Chapter 16
In This Chapter
● The Zulu War, 1879
● The Boer Wars, 1880-1881 and 1899-1902
● Egypt and the Sudan, 1882, 1884-1885, and 1896-1898
● Smaller wars in Abyssinia and Ghana
With the exception of South Africa, which lay on the sea route to the Far East, for the first half of the nineteenth century the remainder of Africa lacked the political and military importance that India enjoyed. That changed as the newly industrialised nations sought markets for their goods throughout the world and their populations emigrated in search of a better life. Then some of the major European powers, keen to enhance their prestige, began to found colonies of their own.
Great Britain was forced to react and absorb the remaining areas of Africa into its Empire. Some areas were of little or no financial benefit and Britain acquired them simply to stop other people getting their hands on territory that could be developed in such a way as to threaten British interests. Inevitably, friction occurred with the indigenous population, and in the Sudan a form of violent Islamic fundamentalism exacerbated the problems. Equally, in such a vast area as Africa many small conflicts existed that have long been forgotten. Some were attempts to drive out the newcomers, some were police actions, and some arose from colonists’ attempts to improve their position. Too many of these happened to record them in detail, so this chapter deals with the major military events, of which there were more than enough.
Some campaigns saw the army kitted out in dull grey or brown khaki uniforms, but at other times they wore their traditional red coats; helmets were now worn by most troops, as shown in Figure 16-1.
Figure 16-1: British infantryman and cavalryman on campaign in Africa, late nineteenth century.
Rescuing Hostages in Abyssinia, 1868
In the 1860s Abyssinia was a Christian country ruled over by King Theodore III, a not-so-modest chap who liked to be called ‘King of Kings’ and the ‘Chosen of God’; his ambition was to wage a successful war against his Muslim neighbours. Theodore wrote a friendly personal note to Queen Victoria asking for her support. The Foreign Office failed to pass it on to Her Majesty. When Theodore didn’t get a reply he took it that the queen had deliberately snubbed him and he became very angry. The last straw came in January 1864 when the British Consul, Captain Charles Cameron, crossed the frontier from Abyssinia to visit Kassala in the Sudan; Theodore saw this as an Anglo-Muslim plot to overthrow him. He promptly imprisoned Cameron on the Consul’s return, along with his staff, their wives, missionaries, and anyone else who seemed slightly involved, and kept them in chains.
When diplomatic pressure for the captives’ release failed, force had to be used. But two problems existed:
Abyssinia did not have a coastline. Nevertheless, the Egyptians permitted the British to use their harbour at Zula on the Red Sea, which solved that problem.
The Abyssinian terrain itself, which consisted of towering mountain ranges, rushing torrents, and few tracks considered usable for a modern army. In fact, the British had to traverse almost 650 kiloometres (400 miles) of this sort of going to reach Theodore’s capital, Magdala, at an altitude of 2750 metres (9000 feet) above sea level.
The task fell to the Bombay army, under its Commander-in-Chief, General Sir Robert Napier. Over 4000 British and 9000 Indian troops were involved, plus a naval brigade armed with rockets. Napier was by training a military engineer and, appreciating the physical difficulties, his force included a large contingent of engineer units. Assembling the troops was the easy part, however. Napier also paid particular attention to the logistical aspects of the expedition, incorporating over 26,000 bearers and labourers, 19,580 transport horses and mules, 6045 camels, 7086 bullocks, 1850 donkeys, and 44 elephants.
Landing at Zula in December 1867, the expedition advanced slowly but methodically inland into Abyssinia, sometimes traversing narrow gorges, sometimes moving along narrow tracks above sheer precipices, but always climbing. It soon became apparent that the tribal chiefs along the way did not like Theodore and were happy to cooperate with the British. No opposition arose until the column reached Arogee on 10 April 1868, where Theodore had deployed his army. Theodore had a few guns, which his army had sited badly on hilltops from which they could only deliver a largely useless plunging fire, and about 5000 infantry, of whom half carried firearms of varying vintages. When the Abyssinians launched an attack, the rapid, controlled fire of British infantry, Punjabi pioneers, and the naval brigade’s rockets tore through their ranks. Theodore’s men fled, having sustained the loss of 700 killed and 1200 wounded. Napier’s casualties amounted to 2 killed and 18 wounded.
Theodore handed over the British hostages, but declined to surrender. To relieve his feelings he flung several hundred of his Abyssinian prisoners over a 300-metre (100-foot) cliff. Napier, recognising that the king was completely unbalanced, decided to put an end to the whole business by storming Magdala on 13 April. When his last followers deserted him, Theodore shot himself, using a pistol that Queen Victoria had sent him as a present some years earlier.
The expedition’s personnel losses from all causes, including disease, came to fewer than 400, of whom only 48 were fatalities. In modern parlance, the battle had cost an arm and a leg, but the prestige it generated was enormous.
The Ashanti War, 1873-1874
Of the many small campaigns fought during Queen Victoria’s reign, one of the most interesting and instructive is the Ashanti War of 1873-1874, which took place in the Gold Coast (now Ghana). The Ashanti tribal confederation lost much of its income on the abolition of the slave trade, and was in the habit of demanding tribute, which was nothing more than protection money, and taking hostages in order to ransom them. In 1873 the Ashanti confederation was ruled by King Kofi Karikari. Its raids into British-administered territory near the coast reached such serious proportions that the British decided to mount a punitive expedition under the command of Lieutenant General Sir Garnet Wolseley.
