THE ARMY IN SOUTH AND WEST AFRICA--1834-86
Omitting such small “affairs” as were consequent on the extension and
for long purely coastal expansion of our Empire in Africa after the
long war, there is little to record until 1834. The conquest of the
Dark Continent had been gradual, and practically commercial. It had
been largely based on geographical discoveries. War and political
occupation followed missionary enterprise here as elsewhere. Nothing
is more curious to watch than how often the proselyte is followed by
the soldier and the sword. The colonist and trade follow the first,
and with him or them come trade-rum, trade-firearms, and all the
so-called blessings of civilisation. After both comes first friction,
then fighting, and finally conquest. These are usually the phases of
Anglo-Saxon colonial expansion, unless we add to them the last end of
all, the practical extermination of the native races.
So it was in America, where the red man is dying out; and so in New
Zealand, though to a less degree, for the natives there are of better
stock. It is not yet to the same extent in Africa, solely because
the population, in the latter days of the nineteenth century, is too
redundant. But unless the black can assimilate with the white, he must
as assuredly give place to those who have the mental and physical
power, as the red man has been driven westward against the mountain
ridges of America.
Asiatics alone, among the races of colour, have held their own,
because the people are intellectually sound. In that country, built
up of many countries, there has been always, as far as historic time
goes, civilisation. In Africa there has been none, save that alone of
immigrants. In China, again, there is no dread of such extermination;
its people, though barbaric, are intellectual and more than
semi-civilised. In Japan the extreme case is met with. A nation of high
artistic and intellectual power, not a quarter of a century ago ranking
among armour-wearing barbarians, it has shown its strength in its
recent war with China, and won respect and equality among the leading
nations of the earth.
This Africa has _never_ done, and its history therefore, as far as
Great Britain’s army is concerned, is not that of the barbaric or
semi-barbaric powers with whom we have come in contact, but that of
savage powers who are incapable of improvement or absorption, and whose
only destiny is to remain hewers of wood and drawers of water. As the
red man numbered millions when the eighteenth century was dying, and
within a hundred years is far less than a _quantité negligéable_, so
the black man, numbering millions when the nineteenth century is also
a-dying, may possibly, before another century, fade out too. There is
no room for either, unless the black mends his ways better than the red
man did.
The earliest occupation of the African littoral was that of the
North-West Coast for purely trading purposes, and that of the Cape of
Good Hope for those of colonial expansion, and as one of the chain of
ports uniting our Eastern and Far Eastern possessions with the mother
country. In early days they were the depôts whence the essential
necessaries of food, water, and stores were replenished. Now they are
even more vitally important as the coaling stations for the ocean
steamers.
As already referred to, the Cape of Good Hope was seized by conquest
in 1805. The West African settlements at Gambia, Sierra Leone, Gold
Coast, and Lagos, united in 1806 into one government, bear date from
1787, etc., and were made primarily with little serious opposition.
The West African is a less serious fighting personage than either his
stalwart brother of Zululand or the “Fuzzy Wuzzy” of the Soudan. There
was little antagonism at first, that is to say, after the conquest
of the Cape of Good Hope from the Dutch. There was plenty of room for
expansion, and the population was for a long time meagre.
But in 1817 the 72nd was engaged in suppressing a rising of the Kaffirs
of the Great Fish River; and in 1834 it was again employed against
Macomo in the same district. The frontier troubles were getting rather
more serious, and the Kaffir invasion of the colony was marked by the
usual savage atrocities. Almost the only military operation of the
practically peaceful reign of William IV. was the punitive expedition
of Colonel Peddie’s Highlanders against these tribes.
The frontier, however, still remained restless for some years after
this; and in 1843 the tables were somewhat turned, inasmuch as the
91st Regiment was despatched to assist the Griquas, who had placed
themselves under our protection, against the Boers, on the Orange River.
Shortly after, in 1846, the first serious Kaffir war broke out, and in
it the first and reserve battalions of the 91st, the 6th, 73rd, 45th,
and Rifle Brigade were actively engaged for nearly two years. There was
much hard fighting in the Amatola Mountains, at Burn’s Hill and Block
Drift, and one noteworthy act of bravery may be recorded of Privates
Walsh and Reilly, who, when Fort Cox was beleaguered, managed to convey
a despatch through the investing savages to Governor Maitland.
At the close of the year 1850 the racial antagonism again appeared, and
this second Kaffir war lasted until 1853, requiring the services of
the 2nd, 6th, 43rd, 45th, 60th, 73rd, 74th, and 91st Regiments of the
Line, besides the Rifle Brigade, the Cape Mounted Rifles and Colonial
Irregulars. The British frontier, when war broke out, was supposed
to be represented by the Kei River, between which and the Great Fish
River the country had been informally considered more or less neutral.
