors'.57 The containment of syphilis, as it seems, was such a great concern to the Dutch that Dokter Djawa -Javanese physicians trained in European medicine, whose expertise was strongly doubted by their European colleagues could not be trusted with the task of controlling the disease.58 Meanwhile, a majority of European physicians employed in the Indies in the late nineteenth century served the colonial army and the spread of the disease was linked to military camps.The Dutch colonial government's decree on the regulation of prostitution explicitly states that 'in the absence of another opportunity on the spot, the sick prostituteson condition that they are properly separated can be admitted for treatment to the military hospitals, and if these do not exist or do not offer room, to the local prisons'.59 Heinrich Breitenstein remembers several instances in which he examined patients for VD.In his testimonies, he strongly criticises the colonial government's approach of focussing on women only.Rather, he argues, 'syphilis follows the Europeans as they penetrate into the interior, where it is not at home [endemic]'.In his view, European soldiers with their promiscuous sexuality were to blame for the spread of the disease.60 Notwithstanding the various sinful temptations surrounding the military camps, in none of the sources available here do the medical officers admit to themselves engaging in 'immoral' sexual practices or excessive drinkingwhether this corresponds to the truth is an open question.What can be stated with certainty is that, at least in their self-presentation, they observed the licentious behaviour of the lower-class European soldiers, excessively drinking and engaging with prostitutes from the 'lower strata of society', from a rational, scientific, and morally superior distance.They thereby discursively distinguished themselves from marginalised, lower-class men by claiming late-nineteenth century bourgeois masculinity ideals through their allegedly temperate or moderate sexual and drinking behaviour.
Njai and Dukun: Indigenous Women, Bourgeois Virtues, and Scientific Masculinities While being rather critical of the effects local prostitutes would have on the morale and health of European soldiers, European medical officers were not equally dismissive of the indigenous housekeepersor Njai.The Dutch Colonial Army largely approved of the presence of Njai in its military camps, as these indigenous women allegedly kept the troops' morale up, took care of the European soldiers' domestic work, and sometimes even served them as sexual and romantic partners.In somealbeit rather rareinstances, European Europeans would eventually marry 'their' Njai, whereas the women themselves as well as the children resulting from such relationships would receive the legal status of a 'full' European.It is important to mention here that these relationships were not entered on equal terms.Sexual encounters between Njai and their European 'employers' were highly asymmetrical and subjected to severe power imbalances in the racialized colonial social order.Europeans could decide to leave or fire 'their' housekeeper at any time without facing any consequences. 61hile Erni showed strong resentments concerning sexual relations between indigenous women and European men, Breitenstein cautiously highlights the benefits of such arrangements: In the years of guerrilla warfare, his housekeeper is a truly faithful and careful nurse.Weary from the heavy patrol duty through the swampy rice fields, he finds a bowl of tea, coffee and soup on his return and can devote himself to rest while his 'wife' cleans his clothes and weapons.He would not be able to 'be deployed' from time to time if it were not for the fact that his housekeeper leaves him the scarcely allotted time to rest and takes care of his bodily needs.If he is ill or wounded, she takes care of him.Last but not least: Any control of venereal diseases is necessary and possible. 62 other words, in Breitenstein's view the presence of a Njai not only makes soldiers' lives more comfortable, but also facilitates the containment of venereal diseases, given that, as he would add, unmarried Njai could be easily and regularly monitored for their sexual health.Breitenstein even goes beyond pure medical reasons when urging the colonial government to endorse its soldiers to get married, adding that a '"soldatesca" ["untamed soldier"] did not fit into the framework of colonial policy and even less into modern state life.The professional soldier in the colonies represents the preserving, protecting part of European civilization'. 63To Breitenstein, marriage was one of the key foundations of the 'European civilization' described and a powerful tool in upholding the supposedly hegemonic nature of male, European respectability.The multiple roles of Njai as housekeepers, sexual servants, and quasi-wives as well as their endorsement by European medical professionals such as Breitenstein point to the close links between social and sexual hygiene towards the late nineteenth century.As has been observed by John Tosh, one of the main functions of the legal structure of marriage was to domesticate the sexuality of European men, in particular if they were lower-class. 64reitenstein himself, however, made it very clear that he would never enter a relationship with a Njai.His memoirs are fraught with derogatory comments on the women he employed as housekeepers.Alluding to the 'superstitious nature' of his housekeeper in Aceh, he wrote: I rarely came to the kitchen; this was the domain of my housekeeper, who was a Christian from the island of Ambon.Only for a short time was I able to keep this native woman in my service because, despite her Christian faith, she was not a whit better than all her Mohammedan colleagues. 