STATE OF AFFAIRS IN MATABELELAND
Buluwayo—Too many Heads may spoil the Campaign—The Situation—Origin of
the Rebellion—The Power of the M’limo—The Outbreak of Rebellion—Defence
Measures and Rescue Patrols—Native Police—Sorties from Buluwayo inflict
Blows on the Enemy—MacFarlane’s Attack relieves the Pressure on the
Town—Plumer’s Relief Force continues the driving back of the Enemy—Sir
Frederick Carrington’s Plan of Campaign.
_3rd June._—Unpacked ourselves at 1 a. m. from our lairs in the corners
of the coach, with something akin to regret at leaving the old thing
after ten days and nights in her. But it _was_ a blessing to bed down
in a house, and the bath on waking was worth gold. (Bathroom was the
verandah in the main street.)
Our lodging was next door to the club buildings, now used as a
barrack for Grey’s Scouts, and defended with a small bastion of tin
biscuit–cases and sacks filled with earth. By breakfast–time I had
investigated Buluwayo.
A red earth flat laid out by ditches, in blocks and streets, over two
miles long and half a mile wide. The centre portion of the town well
filled with buildings, all single–storeyed, some brick, some tin, some
“paper” (_i.e._ wire–wove, ready–made in England, sent out in pieces),
all with verandahs. The more outlying blocks only boasting a house
or shanty here and there. Most of the houses built with a view to
ultimate extension; _e.g._ one consisted of, evidently, the scullery,
back kitchen, and “offices,” the front to be added later, when better
times came round. The gardens, streets, and vacant lots richly sown
with broken bottles, meat tins, rags, and paper; scarcely a garden,
shrub, or tree in th place. The houses generally, if they are not
“Bottle stores” (_i.e._ public–houses), are either dry–goods stores or
mining syndicate offices. Everywhere enterprise and rough elements of
civilisation,—not forgetting the liquor branch.
Half a mile southward of the town lies a bush–covered rising ground, on
which are a good number of “villas,” with their two or three acres of
bush fenced in to form their gardens in the future. At present they are
deserted, the owners living in town while the Matabele are about.
In the centre of the town is the market square with its market house—a
big brick building which is now used as the main refuge and defence of
the town. Round the market house is drawn up a rectangular laager of
waggons, built up with sacks full of earth to form a bullet–proof wall.
Outside the laager the ground for twenty or thirty yards is rendered
impassable by means of “entanglements” of barbed wire and a fence of
the same, as well as by a thick sprinkling of broken bottles all over
the ground itself.
Up on the roof of the hall is a look–out turret, from which, by
touching a button, an observer can at will fire any of the electric
mines which have been laid in the various approaches to the market
square.
Although most of the people who have houses in Buluwayo are now living
in their homes again, there are numbers of families from suburban or
outlying farms who are still living in the laager. And at the western
end of the town is another smaller laager of waggons round a house, in
which a number of Boer farmers, with their families, are living.
We had a very nice house “commandeered” (_i.e._ taken over by
Government at a fair rental), and handed over to us for our use as a
dwelling–house, ready supplied with furniture, etc.; and then the
offices of one of the gold–mining companies were similarly commandeered
and assigned to us for offices. In a very short time we had settled
down and were hard at work—and there was lots to do.
Of course our first business was to interview all the heads of affairs,
and so to form an idea of the situation.
Sir Richard Martin (with whom I had served previously, when on the
mission to Swaziland, under Sir F. de Winton) is Deputy Commissioner,
appointed since Jameson’s raid to regulate the use and moves of the
armed forces in the Chartered Company’s territories, so as to prevent
any further adventurous departures on their part. Lord Grey is
Administrator of the Government of the whole country of Rhodesia, which
includes Matabeleland and Mashonaland, etc.—a tract of country 750,000
square miles in extent, or equal to Spain, France, and Italy together.
Mr. Cecil Rhodes, while bearing no official position, practically
represents the management of the country as well as of the Company,
and his advice and experience are of the greatest value, since all the
other “heads” are new arrivals in the country. And it is in this number
of heads that our danger would apparently, and our difficulty will
most certainly be. Virtually, of course, the General is _the_ head
while active operations are in progress, but he has to cut his cloth
according to the style approved by the Deputy Commissioner, according
to the expense sanctioned by the Administrator, and according to the
general design required by the High Commissioner, while not totally
disregarding the local experience of Mr. Rhodes and others. Altogether,
the principle of strategy, which directs that “the General in command
should merely have his objective pointed out to him, and a free hand
given him,” seems to be pretty well trenched upon by the present
arrangement, though, under the circumstances, it could not well be
helped. This, however, has always been the case in the history of South
African warfare,—frequently with fatal results,—so it is nothing new:
the only thing is to make the best of it, and pull together as much as
possible.