With some justice, this area of Africa was termed the White Man’s Grave because of the many tropical diseases endemic there. The British War Office had very serious reservations about committing British troops, but at length it despatched the 23rd (1/Royal Welch Fusiliers), the 42nd (1/The Black Watch), and the Rifle Brigade. For their own sake, Wolseley kept the troops at sea until he was ready to commence the 160-kilometre (100-mile) march to the enemy’s capital, Kumasi. In addition, he had available the 1st and 2nd West Indies Regiment, which had an excellent reputation and a higher resistance to disease, two locally raised regiments, and a naval brigade of sailors and marines. Wolseley decided to leave the West Indians and some of the locally raised infantry to guard his line of communication while he advanced with the rest of the men.
The axis of British advance lay along a track that passed through thick tropical rain forest. Wolseley denied the enemy the chance to mount ambushes by having his main column use the track, with subsidiary columns moving parallel to the track through the jungle. The three columns pushed out skirmish lines towards each other. The result was a sort of hollow square with guns or rockets on the main track and at each of the forward corners of the square. The reserve was situated some distance behind and the baggage brought up the rear. Forward progress was slow because of the need for units to keep pace with each other. A major disadvantage was the inability to see far in any direction.
On 31 January 1874 the British encountered the main body of the Ashanti army near a village called Amoaful. The area consisted of tall trees covered and interlaced with creepers and vines, with a dense undergrowth below. At the moment of contact the Black Watch were in the lead, and they fought their way slowly forward against an enemy who contested every small rise and clump. Frequently, the only sight of an opponent was a cloud of powder smoke hanging in the air. As fighting spread round the square, the noise level became deafening. The reason for this was that the Ashanti used huge powder charges in their ancient muskets, which sounded like small cannon when fired. The Ashanti unwittingly fired high, continually showering the Black Watch with branches, leaves, and twigs. After five hours of this, punctuated by British mountain guns banging away, the British reached and took the village. Most of the Ashanti disappeared, but some attempted an attack on the previous night’s British camp at Quarman, only for the 2nd West Indies Regiment to beat them off. Estimates put the cost of the day’s fighting at between 800 and 1200 Ashantis killed and the same number wounded. Wolseley lost 4 killed and 194 wounded.
Wolseley decided to capitalise on his victory and advance immediately on Kumasi. The local word was that if you were interested in human sacrifice, Kumasi was the place to be. When the British reached the capital on 4 February it was completely deserted, but around a big fetish tree several thousand skeletons and decomposing bodies confirmed the place’s evil reputation.
In King Kofi’s palace they found yet more grisly souvenirs. Wolseley blew up the palace, burned down the city, and began his march back to the coast before the rainy season began. On 13 February Kofi came in to surrender, signed a treaty of submission, and paid the British a modest indemnity. By then the British troops were on their way home, and some of them were already showing signs of fever. Unfortunately, two further expeditions (in 1895-1896 and 1900) were necessary before the area was considered fully pacified.
The Zulu War, 1879
Sir Bartle Frere, Great Britain’s High Commissioner in South Africa, believed that, sooner or later, the formidable Zulu army would invade the territories for which he was responsible and that the best course of action was to destroy this army as quickly as possible. He was tragically wrong, as the Zulus wished to maintain friendly relations with the British.
King Cetewayo’s Zulu army of 40,000 assegai-(spear) and shield-armed warriors was the most formidable native army in Africa. Frere not only disregarded the instructions of his own government to maintain peace in South Africa, he also ignored the advice of those who knew the Zulus well. He belonged to that breed of politician who are determined to go to war, however dishonest the cause and whatever the cost to those who fight it. He picked on several minor issues, none of which provided any justification for hostilities, and sent Cetewayo an ultimatum the terms of which he knew were unacceptable.
The British Commander-in-Chief South Africa was Lieutenant General Lord Chelmsford. His limitations as a commander included a lack of imagination, an inability to read a battle beyond the range of his binoculars, and, worst of all, a fatal tendency to underestimate the enemy. The troops he had available included 6000 regulars and colonial volunteers, 9000 native troops raised by levy, 20 field guns, and 10 rocket launchers. His plan was for three columns to penetrate Zululand from Natal and the Transvaal, then converge on Ulundi, Cetewayo’s capital, there to destroy the Zulu army. On 6 January 1879 British troops began crossing the Zulu frontier.
The Battle of Isandhlwana, 22 January 1879
Chelmsford and his staff chose to accompany the Central or No 3 Column of the British troops, crossing into Zululand at Rorke’s Drift. Colonel Richard Glyn commanded the column, consisting of the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the 24th, N/5 Battery Royal Artillery with six 7-pounder guns, mounted infantry, and local volunteer units, engineers, and two battalions of the Natal Native Contingent, a total of about 4700 men of whom 1852 were Europeans. By 20 January a camp was established at Isandhlwana, the name given to the hill towering over the site. A saddle joined the hill to a ridge named the Nqutu Plateau, to the northeast. To the east was an extensive plain intersected by two dongas (watercourses).
Too much of a field-day atmosphere pervaded the camp. A number of Boers, hereditary enemies of the Zulus, were present and the lax British attitude appalled them. Instead of laagering or forming a circle with the wagons to provide an immediate defence in the event of the enemy rushing the camp, the British parked the wagons uselessly behind the tents, posted no sentries, and actually withdrew cavalry vedettes (mounted sentries) from the Nqutu Plateau.