65ther than entering a relationship with an indigenous woman, in 1886 Breitenstein tied the knot with a Dutch woman called Margarethe van Leenhoff who would accompany him to Aceh. 66Despite living in 'remote', tropical Sumatra, the couple seemed eager to mimic a bourgeois lifestyle.He admires, for example, how his 'small but energetic wife succeeded in turning this 'stable' [where they lived in Aceh] into a sweet home […]'. 67Furthermore, he remembers how he and his wifedespite the ongoing warattended countless celebrations held for officers in the Dutch Colonial Army, among others a performance of the operetta 'Grande Duchesse'. 68Friedrich Wilhelm Stammeshaus, too, seemed eager to maintain a lifestyle appropriate to a Prussian Bildungsbürger.To his brother-in-law, he wrote: Apart from me, there is a captain and three officers here.We run a communal dinner table and form a reading society that obtains magazines, books […] from Europe.In this way, we receive a number of German […] Dutch and French magazines and news once a week with every arriving steamer, so that there is no lack of reading material. 69her than Erni and Breitenstein, who were eager to present 'the' medical officer as the embodiment of respectable, rational, bourgeois masculinity, Stammeshaus did sexually and romantically engage with a local woman in at least one instance.In Aceh, he entered a relationship with a Chinese woman, whose name is unfortunately not transmitted in his personal testimonies.In 1881, she gave birth to a son, whom Stammeshaus recognised as his own, naming him Friedrich Wilhelm, after himself.The acceptance by his father granted Stammeshaus Jr. the legal status as European.Following his father's footsteps, he would serve in the Aceh War in 1904.5 years later, he joined the colonial government's domestic administration where he was promoted to controleur of Aceh after the region's 'pacification'.Due to his Indoeuropean heritage and fluency in several local languages, Stammeshaus Jr. was allegedly highly popular among both the European as well as the Acehnese population in northwestern Sumatra.Besides, he built the largest ethnographic collection from Aceh, which is today located in the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam. 70tammeshaus, however, never wed the Chinese mother of his son.In 1886, he instead married the Dutch Gretchen Ruyssenaers.In a letter to his father, he enthusiastically reported the joyful announcement: As you will have seen from the further mailings, my wedding with Gretchen Ruyssenaers took place on 5 May in Lahat, in the house of Captain Platt.The marriage was performed by the civil registrar, Assistant Resident Larive, who later excused the parents of the bride and groom at the banquet.It was a pity that, apart from Gretchen's brother, none of our mutual relatives could be present at the wedding.On 3 June I left Lahat with Gretchen and little Wilhelm. 71th a matter of course, Stammeshaus mentions, in addition to his marriage, which was entirely in keeping with the bourgeois family ideal, his son from what from a European perspective was an 'immoral' relationship with an ethnically Chinese woman.What his parents thought about this arrangement is not known.Nevertheless, Stammeshaus' openly communicated sexual engagement with an indigenous woman points to the fragile nature of European social norms of respectable, bourgeois masculinity as they would be propagated in the travelogues written by Breitenstein et al.
There was a second group of indigenous women, who represented a major concern to the likes of Erni and Breitenstein: indigenous medical experts, and, in particular, the so-called Dukun, traditional healers / shamans who were active all across the Malay Archipelago.Their presence and popularity became a particular issue in the eyes of European medical experts, as 'expertise about the medicinal properties of nature's herbs and roots, whether real or imagined, was a fund of feminine knowledge and thus a source of Indies women's superior power and ability to cope with their natural environment'. 72'Moreover, with the professionalisation of scientific expertise in Europe throughout the nineteenth century, 'traditional' and 'folk' medicine became increasingly stigmatized.European physicians' dismissal of feminised medical traditions hence revolved at the intersection of both gendered power relations as well as Eurocentric notions of the medical profession and the educational background of its practitioners. 73einrich Erni claims to have seen little of the indigenous healing traditions during his stay in Aceh, 'because we were enemies to them [the local populations]'. 74He does however remember one instance in which he encountered a 'native' who 'sold medications at the local markets'.He then however adds that the locals 'had already realised that the European fever remedy, quinine, was better than their doctor's and often came to fetch quinine pills'. 75While this might hold true for quinine, Erni's statement certainly does not correspond with the realities of medical preferences in the late nineteenth century Indies.Many of Erni's and Breitenstein's patientsboth European and indigenouswere in fact highly intrigued by the medical alternatives offered by indigenous herbal medicine. 76Their popularity seemed to have been particularly threatening to the sense of superiority of European medical officers, as can be exemplified by how Heinrich Breitenstein repeatedly marginalised his (female) indigenous colleagues' expertise throughout his memoires.He wrote, for example, that.