But all buffer states are dangers as a rule, and neutral belts are
no better. So thought Sandilli, a powerful Kaffir chieftain; jealous
of his own waning power as that of the white man increased, and also
at being deposed by the governor of the colony, he broke into open
revolt. The country was dense forest, roads rare, and the conduct of
the war desultory. To destroy the rude kraals of the enemy, carry off
his cattle, cut down his crops to starve him out, and finally assault
some central stronghold such as are to be found in hill districts like
the Amatolas, or some isolated hill honeycombed with caves, was the
method of procedure then as it is now. Nothing has changed less in the
army’s history than the tactics of savage war, especially in Africa.
Sir Harry Smith, who commanded, was not particularly successful
either in his conduct of the campaign or in his judgment of the
military situation. There were several small disasters, such as befell
detachments of the 6th and 73rd under Mackinnon at the Keiskamma
defile, and which partook then, and often after, of the nature of
ambuscades. A detachment of the 45th escorting a convoy was cut off.
The garrison of Fort Cox was for a time surrounded and completely
isolated by the Kaffirs. Meanwhile, numerous European villages were
destroyed by the enemy, and in many cases the inhabitants massacred
with extreme barbarity and with horrible mutilations.
In the spring of 1852 a determined advance was made against the Amatola
Mountains, in which was Sandilli’s stronghold, and the Highland
“tortoises,” as the enemy called the 74th, from a fancied resemblance
of their tartans to the markings of the land tortoise of South Africa,
after much heavy fighting and hard work, succeeded in clearing the
district, but it took until September, when there was a sharp skirmish
at Kromme.
Early in October the Kaffirs assembled on the Waterkloof heights, where
the fortress of Chief Macomo was attacked seven times before the enemy
were subdued. It cost the lives of many officers and men, including
that of Colonel Fordyce of the 74th. Thus hostilities practically
ended, as the expedition across the Orange River against the Basuto
chief Moshesh, with the 2nd, 43rd, 73rd, 74th, Rifle Brigade, and 12th
Lancers, with some artillery and irregulars, was not opposed.
The next important outbreak of hostilities occurred on the West Coast.
There had been, long before 1873, frequent troubles in the Hinterland
of the West Coast settlements. There had even been war about 1824 and
1826, when we had to defeat the natives at Accra, after much previous
desultory skirmishing, in one of which Sir Charles Macarthy, the
Governor of the Coast, was slain, and the force with him practically
destroyed. There was a further slight disturbance in 1863; but in 1870,
a more serious dispute arose as to the ownership of Elmina, which we
had taken over from the Dutch. Many impolitic acts were committed as
regards the assistance that might have been rendered by us to those
tribes most exposed to the Ashanti attack, and finally, in January
1873, the Ashanti army crossed the Prah, and attacked the Assims and
Fantees, and these after a while were worsted, and the roads to Cape
Coast Castle and Elmina were thus left open. The Elminas and Ashantis
fraternised, and made an effort to seize the Elmina Fort, but were
repulsed by Colonel Festing, with some Royal Marines and a Naval
Brigade; and thus matters remained, with 20,000 Ashantis at Mampon,
ten miles distant from the British forts, until the arrival of the
expedition commanded by Sir Garnet Wolseley, which reached the coast in
October 1874. Partly by way of a diversion, and partly as a punitive
expedition, a small force was first sent to Elmina, and landing there,
advanced against the allied natives at Essiaman, and dispersed them
with little loss. Native levies were raised, and placed under the
charge of European officers; posts were prepared, and the road improved
between Cape Coast and the Prah, one result of which preparation was
the abandonment by the Ashantis of their Mampon camp, and their falling
back behind the river. Sundry other small expeditions from Dunquah and
towards Abracampa also assisted.
In addition to the main advance, another was prepared under Captain
Glover and Captain R. Sartorius, and was designed to advance from Accra
on Coomassie. It was composed entirely of native levies led by a few
British officers, but did not reach the Ashanti capital until it had
been captured and abandoned by the main column.
This was composed of the 2nd Battalion of the Rifle Brigade, the 23rd,
and the 42nd, and by New Year’s day, 1874, these troops had landed
at Cape Coast Castle. No expedition could have been better managed
or organised. Every attention was paid to the slightest detail. Sir
Garnet’s instructions for the officers, as regards their attention to
their men, are more than instructive: they evidence the patient study
of details necessary for the well-being of his command, which only a
careful leader knows to be as essential to success as the fighting of
his men when the time for action comes. Sir Garnet’s _Notes for the Use
of the Troops_ should be read by everybody who has to conduct a similar
campaign.
When the advance began, the stations between the coast and the Prah
numbered eight in the sixty-nine miles that covered the distance.
Soon the Prah was reached, the river that the Ashantis believed would
never be crossed by a white man; but Lieutenant Grant of the 5th
crossed it first, none the less. Here the stream, some 70 feet wide and
9 feet deep, was bridged with a crib bridge, and King Koffi Calcali
sent ambassadors to treat for peace. But it was too late, even if the
barbaric potentate could be trusted.
The army pushed on, deserted at times by the carriers, and little
helped by the native allies; though the black regiments commanded by
Russell, Wood, and Webber did some useful work.
The Adansi Hills and Bahrein river were successively crossed, and a
skirmish occurred at a village near Adubiassie, in which Captain Nicol
was killed; but the first serious battle was that of Amoaful, in which
the Ashanti army stubbornly fought for more than five hours before they
fell back beaten.
