ABSTRACT
After the First Military Action in July 1947 and the signing of the Renville Agreement in January 1948, the Dutch were feeling optimistic. After all, Dutch troops were not required to return to the positions they had taken before the attack, while 30,000 men from the Siliwangi Division of the TNI were forced to withdraw from West Java. The Netherlands was now doing everything it could to isolate the Republic. It was enforcing the so-called Van Mook Line (also known as the Status Quo Line), the outer limit of the Dutch expansion which in many places had been stretched even further. And a strict blockade imposed by the Dutch troops caused shortages of food and clothing in the Republican region in Central Java to increase dramatically. The Dutch blockade could not be broken because the Republican forces were no match for the Dutch army in a direct confrontation. The leaders of the Republic feared that a second Dutch attack would cause the Republic to collapse.