On 21 January Chelmsford received false information that a Zulu force was a short distance away. He immediately formed a column with Colonel Glyn to confront it, and marched off into the pre-dawn darkness. Remaining in camp were five companies of the 1/24th, one company of the 2/24th, six Natal Native Contingent companies, most of the Natal Mounted Police, and two of N Battery’s guns, amounting to 600 British infantry, 600 native infantry, 100 cavalry, and 70 gunners under the overall command of Lieutenant Colonel Henry Pulleine of the 1/24th. Before he left, Chelmsford ordered up reinforcements from Rorke’s Drift under Colonel Henry Durnford’s command. Although Durnford was senior to Pulleine and could have taken command of the camp, he did not press the point when he reached Isandhlwana.
Chelmsford was heading off on a wild goose chase, unaware that the main Zulu army, 20,000 strong, was lying concealed close to the British camp. The Zulus’ intention had always been to overwhelm the camp at Isandhlwana, but, being deeply suspicious people, the moon’s phase suggested to them that an attack on 22 January was not propitious. Moon’s phases or not, mounted British scouts from the camp (not Chelmsford’s column) discovered their hiding place and the Zulus had no alternative but to attack:
● With a great roar, the Zulus swept over the plateau using their tradition buffalo formation. This involved:
• The army’s two wings pushing forward, as the buffalo’s horns, to encircle the enemy.
• The centre, as the buffalo’s chest, smashing into the enemy’s main body.
• The reserve or loins delivering the coup de grace.
In the attack on the British the right horn passed behind Isandhlwana Hill and the left horn struck Durnford, who on his own initiative had left the camp with some of his men, including the rocket detachment. The detachment was able to fire one rocket before the Zulus overran and speared its men. Durnford and the survivors fell back on the camp.
● Pulleine just had time to deploy his companies. Unfortunately, gaps of between 200 and 300 metres lay between them and their line was at least 1000 metres from the camp, which meant a very long run in both directions for the ammunition replenishment parties. Nevertheless, the British were delivering deadly volleys while N Battery’s two 7-pounders were blasting case-shot through the Zulu ranks. Severely shaken, the Zulus halted between 150 and 300 metres from the British lines.
● With the battle on a knife edge, unbelievable stupidity on the British side took a hand. Neither the 1/24th’s or the 2/24th’s quartermasters would issue ammunition to parties from the other battalion, and they had no intention of supplying Durnford’s men at all until he forcibly requisitioned some of their boxes. Even then, the lids were screwed down and no screwdrivers were available to open the boxes with. The British firing line spluttered into silence. The Zulus understood what that meant and charged. Their own accounts tell how the 24th’s companies fought and died where they stood, two British officers attempting to save the 24th’s Queen’s Colour (see the sidebar, ‘Melville, Coghill, and the Queen’s Colour’). By 1.30 p.m. the camp had fallen.
During the battle and the pursuit, 52 British officers and 1277 other ranks died, of which 21 officers and 578 other ranks belonged to the 24th Regiment. The lowest estimate of Zulu dead was 2000, the highest 3000. Of those in the British camp at the time of the attack, about 350 managed to escape across what became known as Fugitives’ Drift. Only five British officers and six privates of the 24th survived Isandhlwana. They included two bandsmen, Glyn’s soldier servant, and three wounded men who ‘played dead’ when the Zulus overran the rocket detachment. That any escaped at all was thanks to the self-sacrifice of Durnford and his men. One good thing that emerged from the battle was that ammunition boxes were redesigned with lids secured by knock-off clamps rather than screws.
Chelmsford received details of the massacre from an officer who had returned to the camp to collect rations and narrowly escaped death or capture. Chelmsford and Glyn’s column reached Isandlwana at about 8 p.m. Stripped and mutilated bodies lay everywhere. The contents of looted wagons lay strewn about. The flickering of countless Zulu camp fires in the hills told Chelmsford that he dared not remain for long, but he allowed his weary troops several hours’ sleep. In the direction of Rorke’s Drift, back towards British Natal, a brighter glow rose and fell on the horizon, making him fear the worst (see the following section).
Melville, Coghill, and the Queen's Colour
Pulleine, knowing all was lost, ordered Lieutenants Melville and Coghill to save the Queen's Colour of the 1/24th (the Regimental Colour had been left behind in Helpmakaar, Natal). Lieutenant Melville was swept off his exhausted horse in the swollen river and lost his grip on the Colour. Lieutenant Coghill returned from the far bank to rescue him, but they were quickly surrounded and killed, taking some of their opponents with them. The Colour floated downstream and was later recovered from the bottom of a pool.
The Defence of Rorke's Drift, 22-23 January 1879
The first that those at Rorke’s Drift - a Swedish mission station on the Buffalo river being used as a British camp and hospital - knew of the disaster at Isandhlwana was the arrival of two Natal Native Contingent officers on lathered horses at about 3.15 p.m. One, Lieutenant James Adendorff, volunteered to assist in the defence of the post, while the other galloped on to warn the inhabitants of Helpmakaar.
