Great Post Road

The Great Post Road (Indonesian: Jalan Raya Pos or Dutch: De Grote Postweg) is the name for the historical road that runs across Java that connects Anyer and Panarukan. It was built during the reign of Herman Willem Daendels (1808–1811), governor-general of the Dutch East Indies.

La Grande Route, as Daendels called it, was a military road which was laid down under the order of King Lodewijk Napoleon who ruled the Kingdom of Holland at that time.France was at war with England and the road was intended to ease military support, e.g. transfer of soldiers, in order to defend Java. In 1750, before the road was constructed, connections existed between Batavia and Semarang and onwards to Surabaya. A North-south connection between Semarang, Surakarta and onwards to Yogyakarta was also available at that time. However, these connection paths were not easily passable as heavy tropical rainfall frequently destroyed them.

Daendels faced difficult conditions in the Dutch East Indies when he started the road construction. The financial situation in the colony was so tight that the minister of Colonial Affairs in The Hague sent him a letter emphasizing the difficult financial situation and the need to reduce expenditures. The British posed a major threat. Furthermore, there were uprisings in Bantam and Cirebon, and some of Daendels' opponents actively frustrated his endeavours. Daendels then decided to use Javanese unpaid forced laborers to perform most of the heavy work, which resulted in thousands of deaths due to the difficult health challenges of the forests and marshes as well as the labor conditions.

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