Jean Jacques Rambonnet

Jean Jacques Rambonnet (8 March 1864 – 3 August 1943) was a Dutch naval officer and politician. Reaching the rank of vice admiral, he served as Minister of the Navy, Acting Minister of Colonies, and Acting Minister of War. He was also a member of the Council of State and, among other things, a knight in the Military Order of William. He also played an important role in Scouting in the Netherlands and served as the only Chief Scout of the Netherlands prior to 2021.Wilson p. 33 67

Family

Rambonnet's great-great-great-grandfather Frédéric Louis Rambonnet (1684–1755) was a member of the Geheimrat of the King of Prussia, stadtholder of Maastricht and the County of Groedenhove, and envoy of the King of Prussia to the Bishop of Liège. His great-great-grandfather, also named Jean Jacques Rambonnet (1713–1768) and the son of Frédéric Louis Rambonnet, was a Walloon minister. Rambonnet's great-grandfather, F. L. Rambonnet (1751–1811), was a member of the legislative body for the Overijssel department.

Rambonnet's paternal grandfather, also named Jean Jacques Rambonnet (1793–1873), was a Dutch Reformed Church minister. His maternal grandfather was Jonkheer Simon Pierre François Meijer, Royal Netherlands Army officer and a knight of the Military Order of William.

Rambonnet's father, Frédéric Louis Rambonnet (1827–1900), was mayor of Wijhe. His mother was Jonkvrouw Sara Maria Cornelia Meijer (1837–1921).

Rambonnet's brother, also named Frédéric Louis Rambonnet (1867–1949), was a vice admiral, and another brother, Henri Gerard Rambonnet (1873–1961), was a major general of artillery. Rambonnet's brother-in-law Henri Marchant (1869–1956) was a minister.

Rambonnet married Marie Jeanne Arnoldine Antoinette Uhlenbeck (1873–1940), daughter of Vice Admiral Christian Elisa Uhlenbeck (1840–1897), and Anna Christina ten Bosch (1843–1921) — sister of, among others, Vice-Admiral and member of the Council of State Pieter ten Bosch (1836–1922) — with whom he had three children. One of those children was Frédéric Louis Rambonnet (1899–1945), who during World War II was active in the service of the Reichskommissariat Niederlande during the German occupation of the Netherlands as commander of the Spoorwacht and district commander of the Landwacht in Overijssel.Offervaardigheid, de Landwachter (in Dutch), 9 February 1945.

The Rambonnet family has been included in the Nederland's Patriciaat since 1939.List of families in the Nederland's Patriciaat, volumes 1 (1910) through 91 (2012) (in Dutch)

Naval career 1883–1903 Rambonnet was educated at the Royal Naval Institute in Willemsoord in Den Helder, and in September 1883 began his Royal Netherlands Navy career as a midshipman first class with an assignment to the first-class screw steamer under the command of Captain-commandant Hendrik Dyserinck.Algemeen Handelsblad (in Dutch), 24 September 1883. The ship was ordered to steam to the Netherlands East Indies via the Cape of Good Hope and departed the Texel roadstead on 22 October 1883.Het Nieuws van de Dag: kleine courant (in Dutch), 24 October 1883. He then was assigned to the steam frigate . He temporarily left active Royal Netherlands Navy service in September 1884 to await reassignment, and in November 1884 he, together with eight other midshipmen, left the Netherlands for the Netherlands East Indies on private travel,Java-bode (in Dutch), 4 November 1884, departing Amsterdam aboard the Dutch steamship Conrad and arriving at Batavia, Java, on 26 January 1885.Java-bode (in Dutch), 27 January 1885. There he resumed active naval service, assigned first to the armed paddle steamer and then to the ram turret ship .Java-bode (in Dutch), 1 January 1885. By royal decree of 16 September 1885, he was promoted to luitenant ter zee second class, effective 16 October 1885.Algemeen Handelsblad (in Dutch), 13 October 1885.

In October 1886, Rambonnet was transferred to the ram turret ship . In 1887 he was reassigned first to the steam screw gunvessel and then to a second stint aboard Koning der Nederlanden.Java-bode (in Dutch), 14 April 1888. He later transferred to the ram monitor .Algemeen Handelsblad (in Dutch), 29 June 1889. On 1 July 1889 he was reassigned to the gunnery training ship .Het Nieuws van de Dag: kleine courant (in Dutch) In 1892 he was posted first to the second-class screw steamer and then to the receiving ship .Java-bode (in Dutch), 9 August 1892 He was promoted to luitenant ter zee first class and became commanding officer of the ironclad gunboat , then relinquished command of her on 16 October 1896 to begin a military hydrography assignment at The Hague.De Amsterdammer (in Dutch), 16 October 1896.

On 1 September 1897, Rambonnet was appointed officer-instructor at the Royal Naval Institute at Willemsoord.De Locomotief (in Dutch), 13 September 1897. On 11 October 1902 he departed Genoa, Italy, aboard the steamship bound for Batavia.Algemeen Handelsblad (in Dutch). After his arrival in the Netherlands East Indies, he served aboard the protected cruiser . He transferred to the protected cruiser in July 1903, then became commanding officer of the gunboat .Het Nieuws van de Dag: kleine courant (in Dutch), 23 July 1903.