Present at Rorke’s Drift at this time were Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead’s B Company 2/24th, a Natal Native Contingent company under Captain George Stephenson, Lieutenant John Chard of the Royal Engineers, Surgeon Major Reynolds, Assistant-Commissary James Dalton (a former infantry sergeant major), the Reverend George Smith (a missionary who had volunteered his services as chaplain), and the incumbent missionary, Otto Witt. As an irregular officer, Stephenson was not eligible to command the post, so this duty fell to Chard, who was three years senior to Bromhead. The officers agreed that the only possible course of action was to defend the post, which contained a small hospital and a storehouse. Loopholes were knocked into the walls of the building, and a barricade of mealie (corn) bags was erected. Abutting the eastern face of the perimeter was a small stone-walled kraal that the officers also decided to defend.
Scouts on a hill known as the Oskarberg, to the south of Rorke’s Drift, spotted large numbers of Zulus fording the river to the east. Stephenson and his 300-strong Natal Native Contingent company took to their heels, as did Witt. For a little while Chard had commanded more than 500 men. Now he had only 139, including 35 sick or wounded.
Approximately 4500 Zulus were bearing down on the post. They belonged to the right horn of their army and had passed round the back of Isandhlwana Hill. They had therefore not been able to ‘wash their spears’ in the enemy’s blood, in the Zulu phrase. The British presence at Rorke’s Drift gave them the opportunity to do so:
● The first Zulu attack began at 4.30 p.m. British musketry ripped through the Zulu ranks, but still they came on. Those who reached the chest-high barricades immediately found that they needed to use at least one hand to scramble over, and were promptly spitted on the long British bayonets. As attack followed attack, Chard and Bromhead formed one tiny reserve after another and rushed to any threatened point.
● The hospital was the scene of some of the most heroic acts of the entire battle. Its rooms all had barricaded doors that faced outwards.
No internal communication existed between them, and by 5 p.m. the Zulus were swarming round the building. Bromhead led several counterattacks that drove them off for a while, but finally the Zulus succeeded in setting fire to the thatch. This meant that those defending the building could only evacuate the bedridden patients to safety by knocking holes through the partition walls, dragging the patients through, and lowering them from a window inside the British perimeter. While this was taking place, the defenders also had to fight off Zulus who pressed closely from room to room. At length the hospital was cleared of the living and Chard gave the order to withdraw inside a smaller perimeter where they could make a last stand.
● The Zulus made six major attacks on the shrunken defences during the night, but the flames from the hospital illuminated these before they could be pressed home. Each time the Zulus were driven back with heavy losses. Between attacks, those of the enemy who had firearms sniped at the defenders from the darkness. At midnight Chard led a sortie that recovered a water cart lying outside the barricade, enabling his men to slake their terrible thirst. After 2 a.m. the Zulus no longer made any serious assaults. By 4 a.m. it seemed as though they had gone. Fearing that the apparent lack of enemy activity may be a ruse, neither Bromhead nor Chard was prepared to let the men rest or sleep. At 7 a.m. the weary defenders saw a large body of Zulus on the high ground overlooking the post, but the enemy moved off out of sight. Those in the little garrison must have wondered what the coming day held for them.
Long before dawn on 23 January, Chelmsford began marching towards the post from the wreckage of Isandhlwana. Marching in the opposite direction were those Zulus who had spent the night attacking Rorke’s Drift. The two columns passed each other within shouting distance, but both had seen too much death in its many forms and for the moment were prepared to live and let live. Dreading what they might find, Chelmsford’s vanguard approached the post warily. Haggard, exhausted, and powder-grimed men greeted them by climbing onto heaped mealie bags, waving their helmets, and cheering lustily. Incredibly, the garrison of Rorke’s Drift sustained the loss of only 15 men killed and 12 seriously wounded, two of them fatally. Nearly 400 dead Zulus lay in the immediate vicinity of the post, 100 more near the drift, and more still on the Oskarberg and in the surrounding bush. The exact number of Zulu dead and seriously wounded remains unknown.
For those in Britain, the astonishing defence of Rorke’s Drift went some way to balance the horrific news of the disaster at Isandhlwana. In Germany, the Kaiser ordered this story of inspired junior leadership, determination, and expert improvisation to be read at the head of every regiment in his army.
Ending the Zulu War
The Zulu victory at Isandhlwana cost one tenth of the male Zulu population of military age killed there or at Rorke’s Drift. A similar percentage were struggling to recover from their wounds. The wailing in the kraals (native villages) continued long after the battles. The greatest blow, however, was to Zulu morale.
The British public was also deeply shocked by the defeat at Isandhlwana and reinforcements were on their way to South Africa. But before final plans were made, the legacy of Chelmsford’s failed invasion of Zululand had to be tidied up:
● At Nyezane, Colonel Charles Pearson’s No 1 Column had also been under attack on 22 January, but he had held his ground. Hearing that Chelmsford was temporarily halting the invasion, Pearson sent part of his column back into Natal, but established a fortified position with the remainder at Eshowe, where he remained under siege. When reinforcements began to arrive, Chelmsford successfully marched to Pearson’s relief, defeating a Zulu force at Gingidlovu on the way.
● At Hlobane, Colonel Evelyn Wood’s No 4 Column had some success on 21 January, but withdrew on learning of the disaster at Isandhlwana. Chelmsford ordered Wood to create a diversion while he relieved Pearson at Eshowe. The diversion consisted of an attack on Hlobane on 28 March, under the command of Colonel Redvers Buller. The attack failed and Buller withdrew with difficulty and at heavy cost. Suitably encouraged, the Zulus attacked Wood’s base at Khambula next day, but the British repulsed them at a loss to the Zulus of 800 dead, plus many more killed during the pursuit. Wood’s losses were 18 killed and 11 mortally wounded.