The bush was terribly dense, the tracks were but 8 feet broad. Paths
had therefore to be hewn by the engineers in every case where the
slightest width of front was necessary.
Strong in numbers, and acquainted with the jungle tracks, the Ashantis
were able to assail both flanks and rear of the column as well as hold
it in front. Simultaneous attacks could be, and were, made during and
immediately after the battle on the fortified posts along the line of
communication with the Prah and Cape Coast at Quaman, Fomanah, etc.
The fighting formation that could best meet these difficulties was,
as in most of our African wars, a species of square. The advance was
made in three columns. The centre, which formed, so to speak, the
front face as far as possible, and was composed of the 42nd and the
detachment of the 23rd, with Rait’s guns, was to seize the village of
Egginassie. The left column, the Naval Brigade, and Russell’s native
regiment, with some Royal Engineers and two rocket troughs, was to move
by a road cut through the bush some few hundred yards from the central
column. The right column was also built up of the Naval Brigade, with
another native regiment, and some Engineers and rocket tubes. The 2nd
Battalion of the Rifle Brigade formed the reserve or rear face, if
required, of the square. The village of Egginassie was occupied with
but little opposition, and the firing was continuous and heavy, as
the troops advanced farther. Fortunately the missiles were slugs, not
bullets, or the loss would have been serious. As it was, many men were
hit, some severely, and Captain Buckle was killed. The total casualties
amounted to 250, while the Ashanti loss was heavy, and their leader,
Ammonquantia, was slain.
The following day the village of Bequah was taken, and further severe
skirmishing took place at the passage of the Ordah, which had to be
bridged, and while the baggage convoy was being packed at Ordahsu, a
further effort was made to disturb the column, and Lieutenant Eyre
was killed. Here the defence was half-hearted, and the capture of the
capital, Coomassie, was not opposed. It was “a town over which the
smell of death hangs everywhere and pulsates on each sickly breath
of wind--a town where, here and there, a vulture hops at one’s very
feet, too gorged to join the filthy flock preening itself on the
gaunt dead trunks that line the road; where blood is plastered like
a pitch coating over trees, floors, and stools--blood of a thousand
victims yearly-renewed; where headless bodies make common sport; where
murder, pure and simple, monotonous massacre of bound men, is the one
employment of the king, and the one spectacle of the populace.”[68]
One of the many reasons for the war was a wish to put down the
barbarous horrors of King Koffi Calcali’s reign, and a stipulation to
that effect was made in the treaty, but it was disregarded. It required
a second expedition to carry the measure into effect, by the deposition
of the king’s successor, Prempeh, and the bloodless occupation of the
capital--measures over which gloom was cast by the death of Prince
Henry of Battenberg. Finally, in the first expedition, the city was set
on fire, the king’s palace destroyed, and the army turned back to the
coast. It was quite time; the rains had set in, and what were rivulets
on the march up were now unfordable streams on the march back. Men half
swam, were half dragged over these, their clothes being carried on the
heads of natives. In one case, the bundle was lost, and, it is said
that the unfortunate owner paraded the next morning with nothing but
his helmet and rifle!
The war was over, and a treaty of peace signed; but after the
retirement of Sir Garnet Wolseley from Coomassie, Captain Reginald
Sartorius, who led the advance of Captain Glover’s force from the
Volta, rode alone through the ruins of the city to communicate with
the general commanding, and won thus the Victoria Cross. But this
expedition was too late to join hands with the main column, though it
had some skirmishing on the way; as also were those of Captain Butler
with the Akims, and Captain Dalrymple with the Wassaws. Small as the
war was, and of very short duration, it was sufficiently deadly. By
July 9, 1874, thirty-eight officers of the whole force were dead.[69]
Turning once more to South Africa, it will be remembered that the
Kaffir wars of 1850-53 had been chiefly fought about the valley of the
Kei, south of which river was British Kaffraria, including the tribes
of the Fingoes and Gaikas, while in the Transkei district are the
Galekas, Pondos, Griquas, etc. The war broke out much as before. The
Gaika chief Sandilli and the Galeka chief Kreli attacked our old allies
the Fingoes in 1877, and the Kaffirs, being better armed with rifles
than in 1850, were now rather more formidable.
The enemy developed an increasing knowledge of tactics. The old
irregular rush of a mass of men had given way to more methodical
formations. Thus Kreli in his advance on the police post of Ibeka--the
frontier police had taken the place of the Cape Mounted Rifles, which
had been disbanded--had about 2000 of his 10,000 men mounted, and
advanced in line of columns covered by skirmishers. But the fire of the
breech-loader, together with that of rockets and 7-pounders, checked
then, as before, the savage ardour. The war, which lasted more or less
intermittently until 1878, was mainly carried out by colonial and
irregular levies; but many detachments for holding the defensive posts
with which the country was dotted were furnished by the 88th, the 24th
(whose bandsmen were trained as gunners to work a 7-pounder gun), a
naval brigade with marines, the 90th (one of whose men emphasised the
value of the Martini-Henry rifle by hitting a man who was whooping
and dancing 1800 yards away), the 2nd Buffs, and the 13th, and most
of these regiments shared in the prolonged war. The losses were more
serious both with officers and men, for the better weapons the Kaffirs
had secured told.
