The Colonial Reserve Corps was an arm of the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army and an important recruitment depot.

For Dutch volunteers, service in the KNIL retained a certain social stigma; a prejudice which had a negative effect on recruitment numbers.

At the end of the nineteenth century the awareness gradually arose at the Ministry of Colonies that the quality of the military personnel destined for the Dutch Indies had to be improved.

The Corps was under the command of the Minister of Colonies and was set up to replace the Indian brigade, which had been authorized by Royal Decree of 9 March 1874, number 32, but which had not been successfully established.

The corps was also intended to prepare veteran colonial soldiers returning from the East and West Indies for reentry into Dutch civilian society.

In the initial period, the staff of this corps was located in Zutphen, but the instructors and cadres were soon moved to Nijmegen and from 1911 the Prins Hendrik Barracks was their home base.

Bruinsma was succeeded in April 1895 by Gijsbertus Godefriedus Johannes Notten as the second commander of the Colonial Reserve Corps.

On the third day, the participants then walked from Ede via the Betuwe to Nijmegen to spend the night there in the Prins Hendrik Barracks, home of the Colonial Reserve.