● At Intombe River on 12 March, Zulus attacked a supply convoy bound for the Luneburg garrison, killing over half of the escort provided by the 80th (2/South Staffordshire) Regiment.
Chelmsford had now received sufficient reinforcements to resume his advance into Zululand, using two divisions and Wood’s force from Khambula. The only incident of note during the advance on the Zulu capital Ulundi was the death of the Prince Imperial, son of the former Emperor Napoleon III, who was killed in an ambush. The British force, containing 4165 Europeans and 1152 Africans, approached the royal kraal in square formation on 3 July. Some 20,000 Zulus swarmed to attack it. In fighting that lasted for 90 minutes, the British killed an estimated 1500 Zulus and wounded as many. A ruthless pursuit, carried out by the 1st Dragoon Guards and 17th Lancers, added yet more to the total. The British loss came to 13 killed and 78 wounded.
This was the decisive battle of the war, and the British captured Cetewayo shortly afterwards.
The First Boer War, 1880-1881
In 1877 the British government annexed the bankrupt Boer Republic of the Transvaal and began to put its finances in order. Unfortunately, the Boers, whose forebears had trekked hundreds of kilometres to escape British rule in the Cape, didn’t want to be annexed. By the end of 1880 the Boers decided that the British presence must be ejected from their country.
On 20 December a supply convoy was heading for the British garrison at Pretoria, escorted by 264 men of the 94th (2/The Connaught Rangers).
At Bronkhorst Spruit, a Boer with a white flag of truce asked the escort commander to turn back. The commander of course declined. The Boers opened fire from cover and 15 minutes later 155 of the British column’s officers and men were either dead or wounded. The remainder surrendered, and the First Boer War was under way.
Introducing Boer commandos
The Boers lacked conventional military forces, but when threatened formed local units known as commandos. The commandos had served the Boers well against the Zulus and other native tribes.
Most Boers were farmers and lived much of their life on horseback. They were fine shots and expert at making good use of any scrap of cover available. When they went to war they did so in hard-wearing civilian clothes and slouch hats. They couldn’t believe their luck that soldiers in red coats should provide such wonderful targets by advancing upright in straight lines. They also had the advantage of numbers, being able to field thousands of well-mounted riflemen against the 3500 British troops in garrisons scattered across the Transvaal.
The Battles of Laing's Nek and Majuba Hill, 28 January and 27 February 1881
Major General Sir George Pomeroy-Colley, senior officer in Natal and the Transvaal, assembled a force and began marching to the relief of the now-besieged British garrisons in Transvaal. Finding his path barred by 2000 Boers occupying Laing’s Nek in the Drakensberg Mountains, on 28 January 1881 Pomeroy-Colley launched a frontal attack with the 58th (2/Northamptonshire) Regiment and the 3/60th (King’s Royal Rifle Corps). The attack failed disastrously, with the loss of 180 British killed or wounded. The Boers sustained only 41 casualties.
On 7 February Colley fought an action at Ingogo that succeeded in preventing a Boer commando breaking away to the south and menacing his communications, but the British again sustained the greater losses. Negotiations now began between the Boers and the British government. Officially, a truce came into force while these took place, but Colley decided to render the Boer position at Laing’s Nek untenable by occupying the dominant Majuba Hill. On the night of 26 February he led a 400-strong composite force, drawn from the 58th, the 60th, and the 92nd (2/The Gordon Highlanders), up the hill. At dawn on 27 February the Boers observed the British presence and sent a far larger number of men to fight their way up to the summit. So accurate was the Boers’ fire that it was almost impossible for the British to make any effective reply.
In the end, the British survivors had to make a disorderly retreat down the reverse slopes. British losses included 90 killed, including Colley, 133 wounded, 58 captured, and 2 missing. They killed one Boer and wounded five more.
The besieged garrisons held out until the subsequent peace treaty formally recognised the independence of the Transvaal, then marched to British-held Natal.
Invading Egypt, 1882
British policy in the Middle East had been to shore up the ramshackle Ottoman Empire as part of the Great Game against Russia (see Chapter 12). Egypt was always a vital element in this strategy, and its importance increased when the Suez Canal was completed in 1869, as this provided a new and vital lifeline to India and the Far Eastern portions of the British Empire. Unfortunately, Egypt was saddled with a crushing burden of foreign debt. The administration of government finance became a British and French concern, particularly after the British government purchased a controlling interest in the Suez Canal Company. Egypt’s internal administration was inefficient and corrupt, and discontent was especially strong among the middle-ranking officers of the Egyptian army. Although Egypt was still nominally a province of the Ottoman Empire, the officers bitterly resented the appointment of Turks to senior appointments. Under the leadership of Colonel Achmet Arabi Pasha, the Egyptian army staged a coup in 1881 under the popular slogan ‘Egypt for the Egyptians’. Matters soon got out of hand. In May 1882 rioters attacked foreign businesses and the mob killed some 50 Europeans.