But the end, though long in coming, was decisive. Kreli surrendered,
Sandilli was killed, risings in Griqualand were suppressed, and the
Basutos were crushed when their chief Morosi’s heavily-fortified
stronghold was stormed. The theatre of war had extended north as far
as Mafeking, where there was hard fighting with another Basuto leader
named Letherodi.
The next campaign against the natives was far more serious than the
preceding one. The Zulus were probably the bravest of all these
southern tribes, and had some form of discipline, organisation, and
tactics, though their arms--clubs or “knob-kerries,” shields, muskets
of sorts, and assegais--were much the same as in other parts of Africa,
save that the latter were shorter, blunt at the end, and broader in
the blade, being intended for stabbing rather than throwing. In other
respects the people were bloodthirsty, superstitious, and sanguinary,
given over to “witch doctors” and brutal massacres. There had been
frequent raids on the Natal frontier by them from 1838 onwards until
1878, when the spirit of restlessness increased, and General Thesiger
took command of the army at the Cape, which then consisted of the 3rd,
13th, 24th, 80th, 88th, and 90th Regiments, with two batteries of
Artillery and some Engineers. The country was to be invaded by three
columns. The first or southern column, under Colonel Pearson, consisted
of the Buffs, the 99th, with some Artillery, a Naval Brigade, and local
levies; the second or central column was to move from Helpmakaar under
Colonel Glyn, and contained the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the 24th, a
battery, and other levies; and the northern, which was based on Utrecht
in the Transvaal, under Colonel Evelyn Wood, in which were a battery
and the 13th, 60th, and 90th Regiments. A fourth column under Colonel
Durnford was to march later, between the first and second columns.
Opposed to them were supposed to be about 40,000 fighting men. They
were organised in large masses, and used skirmishers. Speaking
generally, their tactical method was to form a complete ring, if
possible, around the body attacked, and then close. On the 12th January
1879 the troops marched, and on the 22nd Pearson had a smart brush with
the enemy at Inyezane, but reached his first objective, Etschowe, where
a depôt was to be formed, without further opposition.
The central column had been less fortunate, for, crossing the river at
Rorke’s Drift, where a detachment of the 24th were left, the small
army pushed on to the isolated hill of Isandhlwana. Here, while the
general was reconnoitring to the south-east, the Zulu army passed
across his front and attacked the camp. A desperate resistance was
made, but against 14,000 Zulus there could be only one result. Few of
the British escaped, and one colour of the 24th was lost, the “Queen’s
colour” of the 1st battalion being carried safely as far as the river
by Lieutenants Melville and Coghill, who gallantly died there in its
defence.
This colour was subsequently recovered, and the “regimental” colour
had been left safe at Helpmakaar. Of the regular troops 26 officers
and 806 men had fallen, and 24 colonial officers and many men had also
perished. The only gleam of sunshine on this gloomy and disastrous
day was the gallant defence of the commissariat camp at Rorke’s Drift
by Lieutenants Chard and Bromhead of the Royal Engineers and 24th
respectively. For when the victorious “Impi” continued its advance, it
found the post hastily fortified with biscuit-boxes, mealie sacks, and
bags of Indian corn, and so desperate was the resistance of the small
band, 139 men in all, of whom 35 were sick, against 4000 Zulus, that
they fell back beaten. The brave defence had prevented the invasion of
Natal, and in all the annals of the army there is no more brilliant
episode than the defence of Rorke’s Drift.
Wood’s column had meanwhile reached the White Umvolosi, and while
a stone fort was being built there, and named “Fort Tinta,” many
reconnaissances were made towards the Zungen range; but though there
were many skirmishes, there was on this side no serious fighting yet.