And this is what we find is the situation of affairs.
Matabeleland had been captured by the Chartered Company’s troops,
acting from Mashonaland, in 1893, and Lobengula driven to his death
as a fugitive. Since then the country had been governed by the
Administrator and his magistrates and native commissioners in the
various districts into which the country was divided.
By 1896 the white population had increased to nearly four thousand,
guarded by an armed police force distributed about the country. At the
end of 1895 the greater part of this police was taken from Rhodesia, in
order to take part in Jameson’s raid into the Transvaal.
Just about the same time the terrible scourge of rinderpest came down
upon the land. Three years before, it had made a start in Somaliland,
and had steadily and persistently worked its way down the continent
of Africa—and it now crossed the mighty barrier of the Zambesi, and
was sweeping over the great cattle–country, Matabeleland. With a view
to checking its ravages, the Government took all possible steps for
preventing the transmission of infection, and, amongst others, that of
slaughtering sound cattle was adopted. This procedure was perfectly
incomprehensible to the native mind, and before long it was mooted
among them that the white man’s idea in slaughtering the cattle was to
reduce the native to the lowest straits, and to starve him to death.
The natives had only been very partially beaten in the war in 1893, and
the memory of it rankled strongly in their mind. They had thought the
war was merely a passing raid, and it was only now they were realising
that the whites had come to stay, and to oust them from their land.
They were only waiting for their opportunity to rise and drive out
their invaders.
Then, ever since the war, there had been a partial drought over
the land, and what little crops there were had been devoured by
unprecedented flights of locusts. All these misfortunes tended to
spread among the people a general feeling of sullen discontent.
And this was increased to a feeling of bitter resentment against the
whites, because they, the Matabele, found that the one remedy for want
which in the old days they had been wont to ply so readily—namely,
the wholesale raiding of their weaker neighbours—was under the new
régime denied them. Nowadays, not only was every such raid prevented
or punished as unlawful, but even in their home life their liberties
were interfered with, and trifling thefts of cattle from a neighbour’s
herd, or the quiet putting away of a lazy slave or of a quarrelsome
stepmother, were now treated as crimes by policemen of their own blood
and colour, but creatures of the white man, strutting among them with
as much consequence and power as any of the royal indunas.
These things developed their hatred against the whites, and served
as plausible reasons for their conduct when the chiefs came to be
questioned later on in giving in their surrender.
Meanwhile, the chiefs and headmen, hoping to get back their ancient
powers, fomented this feeling for all that they were worth. And they
had a ductile mass to handle, for to the vast majority of their people
the question of rights and wrongs was an unknown quantity, but the lust
of blood—especially blood of white men, when, as they anticipated,
it could be got with little danger to themselves—was an irresistible
incentive.
The withdrawal of the armed forces from the country for the Transvaal
raid gave them their opportunity.
The Matabele have no regular religion beyond a reverence for the souls
of ancestors, and for an oracle–deity adopted from the Mashonas, whom
they call the M’limo. The M’limo is an invisible god, who has three
priests about the country, one in the north–east beyond Inyati, one
in the south in the Matopo hills, and one south–west near Mangwe. The
pure–bred Matabele, as well as the aboriginal natives, the Makalakas
and the Maholis, all go to consult these priests of the M’limo as
oracles, and place a blind belief in all they say. In addition to
the three high priests, there are four warrior–chiefs of the M’limo.
These men working in with the priests brought about the outbreak
of rebellion. Three of these warrior–indunas are Matabele, the
fourth—Uwini—heads the Makalakas.