British and French warships arrived off Alexandria, but the French declined to take part in punitive measures and sailed away. On the morning of 10 June Admiral Sir Frederick Beauchamp Seymour, commanding the British squadron, demanded the surrender of the Egyptian coastal forts. When the Egyptians ignored his ultimatum, the warships opened fire and by dusk had silenced the Egyptian guns. Arabi withdrew from the city and mob rule ensued until Royal Marine and naval landing parties went ashore on 14 June. They also assisted troops under Major General Sir Archibald Allison to establish defences around Alexandria, and even produced their own armoured train, of sorts. Arabi expected the British to advance on Cairo from the direction of Alexandria, but they disappointed him. Some landed at Alexandria as a feint on 12 August, but the rest of the army disembarked at Ismailia, half-way down the Suez Canal, on 20 August. The result was that even before serious fighting had begun, Arabi discovered that he had been outflanked. It says much for Victorian imperial administration that it was possible to concentrate 16,400 men from Britain, 7600 from Mediterranean garrisons, and almost 7000 from India for this task under the command of General Sir Garnet Wolseley.
After Arabi’s troops had been worsted in skirmishes at Kassassin, he withdrew his army inside a well-constructed line of entrenchments dug along the top of a shallow ridge at Tel-el-Kebir. The position, held by 22,000 men with 60 guns, was about 6.5 kilometres (4 miles) long, with its right resting on the Cairo-Suez railway line and its left on the highly toxic Sweet Water Canal.
Wolseley decided to storm the entrenchments in a dawn assault following a night approach march, believing that his men fought better in the cool of the early morning. He had 17,000 men and 67 guns available for the assault. They moved into the assembly area, 9 kilometres (5.5 miles) short of the Egyptian position, during the night of 12/13 September and formed up in the order they would go into action. The cavalry brigade was on the right, then the 1st Infantry Division, then the 2nd Infantry Division, then a brigade-sized force across the Sweet Water Canal to keep pace with the advance. The general calculated that the troops would cover 1.6 kilometres (1 mile) every hour and, wishing to arrive within striking distance of the objective minutes before the sun rose, he set them in motion at 1.30 a.m. The great mass of marching men was within 150 metres of the Egyptian trenches before the enemy spotted it. A blaze of rifle and artillery fire came from the parapets, but it made no difference. A wave of yelling British infantry swamped the position and cleared it with the bayonet. Arabi’s men broke and fled, leaving behind 2000 dead, 500 wounded, and all their artillery. Wolseley’s losses included 58 killed, 379 wounded, and 22 missing, most incurred during the opening minutes of the engagement. The cavalry pursuit extended as far as Cairo, where Arabi surrendered his sword the following day.
The Battle of Tel-el-Kebir marked the beginning of 70 years of continuous British military presence in Egypt. At the time, no thought of such a prolonged commitment existed, but a series of unpredictable events led to continuity. In fact, hardly had Wolseley unpacked his trunks in England than incidents in the Sudan ensured his sailing for Egypt again.
Send Sir Garnet! The Sudan, 1884-1885
The Egyptian administration of the Sudan was even more corrupt than that of Egypt itself had been. During 1881 a wave of Islamic fundamentalism swept the Sudan, led by an ascetic named Mohammed Ahmed, better known as the Mahdi or Expected Guide. The Mahdi declared a holy war against the Turks (as he called the Egyptians). His followers, who became known as dervishes, defeated government troops on several occasions and captured the town of El Obeid, dismembering its governor as a warning to anyone else who tried to oppose them. At El Obeid they acquired a quantity of field artillery, several machine guns, and 6000 rifles. The Egyptian government despatched a 9000- strong force under Colonel William Hicks, a retired Indian army officer, to restore order. On 3 November 1883 the rebels surrounded Hicks’s troops at Sheikan, near El Obeid, and massacred them two days later. Yet more armaments fell into the hands of the Mahdists.
The eastern Sudan, bordering the Red Sea, was also in a state of open rebellion. On 4 February 1884 a 3600-strong force under Valentine Baker, a former British officer now serving the Egyptians, fled when a dervish force one third its size attacked it at El Teb. Baker kept his head and managed to fight his way out with about 1000 of his men, but he lost all his artillery and machine guns.
Sir Evelyn Baring, the British government’s agent in Egypt, was of the opinion that the British should withdraw the surviving garrisons in the Sudan, with the exception of the port of Suakin on the Red Sea (considered essential as part of the scheme for the evacuation of the rest of the Sudan). With reluctance the Egyptians accepted the decision. Major General Charles Gordon, who had served in the Sudan during the previous decade and was greatly respected there, undertook the task.
Gordon was mercurial, stubborn, wilful, and not the man for the job of evacuating the Sudan, for no sooner had he reached Khartoum than he decided that rather than abandon the city and its inhabitants to the Mahdi, he would defend it, confident that a British expeditionary force would be sent to his relief. This was the very situation that British Prime Minister William Gladstone had sought to avoid. Unfortunately for Gladstone, the public was on Gordon’s side, especially after the Mahdist army isolated Khartoum in May. Gordon, an engineer by training, did everything possible to improve Khartoum’s fortifications, and by means of spies managed to get despatches out to Baring in Cairo, always in the vain hope that the relief force was just over the horizon. In the eyes of the British press and public, he was a high-principled Christian officer who quite rightly refused to abandon those in need.