So ended the first stage of the war. The general’s first idea was to
fall back on the Tugela and await reinforcements; but, leaving to
Colonel Pearson to act on his own discretion, that officer decided on
remaining at Etschowe and fortifying it. Here for some time he was
completely isolated, but several successful raids were made, in one
of which Dabiulamanzi’s Kraal was burned. Relief came on the 2nd
April, when a force under Colonel Low, consisting of a naval brigade,
the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, the Lanarkshire Regiment,
detachments of the Buffs and 57th, the 37th, the 60th, with some guns,
rocket tubes, and Gatlings, etc., advanced as far as Ginghilovo, and
these, when in laager, were attacked by a force 10,000 strong, who
fought with the greatest bravery, closing up to the very rifles of
the defenders; but the fire was too heavy, and when they fell back
in disorder, a charge of Barrow’s mounted irregulars completed their
discomfiture. They had lost 1200 men, at a cost to their opponents of
9 men killed and 52, including 2 officers, wounded. After the relief
of Etschowe, the force fell back to Ginghilovo and encamped. As the
right wing had fought a successful battle and altered its position, so
the left wing was to copy its example. For Colonel Wood, leaving Fort
Tinta and entrenching at Kambula, made many raids thence, including
that to the Inhlobane Mountain, a famous natural fastness of the Zulus,
where the natives had been for some time collecting. Here the force was
attacked by a strong Impi formed in a line of five contiguous columns,
forming the “chest” and “two horns,” covered by skirmishers; but,
owing to a series of unfortunate misunderstandings, the retirement was
effected in some disorder and with much loss. Nearly all the Border
Horse were slain, as also was our staunch Boer ally, “splendid, manly,
honest, simple, and taciturn Piet Uys, whose fathers, uncles, and
cousins fought and fell in the old war with Dingaan”; while 15 officers
and 79 men were killed, and 1 officer and 7 men wounded. But Colonel
Buller, Lieutenant Lysons, and Private Fowler, for distinguished
bravery, earned the Victoria Cross. Success emboldened the Zulu
chieftains, and, pushing on, they attacked the Kambula laagers on the
20th March, with 25,000 men, and after one of the most serious and
prolonged battles of the war, fell back beaten, and were pursued for
many miles. Out of the British force of some 2000 men, only 18 men were
killed, and 8 officers and 57 men were wounded.
As Rorke’s Drift saved Natal from invasion, so Kambula preserved
Utrecht and the Transvaal.
An incident in this phase of the campaign was the attack by the Swazi
freebooter Umbelini on a convoy, guarded by a detachment of the 80th,
when on its way from Luneberg to Derby in the Transvaal, in which the
convoy guard lost 62 men out of 106, and Lieutenant Harward, for riding
off to get assistance, was tried by court-martial, but acquitted.
The final stage of the war was approaching. Reinforcements were rapidly
arriving. These were the 1st Dragoon Guards and the 17th Lancers, two
more batteries, and Royal Engineers, the Royal Scots Fusiliers, 59th,
60th, 91st, and 94th; and among the fresh arrivals was Prince Louis
Napoleon, who was appointed an extra aide-de-camp on the headquarter’s
staff, and Sir Garnet Wolseley.
The reorganised army again formed three columns, but Wood’s command was
to act as an independent flying column in the north; the next column,
No. 2 Division, under General Newdigate, and based on Utrecht, moving
by Landmann Drift across the Ityolyosi on Ulundi.
It was in a reconnaissance towards the last-named river that
Prince Napoleon was slain, an event the sadness of which cannot be
over-estimated, and over which it is well to draw a veil. Finally,
on crossing the White Umvolosi the 2nd Division was joined by Wood’s
column, and, leaving one battalion of the 24th to guard the baggage,
the remainder formed a huge hollow rectangle, with the baggage in the
centre. Marching in this formation with bands playing and colours
flying, until a suitable position was found within sight of the king’s
kraal at Ulundi, it there awaited battle four ranks deep, the two front
of which knelt. Brave as was the assault, a bravery which asked no
quarter, it was powerless against better arms and better discipline.
The fight had lasted barely an hour when the Zulu power was utterly
broken.
Meanwhile, the 1st Division under Crealock on the right had been
operating in the south by the lower Tugela and Etschowe, moving
somewhat close to the coast and in the direction of Ulundi; but
through no fault of its own it did not reach the field in time, and
when the final battle was won, the army as then constituted was
practically broken up. Other arrangements for its distribution were
then made, and a series of forts and fortified posts held by sufficient
garrisons were formed all along the Zulu frontier. But the closing
scene had yet to come. Two columns were formed for the final military
exploration of Zululand, the one under Colonel Clarke, which had among
its number the 57th, 60th, and 80th, and the other under Colonel Baker
Russell, which included the 94th. The former was to occupy Ulundi, and
thence attempt the capture of the king. This was effected by Major
Marter after much trouble, and the war was thus at an end. On being
captured, Cetewayo remained, though broken, a king, and objected with
dignity to being taken by a private of dragoons, with the words, “White
soldier, touch me not--I surrender to your chief.”
Baker Russell was to search the southern and eastern part of the
country, and after doing so, enter the Transvaal about Luneberg. This
was done, and the last shots in the Zulu war were fired by his column
in an attack on the Manganobas in the Intombe valley.
The war had cost the army 76 officers and 1007 men killed, and 37
officers and 206 men wounded; while in addition 17 officers and 330
men died from disease, and 1286 were invalided home. The cost to the
country financially had been £5,230,323.
Sir Garnet Wolseley’s lucky star had again shone over him in these
operations. His presence in South Africa coincided with the period of
success and the capture of Cetewayo. There was one more knotty point
for him to settle, that of the still insurgent chief Sekukuni, who
had been a thorn in the side of the Boers, whose territory we then
possessed. It will be seen next how his good fortune, based on careful
attention to details both moral and physical, led to the surrender of
the last disturbing element in this section of South Africa,--at least
as far as the natives were concerned.