These ladies have absolutely no medical knowledge; they do not individualise at all; old or young, man or woman; first or last stage of the disease […] cause or consequence of other diseases […] everything runs on the same template.The dosage is also very primitive; their herbs are dispensed 'by the handful', by the fingertip, and so on. 77at was even more scandalous to him was the fact that even many of his European colleagues were convinced by the herbal medical treatments the local Dukun had to offer.While 'the patient could not know' at 'what a low level the Malay's medical traditions' were situated, he commented, '[i]t is outrageous, how even scientific men switch from the post hoc to the propter hoc and join in the hymn to the arts of the Dukuns'. 78The popularity of indigenous herbal traditions in the Dutch East Indies appeared to have challenged physicians' self-perceptions as (male) carriers of a 'superior' (medical) knowledge.This sense of superiority thus had to be reclaimed through the stigmatisation of indigenous women's expertise.Despite such efforts, indigenous herbal cures by no means waned in popularity and European medical professionals such as Breitenstein failed to completely impose their gendered order of medical care and European scientific hegemony on to Indies society. 79

Conclusion
A major challenge in studying masculinities is to not fall into the pitfall of downplaying the privileged position of masculinity in the gender order by pointing to the fact that men, too, struggled to conform to societal ideals of manhood. 80Men, in particular European middle-and upper-class men, did over the course of centuries exercise power over a variety of 'others', such as women, colonised subjects, or other men whose sexuality or masculine identity excluded them from claims to hegemonic masculinities.Nevertheless, as has been asserted by historians Heather Ellis and Jessica Meyers, 'Scholars working on masculinity have tended often to assume that the relationship between self and "other" is a fairly straightforward power dynamic of dominance and subordination'. 81A main aim of historians of masculinities is thus to acknowledge the dominantand at many times violentnature of masculinity ideals, while simultaneously pointing to their fragile, contested and historically contingent character.
The case of medical mercenaries in Aceh poses an ideal case study to account for such a complex and nuanced understanding of male hegemony.On the one hand, being non-combatant 'foreigners' in Aceh, physicians in Germanophone Europe became complicit with existing ideals of imperial masculinity such as bravery or self-sacrifice in claiming a hegemonic position in the colonial social order. 82This further becomes evident, for example, in the ways they articulated their sympathy and belonging to European civilisation in Aceh in justifying Dutch imperial rule, while at the same time contending to observe the War from a rational distance appropriate to true 'men of science'.By distancing themselves from the frivolous behaviour of their lower-class colleagues in the army, they insistedin spite of the various temptations available in colonial military to embody bourgeois, male virtues such as constraint and temperance, virtues they preserved not at least due to their medical expertise.Besides, they were keen to prove to their readers and relatives in Europe that they managed to conform to the ideals of a respectable, bourgeois family man in the Indies, despite the prevalence of interracial relationships in Indies society.
On the other hand, however, the close reading of their testimonies also reveals various contradictions in their claims to late-nineteenth century markers of hegemonic masculinity such as rationality, constraint, and respectability.The 'invisible enemies' they faced in the Aceh War threatened medical officers' self-perception as omnipotent and rational 'men of science', while the persistent-and for a long time successfulresistance of the Acehnese guerrilla fighters posed a threat to European hegemony in the archipelago as a whole.The allegedly 'excessive' drinking behaviour of European lower-class men, that represented a threat to the myth of European moral superiority, urged medical officers to make explicit that their own alcohol consumption was moderate and unproblematic.In a similar manner, their claims that respectable, bourgeois men such as medical officers would themselves, other than the lesser-educated soldiers, never engage in romantic relationships with indigenous Njai did not stand up to reality, as the relationship between Friedrich Wilhelm Stammeshaus and the Chinese mother of his firstborn son Friedrich Wilhelm Jr. demonstrates.Furthermore, the ongoing popularity of feminised, indigenous medical traditions proves that even the assertion of the superiority of European medicine and its male practitioners itself was under attack, which urged European medical officers to marginalise female, indigenous medical experts under the guise of their supposed 'superstitious nature'.Masculinity, it seems, had to be constantly asserted because it was constantly threatened.
Lastly, the case of medical mercenaries serving the Dutch Colonial Army in Aceh allows to reconstruct ways in which imperial imaginariesincluding ideals of imperial masculinityreached European regions with little or no affiliation to imperialism at the time.Through their published memoires, travelogues, and letters, Germanophone medical mercenaries introduced their readership and relatives in the German Empire, Habsburg Austria, and Switzerland to their heroic deeds in Aceh and to encounters with 'exotic' environments and people.How many of their readers would eventually follow their footsteps and strive to become 'imperial men' is yet to be explored.