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not until March 1946 that Dutch troops landed in Java in any numbers. The earlier arrivals gave major provocation to the Indonesians without contributing to security. Their Indonesian auxiliaries, mostly Christian Ambonese, were a liability. Many felt that their trigger-happy entry into Jakarta was an attempt to provoke the British into more decisive moves to save the Dutch empire. But Christison embargoed the introduction of more Dutch troops: if any were landed, he told Mountbatten on 13 October, civil war was inevitable. They were diverted to the outer islands, which were under the jurisdiction of Australian forces, and a much milder political climate.78 Faced by an armed revolution, British troops would bear the liability for the bitter-ender mentality of the Dutch. Both Christison and Mountbatten viewed this prospect with horror.

There were now clear limits to what British soldiers were prepared to take. Morale, Mountbatten told the chiefs of staff in mid October, was good. But there was every likelihood it would deteriorate. His men were war weary, and many of them had slogged through the worst of the Burma campaign. They were obsessed with demobilization and did not understand their role in Indonesia. It would be a ‘grave mistake’, Mountbatten warned, to give any impression that ‘they are about to become involved in putting down local independence movements on behalf of other governments in countries they are liberating’.79 The Indonesia campaign was the last outreach of the Raj, and carried with it all the signals of its imminent dissolution. Only four of the thirty battalions at Mountbatten’s disposal were British. It was not clear how willing the Indian troops would be to fight another Asian nationalist movement. Congress supported the new republic. Nehru asked to visit Java to assess the situation, but Mount-batten could not guarantee his safety. Reports on SEAC units in the early part of 1946 spoke of a ‘growing sympathy’ for the INA and a deep dislike of the Dutch, who treated sepoys ‘like… native[s]’.80 For their part, Dutch internees had little faith in the Indian soldiers’ ability to protect them.81 Indian Muslim soldiers came under a barrage of republican propaganda. Indonesian nationalists believed many of them to be sympathetic to their cause. The West Java leader, Abu Hanifah, witnessed an Islamic militia attacking a small British convoy crying Allahu akbar! God is Greater! The Indian Muslims escorting it then put out a white flag. ‘What do you want from us?’ they asked, and supplied the fighters with tinned food and cigarettes, rifles and ammunition.82 By the end of the year, there were reports of desertions to the republican forces, some lured by pan-Islamic propaganda, others by promises of women and plenty.83

Mountbatten limited the British mission in Indonesia to the preservation of law and order in key areas; the disarming and repatriation of the Japanese and the release of prisoners of war and internees. On 10 October Mountbatten decided to focus on the key port cities of Jakarta, Semarang and, fatefully, Surabaya. The hill towns immediately behind, where many of the internees were believed to be, were to be occupied if possible. In the interim Mountbatten had informed Count Terauchi that the preservation of peace in Java was the responsibility of the Japanese. There were, at the surrender, 65,000 Japanese troops in Java alone. But such was the magnitude and multitude of the tasks facing the British that the Japanese were deployed in a much wider role. The British were warned against this by Sukarno, who, struggling to control the pemuda, feared that reprisals would be taken against Dutch internees.84 An early flashpoint was Bandung, the major inland city of West Java. Japanese commanders in the city were keen to reassert their authority and, with at least the tacit encouragement of British liaison officers, Bandung was reoccupied on 10 October. This was a major humiliation to the local revolutionary leaders: they were sent lipsticks by their comrades in East Java. In Semarang the local British