The political pressure on Gladstone mounted until he could no longer resist. In August he reluctantly gave way, peevishly restricting the size of the relief force to 10,000 volunteers to be selected from the entire British army. There was no shortage. In command was Sir Garnet Wolseley, who reached Cairo on 9 September. From the outset, Wolseley was aware that the chances of saving Gordon were shrinking with every day that passed. The quickest way to Khartoum was from Suakin across the desert to Berber on the Nile and then upstream. For tactical reasons, that was out of the question. The alternative was straight up the Nile from the railhead at Wadi Halfa. The problem with that was that six major sets of rapids, known as cataracts, existed between Aswan and Khartoum, and these had to be negotiated slowly. Wolseley was nothing if not thorough, ordering a large number of flat-bottomed Canadian boats and 300 Canadian boatmen to travel up the river (some of the boatmen, who had never heard of Egypt, assumed that it lay within the Arctic Circle and dressed accordingly). With infinite labour, the British force reached Korti.
On 17 November, Wolseley received a note from Gordon, expressing doubts that he could hold out beyond 14 December. Wolseley despatched:
● His main body on the slower route round the Great Bend of the River Nile
● A flying column (‘Desert Column’) across the arc of the Great Bend to rejoin the river within striking distance of Khartoum.
The Desert Column’s objective was not to relieve Khartoum, but to reinforce it until the spring, when the level of the Nile rose at the cataracts and Wolseley was able to complete the relief.
Khartoum or bust!
Brigadier General Sir Herbert Stewart commanded the Desert Column, consisting of a Camel Corps and attached personnel, including a naval detachment with a Gardner machine gun. The column’s strength was about 2000 men, plus 300 locally recruited camel drivers, interpreters, and guides. When they finally set off during the night of 9 January 1885 (after some initial delays), some doubt existed whether any of its members would ever be seen again. The column was marching straight into the enemy’s heartland and its prospects of survival, let alone those of the small detachments it left behind to guard the wells along the way, seemed suddenly remote. During the early stages of the march, acute thirst was a far greater problem than the dervishes. The Mahdi knew the column’s movements, but he intended to let it continue until it reached the limit of its resources, then destroy it, just as he had Hicks.
Some 12,000 dervishes were waiting to fall on Stewart when the moment was ripe. That moment almost arrived on 17 January when the column won a desperate battle near Abu Klea. The struggle became even more desperate when the column’s Gardner gun jammed after firing only 30 rounds, enabling the dervishes to penetrate Stewart’s square, from which the British only drove them after savage hand-to-hand fighting. The dervishes lost 1100 killed and a similar number wounded. British losses were 74 killed and 94 wounded.
The column fought off further attacks at Abu Kru on 19 January and Gubat, where it reached the Nile, on 21 January. During these skirmishes Stewart received a mortal wound and command passed to his deputy, Colonel Sir Charles Wilson.
Four of Gordon’s small steamers, sent down from Khartoum to meet the column, arrived. Wilson embarked a handful of seamen and 20 men of the Royal Sussex Regiment on two of these steamers. The troops wore scarlet tunics borrowed from the Guards in place of the grey khaki that the entire Camel Corps wore, because Gordon had once said that the sight of a few red coats would convince the Mahdi that Great Britain meant business. The reality was that Gordon’s reputation for piety and benevolence were spoken of with respect throughout the Sudan, and this troubled the Mahdi a great deal more. Surely it did not seem good for one holy man to kill another, even if their beliefs differed? For some time the level of the Nile had been so low that Khartoum’s water defences presented little or no obstacle, but rather than storm the city, the Mahdi seemed content to let starvation do its work. However, when he learned that the disciplined firepower of comparatively few British soldiers had killed over 2000 of his followers and wounded many more, he knew that he could delay no longer. On 26 January the rebels stormed Khartoum and its massacred its garrison. They ignored the Mahdi’s instructions to spare Gordon’s life.
Wilson’s two steamers approached Khartoum the following day. They came under rifle and artillery fire, as they had many times, and replied with their own weapons. The difference was that the Egyptian flag no longer flew over the Governor General’s palace, and much of the fire came from inside the city’s fortifications. With a heavy heart, Wilson recognised that he was too late and reversed course. The steamers reached apparent safety, but were both wrecked near the Shabluka Cataract. In due course, the party was rescued and returned to their own lines, but only after a series of adventures that a thriller writer would consider overblown.
Meanwhile, the River Column under Major General W. Earl had defeated a dervish force at Kirbekan on 10 February, Earl being killed as he led the final advance. With Gordon’s death, however, the entire purpose of the expedition had disappeared. Both the River and the Desert Columns were withdrawn into Egypt, where British troops assisted in the defence of the frontier. The dervishes had followed up the withdrawal, but the British defeated them at the Battle of Ginnis on 30 December 1885, an engagement that would long since have been forgotten if it had not been the last time that British infantry went into action in their traditional scarlet. Skirmishes continued along the frontier for
the next few years, culminating in a seven-hour engagement at Toski on 3 August 1889 in which the British decisively defeated the dervishes with the loss of 1000 dervishes killed, including one of their most famous leaders, Wad-el-Nejumi.
The British electorate punished Gladstone for his failure to send a relief force earlier, and Queen Victoria expressed her displeasure publicly. Wolseley was bitterly disappointed by his inability to rescue Gordon, but the public knew that he had done everything humanly possible.
Sallying from Suakin against Osman Digna
Away from the rush to Khartoum (see the preceding section), the British still held Suakin, but were opposed by Osman Digna, the Mahdi’s governor in the Eastern Sudan.