It may be considered a matter of regret that the State did not
undertake the annexation of Zululand, as it did the absorption of
Indian tribes a century ago. Our brave but bitter enemies, the Sikhs,
have become our most reliable soldiers in India. Similarly there
was no personal hostility when war ceased between the Zulu and the
English soldier; rather the reverse. They had received the elements of
military organisation, and had shown themselves apt pupils in applying
them. To have substituted for Panda’s discipline and training that
of our own army under able and skilful officers, accustomed to make
of native levies regiments more or less irregular but of the highest
military value, would have been easy with our Eastern experience. A
Zulu militia, well trained, well armed, and led by whites, would have
conduced to the peace of South Africa as much as Sikhs, Beloochees, and
Ghoorkas do to the preservation, by military means, of peace among the
discordant elements, both national and theological, which go to make
up our great Eastern satrapy. Such a force would have fought for brave
leaders, and with them, as the hastily raised levies of the Mutiny
fought for Fane, or Probyn, or Hodson.
Such an army, created mainly for defensive, and not necessarily
offensive, purposes, would have created a military peace. Fear of it
would have kept turbulent and restless peoples in wholesome fear.
Trained and led by British officers, it would have been the police of
South Africa at the smallest possible cost to the English State. To
have kept alive the military instinct of the Zulu, to have instilled
into him the soldier’s habit of discipline and cleanliness, would have
saved him.
We have won South Africa purely and simply by the sword and so must
we keep it. But we could keep it best--as we keep the peace in
India--by not ignoring the military spirit of the people, but by
showing the justice of our rule, and keeping alive the soldier feeling
as a national police. Any other course is impossible with savage or
semi-barbarous people. Nothing is despised more than a weakness which
they translate as fear. It is a fatal day when a nation, whose history
throughout is one of conquest, forgets how she has made the empire, and
thinks to hold it by other means, such as by a popular opinion which it
takes centuries to create and make good. To forget the traditions of
the race is equally fatal. Our empire was never made by concessions; it
was made by forcible possession, and that, as a general rule certainly,
for the eventual benefit, as far as civilisation is concerned, of the
people we have conquered. The neglect of this is at the bottom of the
disastrous campaign that followed the destruction of the Zulu power.
“_Vestigia nulla retrorsum._” To go back is weakness with all except
the highest intellectual nations. We took the Transvaal, and stated
that the former condition of things there should _never_ be restored!
The wisdom of the first step may be a matter of opinion. The evil of
the “afterwards” is another question altogether.
Anyhow, our annexation of the Transvaal in 1877 had led to collision
with Sekukuni, a turbulent Basuto chieftain, and at first the
operations taken against him were unsuccessful, Colonel Rowland’s
force, which included a company of the 13th, having to fall back to
Lydenburg. During the Zulu campaign he had openly sympathised with
Cetewayo, and had had frequent skirmishes with the Transvaal Boers.
When, therefore, the Zulu war terminated, Sir Garnet Wolseley’s
attention was turned towards this constant source of trouble, and in
October 1879 he moved against the “fighting Koppie” with detachments of
the 21st Royal Scots Fusiliers, 86th, and 94th, in all 1400 European
troops, and 4000 native levies, to meet a force estimated at 14,000
men, strongly entrenched. The district occupied by Sekukuni lies in a
bend between the junction of the Oliphant and Steelpoort rivers, and
was surrounded by fortified posts. The fortress itself was naturally
strong: “Its whole interior was honeycombed by nature, intersected by
passage and gallery, leading into great chambers with chinks, clefts,
and crannies, forming natural loopholes for musketry, and in one place
there yawned an appalling chasm which had never been fathomed, and was
believed to contain water at the bottom. When in the agonies of thirst
on the third day of their blockade, some of Sekukuni’s people went down
by means of great leather thongs tied together, none of them ever came
up again; no more was heard from them.” This is a good type of the
African rock-fortress.
On the 28th of November the attack was made, and was fully successful,
but some of the caves still held many who would not surrender, and
who preferred rather to die of thirst and starvation than give up
either themselves or their chief. The conduct of these warriors was
chivalric in its devotion to Sekukuni, who did not surrender until the
2nd December, and was then conveyed to Pretoria. There the 4th, 58th,
80th, the 1st Dragoon Guards, and Curling’s battery paraded for a
review of the largest body of regular troops yet seen in that town, and
Commandant D’Arcy as well as Privates Flawn and Fitzpatrick of the 94th
received the Victoria Cross. Sir Garnet Wolseley left the Transvaal
with a small garrison, and, he thought, at peace.
