The Indonesian National Revolution, 1945–49

Between 1945 and 1949 Indonesians fought to make independence real. In November 1945 heavy fighting at Surabaya between Indonesian forces and British troops showed the strength of popular resistance. The Netherlands sought to rebuild its rule, initialing the Linggadjati Agreement in November 1946, then launching two large military offensives in July 1947 and December 1948, which it called 'police actions'. The second captured the Republic's capital, Yogyakarta, and its leaders. These offensives backfired diplomatically.

The UN Security Council called for a ceasefire, and the United States, which valued Indonesia's suppression of a communist uprising at Madiun in 1948, pressed the Dutch to negotiate. At the Round Table Conference in The Hague, the Netherlands agreed to transfer sovereignty, which took effect on 27 December 1949. A Dutch government-commissioned study published in 2022 concluded that Dutch forces had used systematic extreme violence during the war.