Expedition to Flores and Adonara

Rambonnet was the commanding officer of the flotilla vessel in 1904 when a Dutch punitive expedition to Flores took place. The protected cruiser and Mataram received orders to steam to the south coast of Flores. Mataram left first, bound for Laboean Hadji on the east coast of Lombok to show the flag and make a show of force, and she briefly sent a 30-man landing detachment ashore. Subsequently, Rambonnet placed himself and his ship under the orders of the commander of Gelderland, Kapitein ter zee Jonkheer J. F. Coertzen de Kock,Kleinzoon van kapitein-ter-zee J.F.A. Coertzen en van generaal H.M. de Kock (in Dutch) and the two ships steamed together to Ende on the south coast of Flores to restore order there in consultation with the resident of Timor and dependencies.

At Ende, Mataram landing detachment went ashore, as did a 120-man landing detachment from Gelderland, with both detachments under Rambonnet's overall command.Flores. Algemeen Handelsblad (in Dutch), 10 November 1904. As the expedition marched toward Adonara, it came under heavy fire, including dozens of shots from lelas. The ships also came under fire, and aboard them one sailor was killed and three others wounded. With 10 men needed to cover and transport casualties, only 15 men remained available for combat, but they stormed the upper kampong and forced the enemy to flee.Het Nieuws van de Dag voor Nederlands-Indië (in Dutch), 12 January 1906. Rambonnet was appointed Knight in the Military William Order by Royal Decree No. 13 of 17 March 1905 for his performance at Flores and Adonara.De Tijd (in Dutch), 4 August 1943. He lectured on the expedition and about the burning of kampongs at Flores by the native troops at a meeting of the members of the Naval Association on 8 November 1906, and his lecture later was incorporated into the Association's records.

1905–1913

On 17 June 1905, Rambonnet returned to the Netherlands aboard Utrecht.Het Nieuws van de Dag: kleine courant (in Dutch), 4 August 1905. He was temporarily inactivated there on 24 October 1905Algemeen Handelsblad (in Dutch), 10 September 1905. while awaiting his next assignment. He returned to active duty in 1906 when he was seconded to the Department of the Navy in the Netherlands East Indies. He departed the Netherlands as a passenger aboard the steamship Koning Willem IIIAlgemeen Handelsblad (in Dutch), 1 June 1906. and took up his new duties in the Netherlands East Indies on 16 July 1906, working in the Second Department (the materiel department). He became the chief of the department in October 1906,Algemeen Handelsblad (in Dutch), 9 August 1906. and by royal decree was promoted to Kapitein-luitenant ter zee on 16 November 1906.De Tijd (in Dutch), 10 November 1906.

In July 1910, Rambonnet returned to the Netherlands via private travel, and was inactivated thereHet Nieuws van de Dag: kleine courant (in Dutch), 2 July 1910 pending a new assignment. In August 1910 he was promoted to Officer in the Order of Orange-Nassau.De Tijd (in Dutch), 31 August 1910. Returning to active duty, he took command of the coastal defense ship in 1911.naval-encyclopedia.com The Evertsen in service 1896-1920, September 5, 2022, Accessed 22 September 2022 Under his command, Evertsen departed Nieuwediep on 17 July 1911 for a training cruise in the North Sea.Rotterdams Nieuwsblad (in Dutch), 19 July 1911. She arrived in Aberdeen, Scotland, on 29 July 1911. During another cruise, Evertsen called at Bergen, Norway, on 3 June 1912 and reached Ulvik, Norway, on 30 June 1912 before returning to Nieuwediep.Het Nieuws van de Dag: kleine courant (in Dutch), 1 June 1912.

Meanwhile, a debate had begun over the construction of Dutch capital ships. The Minister of the Navy, Vice Admiral Jan Wentholt, favored a design called Pantsership 1912 (), a 7,600-ton vessel built to a predreadnought battleship design with a maximum speed of and armed with four guns in two twin turrets, ten guns in single turrets, and three torpedo tubes.Road to Strength: Battleshipplan 1912 Accessed 1 October 2022 After a review of the design which found it to be too poorly armed and armored, Wentholt agreed to modify it by increasing its displacement to around 8,600 tons, mounting guns behind thicker armor, and adding a fourth torpedo tube, but the modified design still was criticized as too weak, and the proposed ships' increased size meant that they would be too large to build in Dutch shipyards. At the general meeting of the Marine Association on 29 February 1912, Rambonnet — who led a group of naval officers who vigorously opposed the Pantsership 1912 design and advocated the construction of dreadnought battleships of similar design to the Spanish Navy′s battleships, 15,700-ton ships which mounted eight guns and could make — gave a lecture entitled "A Core of Heavy Ships for Our Naval Forces," in which he questioned the minimum requirements for capital ships for the Royal Netherlands Navy and wondered whether Dutch ships met those requirements.Het Nieuws van de Dag: kleine courant (in Dutch), 29 February 1912. The issue became a matter of national debate, and repeated rejections of his Pantsership 1912 proposal finally led Wenholt to leave office in May 1912. Minister of War Hendrikus Colijn, who became acting Minister of the Navy upon Wentholt's departure, was a proponent of expansion of the Royal Netherlands Navy,Noppen, p. 5. and in June 1912 he established a State Committee of naval experts charged with studying various issues concerning Dutch naval policy, especially the defense of the Netherlands East Indies against Japan.Nieuwsblad van het Noorden (in Dutch), 6 June 1912. He appointed Rambonnet to the committee, which by July 1912 reached the conclusion — based on erroneous reporting that Japan soon would have a fleet of nine dreadnought battleships and battlecruisers — that the Netherlands needed a fleet of nine dreadnought battleships for the defense of the Netherlands East Indies, the vessels to displace 27,000 tons, mount eight guns, and have a maximum speed of .

In 1912 and 1913 Rambonnet made several cruises in command of Evertsen. He relinquished command of her on 29 August 1913. He subsequently received a promotion to kapitein ter zee.

Political career