So it might have been had there been greater firmness and more tact
displayed after he left. But there was friction between the British
and the Dutch settlers, who had refused to remain under our rule
long years before. In 1845, three companies of the 91st and some
Cape Mounted Rifles defeated 500 Boers, who fled after making but a
faint resistance. Collision again occurred in 1848 at Boomplatz, the
second of a series of small conflicts which one by one have sought
to wrest from the Boers the territories they had conquered and in
part reclaimed. The tendency throughout had been to treat them as
only another sort of semi-barbarous occupant, to be got rid of when
their land was wanted by others. In this skirmish were engaged some
companies of the 45th, 91st, and Rifle Brigade, with two squadrons and
two guns, and they routed a Boer command, estimated at 1000 strong,
though strongly entrenched behind breastworks of piled stones. There
was but little loss on either side, and it is said that a drummer of
the 91st, tired of the long waiting, while the men were lying down
firing, himself beat the charge, and the men went in with cheers, and
the enemy fled without an effort to rally. Then they retired behind
the Vaal to form the Transvaal Republic, and in 1851 the Orange River
Territory, which had been annexed by us in 1848, was relinquished
to form the “Orange Free State.” But now for reasons that the
future historian will wonder at, we annexed the Transvaal. Our past
experience of the Boer had taught us nothing. Anyone who will read the
Parliamentary Blue Book and Colonel Brackenbury’s despatches must see
that war was inevitable. Yet, with a fair knowledge of what Boers were,
and with an idea of superiority which was to have a rude awakening, we
entered into a serious war with a light heart and with a force that was
insufficient to meet even a Zulu impi. The war is remarkable in every
way, primarily as the first instance, since the firearm was introduced,
in which regular soldiers came under careful, well-directed, aimed,
rifle fire, and were in every case beaten. The only parallel instance
is that of the war of American Independence. There also a people goaded
into fighting by wrong were victorious; and succeeded both because
the justice of their cause strengthened their moral fibre, and their
guerilla warfare, for it was often little else, was in many cases
accompanied by careful shooting. But the difference in the nature of
the weapons at the end of the eighteenth and that of the nineteenth
century is so great as to mark, by the heavy loss the defeated troops
sustained, the terrible nature of modern rifle fire when carefully
directed.
The Transvaal had been annexed in 1877, though in 1852 it had been
recognised as a free and independent State; the reason assigned, among
others equally unreasonable, being that the State was bankrupt. The
true Boer, the “Dopper,” is the descendant as much of French Huguenots
as of the Dutch employees of the East India Company. “They are,” writes
Sir William Butler, “a homely, sober, quiet, dull race of beings, as
full of faith in God and fair dealing between man and man as this
world holds sample of.” Doubtless there are many exceptions to their
character as thus drawn, but the vast majority agreed in one thing,
protest against the loss of their freedom. Meeting succeeded meeting,
appeal followed appeal. To threats of force the answer was, “We do not
rely upon regiments, but on right.” When, therefore, the storm burst,
there were but three battalions (the 21st, 58th, and 94th) of regulars
in the Transvaal, with a detachment of the 4th, a squadron of the
King’s Dragoon Guards, and a battery of artillery, while the nearest
reinforcements were the 3-60th in Natal, and the 91st at the Cape.
Hostilities began in this way. In December 1880, the 94th, about 250
strong, under Colonel Anstruther, was acting as convoy guard on the
road from Lydenberg to Pretoria. On crossing Brunker’s Spruit, they
were opposed by 150 Boers, who opened fire when Anstruther, on being
informed of the declaration of the Republic, refused to retire, and in
twenty minutes 120 men were _hors de combat_, of whom 7 were officers.
Mrs. Smith, the wife of the bandmaster, who was shot by her side, and
was herself wounded, behaved with the greatest gallantry in assisting
the wounded, and was afterwards given the silver medal for deeds of
gallantry on land. Meanwhile the isolated garrisons in the Transvaal at
Pretoria, Rustenberg, Wakkerstroom, Standerton, Heidelberg, Lydenberg,
Middleberg, Fort Victoria, Fort Albert, and Marabos Stadt, were more
or less invested, and the Boers, crossing the Natal frontier, placed
a strong force _à cheval_ the road from Newcastle to Standerton about
Laing’s Nek.
Open sympathy with the Boers increased rapidly and came from all
sources, the Cape, the Orange Free State, the Dutch in Holland, and
even Belgium. Every effort was made to bring about an understanding,
but all to no effect. The evil cry on our side, “Restore us our
prestige and then we will treat” prevented peace as yet. So a “relief”
column left Newcastle for Potchefstroom and Pretoria, under Sir George
Pomeroy Colley, consisting of detachments of the 58th, 60th, 2nd
Scots Fusiliers, and a naval brigade with 6 guns and 2 Gatlings, but
the total strength was not 1000 men. A purely frontal attack, by men
conspicuous with white helmets, against the steep and partly entrenched
position of the Boers at Laing’s Nek, on the 28th January 1881,
met with a severe reverse, 208 men being killed and 80 wounded. The
fighting had been close, for, as Joubert reports, “One of the officers
even fired in among our men with his revolver before he was shot, but
then the Lord helped us!”
The reverse was somewhat startling to those who thought there would be
no opposition. Two companies of the Gordon Highlanders were hurried up
to Mount Prospect Camp, between which and Colley’s base at Newcastle
ran the Ingogo River. It was south of this stream that the second fight
took place, and was brought about by despatching a force, including
some of the King’s Dragoon Guards and the 60th, to assist in covering a
convoy which was expected from Newcastle; but as the Boers had already
interposed between Newcastle and the Ingogo, it had returned to the
town. The ground favoured the tactical skill of the foe, “men who
could neither march, manœuvre, nor even form sections of fours, but
were resolute in heart, muscular in figure, and deadly marksmen, who
were accustomed to bring down the fleet springbok at full speed from
their saddles, and stalk all the great game with which Southern Africa
abounds.”