Choosing well their opportunity, when, as they thought, all the white
fighting men had left the country, and none but women, children, and
dotards were left behind, they spread the message through the land—with
that speed which only native messages can take. They called on all
the tribes to arm themselves, and to assemble on a certain moon round
three sides of Buluwayo. The town was to be rushed in the night, and
the whites to be slaughtered without quarter to any. The road to Mangwe
was to be left conspicuously open, so that any whites who might escape
their notice would take the hint and fly from the country. Buluwayo
was not to be destroyed, as it would serve again as the royal kraal
for Lobengula, who had returned to life again. After the slaughter at
Buluwayo the army would break up into smaller impis, and go about the
land to kill all outlying farmers and to loot their farms. The M’limo
further promised that the white men’s bullets would, in their flight,
be changed to water, and their cannon–shells would similarly turn into
eggs.
The plan was not a bad one, but in one important particular it
miscarried, and so lost to the Kafirs the very good chance they had of
wiping out the white men.
About 24th March the outbreak began—but prematurely. In their eagerness
for blood some bands of rebels, acting contrary to their instructions,
worked their wicked will on outlying settlers and prospectors before
attempting the night surprise on Buluwayo. _That_ was their mistake—it
gave the alarm to the whites in town and enabled them to prepare their
defence in good time.
Among the Insiza Hills, some thirty–five miles east of Buluwayo, on
that fateful day, seven white men with their coloured servants were
butchered at Edkins Store, and at the Nellie Reef Maddocks a miner was
murdered, while a few miles farther on a peaceable farming family were
brutally done to death. The white–haired old grandfather, the mother,
two grown–up girls, a boy, and three little yellow–haired children—all
bashed and mangled.
At another place a bride, just out from the peace and civilisation of
home, had her happy dream suddenly wrecked by a rush of savages into
the farmstead. Her husband was struck down, but she managed to escape
to the next farm, some four miles distant—only to find its occupants
already fled. Ignorant of the country and of the people, the poor girl
gathered together what tinned food she could carry, and, making her way
to the river, she made herself a grassy nest among the rocks, where
she hoped to escape detection. For a few terrible days and nights she
existed there, till the Matabele came upon her tracks, and shortly
stoned her to death—another added to their tale of over a hundred and
fifty victims within a week.
The only comfort is that their gruesome fate saved many other lives,
for the news spread fast, and as more reports from every side came in
of murdered whites, those in Buluwayo realised that the rising was
a general one, and merciless. They promptly took their measures for
defence.
The laagers were formed, as I have described, to accommodate the seven
hundred women and children in the place; while the eight hundred men
were organised in troops, and armed and horsed in an incredibly short
space of time.
Patrols were promptly sent out to bring in outlying farmers, and to
gather information as to the rebels’ moves and numbers.
Ere long the rebel forces were closing round Buluwayo. North, east,
and south they lay, to the number of seven thousand at the least.
Throughout the country their numbers must have been but little under
ten to thirteen thousand.
Nearly two thousand of them were armed with Martini–Henry rifles. A
hundred of the Native Police deserted, and joined them with their
Winchester repeaters. Many of them owned Lee–Metfords, illicitly
bought, stolen, or received in return for showing gold–reefs to
unscrupulous prospectors. And numbers of them owned old obsolete
elephant guns, Tower muskets, and blunderbusses. So that in addition to
their national armament of assegais, knobkerries, and battle–axes, the
rebels were well supplied with firearms and also with ammunition.
In saying that the Native Police deserted and joined the rebels, I
must in justice add that it was chiefly the younger members of the
force who did so: the old hands remained loyal, and though at first
they were disarmed as a precautionary measure, they proved most useful
to our side later on, though very few in numbers. Much has been said
against them as having been the cause of the revolt, through their
overbearing conduct. I am perfectly convinced that the rebellion would
have occurred just the same had there been no such body as the Native
Police in existence. At the same time, I don’t mean to say that they
did not abuse their powers. I should think that they most probably
did, but that is no reason why they should incontinently be done away
with. I don’t see, for one thing, how proper government of the natives
is going to be carried out without a native police: the only thing is
that the force must be very closely and effectively commanded. The same
difficulty has been encountered, and has thus been dealt with, by us
in Natal, in India, in West Africa, everywhere, in fact, where natives
form a large proportion of the population.
But I am wandering from my point into discussion and argument, which
are not in my line. I am supposed to be giving you a résumé of what had
been happening up to the time of Sir Frederick’s taking over command in
Matabeleland.
Directly after the outbreak, Colonel Napier, with his usual energy,
lost no time in getting together a few men, and, with a party of sixty,
he went off to the Shangani, thirty miles north–east of Buluwayo, and
brought into safety over forty white settlers.