So the British loss was heavy. Most of the killed were shot through the
head as they essayed to fire over the boulders that sheltered them; the
two guns were soon disabled, and the wearied remnant returned to camp,
with a loss of 132 officers and men. Still, the men had behaved well
and coolly, and suffered no panic.
[Illustration: _Private 24^{th} Reg^{t} 1879_]
Meanwhile, reinforcements consisting of the 92nd, 2-60th, the 15th
Hussars, a naval brigade, and the Natal Police under Sir Evelyn Wood,
met Sir George at Newcastle. The additional cavalry had enabled the
general to make more extended reconnaissances round the Boer left,
which proved that they were still entrenching, and showed no signs of
wishing to avoid battle. On the evening of the 26th February, General
Colley played his last card, and lost his life as well. Contrary to
usual custom, he formed, with the utmost secrecy, a force to occupy
Majuba Hill, an isolated and precipitous koppie, which to a certain
extent dominated the right flank of the Laing’s Nek position. It was
made up of detachments of the Highlanders, the 58th, the 2-60th, and
65 bluejackets, in all some 545 bayonets. In the advance, made in the
dark, a company of the 92nd and one of the 60th, with a dismounted
troop of hussars, were left at a point about midway between the hill
and the camp, and the remainder stumbled on, and after great exertion,
about 5 a.m., reached the summit. This was a saucer-shaped plateau
about 1000 yards round, and when day broke, the presence of British
soldiers produced wild confusion in the Boer camp. But not for long.
While one portion hastened to man the trenches at Laing’s Nek, the rest
rode towards Majuba, and, dismounting, opened fire. It was said at
the time that the “covering party” consisted of the married men, the
storming column of the single men who could best be spared. Be that as
it may, between twelve and one the fire suddenly increased in intensity
and the assault was made. It was only too successful. The British
were driven from it in the utmost disorder, and left behind them Sir
George Colley and 18 other officers, with 218 men killed, wounded, or
missing, of about 600 men who had left Prospect Camp the night before.
One instance of devoted bravery marked the terrible day, and for it
Corporal Joseph John Farmer got the Cross for Valour, for, “while the
Boers closed with the British troops near the well, Corporal Farmer
held a white flag over the wounded, and when the arm holding the flag
was shot through, he called out that he had another. He then raised the
flag with the other arm, and continued to do so until that also was
pierced by a bullet.”
The Boer loss is stated, by themselves, to have been between 24 and
50, but the details are very conflicting. An armistice was soon agreed
to between the belligerents, during which the army, now commanded by
Sir Evelyn Wood, consisted of the 6th Dragoons, 15th Hussars, and
a squadron of the King’s Dragoon Guards, 14 guns, the 2nd and 3rd
Battalions of the 60th, the relics of the 58th, the 83rd, 92nd, and
97th, together with a naval brigade and some mounted infantry. Finally
peace was declared, and the beleaguered garrisons were relieved.
No war of such small magnitude, as far as the numbers engaged are
concerned, has left more grave results. For long years after the
peace was signed, the Boers showed the greatest arrogance towards all
British subjects, whether civilians or soldiers, and in many cases it
was accompanied with open and undisguised insult. The surrender of
the Transvaal was ruin to many an Englishman who, “confiding in the
public declaration of Sir Garnet Wolseley and Sir Bartle Frere that
the annexation of the Transvaal was irrevocable, had invested capital
in the country, and their property was now worthless and their capital
lost, owing to their having put faith in the words of Her Majesty’s
representative.” But the blame does not rest with him.
The disastrous war had cost in all 29 officers killed and 20 wounded,
and 366 men killed, with 428 wounded.
One result of the British defeat in the Transvaal was to increase,
not unnaturally, the restlessness of the Boers. Both Zululand and
Bechuanaland suffered from unauthorised incursions of what were
really filibusters, whose efforts at colonial expansion were too
frequently attended with murder. In one of these, against Chief
Montsoia, an Englishman named Bethel was barbarously murdered, and
hence an expedition was despatched, under Sir Charles Warren, to
Bechuanaland in 1884. An attempt had been made by the Boers to annex
Montsoia’s territory, which, by the Convention of 1884, was under
our Protectorate; there was no doubt, moreover, that the whole of
the disturbances had been directed from the Transvaal, and if not
distinctly fostered by that Government, met with its tacit approval.
But hostilities were happily averted. President Kruger met Sir Charles
Warren in conference, and the conflicting clauses were adjusted.
But the operations, insignificant as they may seem militarily, were
politically important. They, temporarily at least, restored the
position of Great Britain as the paramount power in South Africa. The
last collision in the Transvaal between Dr. Jameson’s troopers, led
by British officers, and the Boers of Pretoria, etc., was decisive in
another way; but it is not a part of the story of the regular army, and
is of too recent occurrence to be commented on here.