At the same time, Captain the Hon. Maurice Gifford, with forty–four
men, made a dash to Cumming’s Store, through difficult country in the
Insiza Hills, fifty miles east of Buluwayo, and rescued over thirty
people, losing one man killed and six wounded.
Captain F. C. Selous raised a troop of forty mounted men the same day,
and made a bold reconnaissance southward of Buluwayo for thirty miles,
to the Matopos.
Three days later (29th March), Captain MacFarlane, with thirty men,
went out to Jenkins’ Store, and relieved Pittendrigh’s party, who were
hard pressed there. One man was killed and two wounded in this affair.
On the 4th April, Maurice Gifford again went out, with 140 men, to
Fonsecas, just north of Buluwayo, where he was hotly attacked by the
enemy, losing four men killed and seven wounded. He himself lost his
arm on this occasion, and Captain Lumsden, who took his place, was
mortally wounded. MacFarlane, with sixty men, relieved him.
Brand and Niekerk took a strong patrol down to the mining camp in the
Gwanda district, to find the miners had already safely got away south.
On their return journey this patrol was attacked and very nearly cut
off in passing through the eastern end of the Matopos. Out of their
total of a hundred they lost five killed and fifteen wounded besides
thirty horses killed; but with sheer hard fighting they got through in
the end.
Then, when the enemy closed on Buluwayo, as if to swamp it, Bissett
led the garrison out in a sortie on 22nd April. There was a stubborn
fight, in which neither side gained any ultimate decisive advantage,
but it was remarkable for the fact that perhaps in no fight in history
have there been so many deeds of gallantry performed among so small a
body of men. No less than three men have since been recommended for the
Victoria Cross for separate acts of heroism in this fight.
Three days later, Captain “Mickey” MacFarlane—an old friend of ours
in the 9th Lancers—again led out the Buluwayo Field Force, and this
time dealt the enemy a very heavy blow, such as changed the aspect
of affairs, and relieved Buluwayo from any immediate danger of being
rushed.
In these early fights and patrols the Buluwayo Force had lost twenty
men killed and fifty wounded, while over two hundred settlers in
surrounding districts had been murdered. Meanwhile, a relief force
was being organised at Salisbury in Mashonaland, three hundred miles
to the north, under Colonel Beal, and another at Kimberley and
Mafeking, nearly six hundred miles to the south, under Colonel Plumer
of the York and Lancaster Regiment. In the last week in May these two
forces appeared in the neighbourhood of Buluwayo from their opposite
directions, Cecil Rhodes arriving with that from the north; Lord Grey
arriving about the same time as Colonel Plumer’s from the south.
[Illustration: GOING OUT FOR A FIGHT
Grey’s Scouts riding out of Buluwayo to “have a shy” at the enemy.]
Meanwhile, Colonel Napier, with the bulk of the Buluwayo Force, had
gone out to meet the Salisbury Force, and in combination with it did
much to clear the country east of Buluwayo.
[_P.S._—A most interesting detailed account of the outbreak, and of
these early operations—including the acts of individual gallantry on
the part of Baxter, Crewe, Henderson, Grey, and others—will be found in
Captain F. C. Selous’ book, _Sunshine and Storm in Rhodesia_.]
Colonel Plumer had raised, organised, and equipped his force of eight
hundred Cape Colony men and horses in an incredibly short space of
time; but that is one beauty of South Africa—that it teems with good
material for forming a fighting force at a moment’s notice. Nor did the
“M.R.F.” (Matabele Relief Force), as Plumer’s corps was styled, lose
any time in getting to work after its arrival at Buluwayo. For three
days (23rd–26th May) it was hammering at the various impis threatening
Buluwayo on the north and east with complete success.
Thus, when we arrived a week later, we found that the immediate
neighbourhood of Buluwayo had been cleared of enemy, but the impis were
still hanging about in the offing, and required to be further broken up.
The General’s plan, accordingly, was to send out three strong columns
simultaneously to the north–east, north, and north–west, for a distance
of some sixty to eighty miles, to clear that country of rebels, and
to plant forts which should prevent their reassembly at their centres
there, and would afford protection to those natives who were disposed
to be friendly. The southern part of the country, namely, the Matopo
Hills, was afterwards to be tackled by the combined forces on their
return from the north. Such was the situation in the beginning of June.
And now I’ll continue the diary.