A colourful rumour had it that Osman Digna was actually a Frenchman named George Vinet; he was certainly a slave trader whose business the British had ruined, and for that he was prepared to harm them in any way possible. His influence among the local tribes was great and he had no difficulty in attracting the Beja hillmen to the Mahdi’s cause. Because of their wild, frizzed hairstyle the British called them Fuzzy Wuzzies and came to regard their suicidal courage with the greatest respect.
Suakin was a nasty, hot, unhealthy, coral-built port around which, for the next few years, more battles were actually fought than took place on the Nile.
A British garrison under Major General Sir Gerald Graham took possession of Suakin in the spring of 1884 and moved out to confront Osman Digna’s dervishes. Graham had 4000 men at his disposal, plus four guns and several Gatling and Gardner machine guns, fighting the Dervishes at:
● El Teb, 29 February 1884: 6000 dervishes, plentifully armed with captured firearms, six guns, and one Gatling, assailed Graham’s square.
This action, the Second Battle of El Teb, was a resounding defeat for Osman, who lost most of the modern weapons and ammunition taken from Baker earlier in the month, plus more than half his men. Graham’s casualties amounted to 34 killed and 155 wounded.
● Tamai, 13 March 1884: Osman gathered his strength for a second round when Graham resumed his advance. 12,000 dervishes attempted to swamp two British squares in furious attacks, one square being temporarily broken in hand-to-hand fighting before the position was restored. The dervishes overran two of the Gatlings and turned them on their owners, who were extremely fortunate that the dervishes were unable to operate them properly. At length Osman’s men retired, leaving 2200 of their number dead around the squares. Graham lost a total of 214 killed and wounded.
After Tamai, Graham wanted to press on to Berber, but Gladstone’s British government forbade him to do so and he retired to Suakin. For the next year Suakin, held by a much-reduced garrison, remained in a state of siege.
At the beginning of 1885 the British decided to support Wolseley’s troops on the Nile by tying down Osman Digna with a renewed offensive from Suakin. This time the government gave Graham, now a lieutenant general, 13,000 men, including a brigade from India. Graham defeated one concentration of Mahdists at Hasheen on 20 March, but two days later the dervishes surprised one of his own detachments at Tofrek, under the command of Major General Sir John McNeill. This detachment just managed to hold its own and finally drove the dervishes off. Skirmishing continued until May, when Gladstone used a brush between Russian and Afghan troops at Penjdeh as an excuse for abandoning the campaign on the pretence that India was under threat.
Reconquering the Sudan, 1896-1898
The Mahdi died shortly after the capture of Khartoum. The Khalifa Abdullahi ibn Mohammed succeeded Mohammed Ahmed and ruled the Sudan with a blend of puritanical religious fervour and sadistic cruelty. In 1896 the British government decided that it had to reconquer the Sudan for political rather than philanthropic reasons:
● The Italians had sustained a serious defeat at the hands of the Abyssinians at Adowa in 1892 and it was desirable to re-establish the prestige of the European powers in the area.
● The French were showing an interest in establishing control of the upper reaches of the Nile and the British were determined to stop them.
No one suggested that reconquering Sudan would be easy, however. The Khalifa had available an army of no fewer than 60,000 ferocious warriors, with 40,000 firearms, including 22,000 comparatively modern Remingtons. In addition, the dervishes possessed 61 cannon, six Krupp field guns, and eight machine guns - although they had little use for firepower save as a prelude to a fanatical attack with sword and spear.
The burden of reconquest fell mainly on the Egyptian army. British officers and NCOs had completely reconstituted this army and brought it to a high level of discipline, efficiency, and morale. It now consisted of eight Egyptian and six Sudanese infantry battalions, a small camel corps, six squadrons of cavalry, four artillery batteries, and transport troops. One British battalion, 1/North Staffordshire Regiment, served as divisional troops for much of the initial phases of the advance on Sudan.
The army’s sirdar or commander-in-chief was General Horatio Herbert Kitchener, who had served under Wolseley during the Gordon relief expedition and the operations around Suakin (see the section ‘Send Sir Garnet!
The Sudan, 1884-1885’, earlier in this chapter). His glaring eyes, dour manner, and lack of social graces ensured that he was never a popular figure. He was not a particularly able tactician either, but he was an expert in the fields of supply and transport, and this proved to be the key to winning the forthcoming campaign. Kitchener had an excellent network of spies in the Sudan, run by his Chief of Intelligence, Major (later General) Reginald Wingate, so that little happened even in Omdurman, the Khalifa’s gloomy capital across the river from the ruins of Khartoum, that did not reach Kitchener’s ears shortly afterwards. Above all, Kitchener regarded the abandonment of Gordon as a national disgrace that he was absolutely determined to expunge.
Steaming along Kitchener's desert railway
When the campaign against Sudan began in June 1896, both Kitchener and the Khalifa were determined to fight the decisive battle near Omdurman.
The Khalifa believed that the Sirdar would be at the extreme limit of his supply line and at his weakest, just as Hicks had been (see the section ‘Send Sir Garnet! The Sudan, 1884-1885’, earlier in this chapter). For his part, Kitchener had already decided to harness the most modern means of transport available not just to keep his army supplied, but to reinforce it with fresh British brigades, so that when he fought the critical battle he would possess twice the strength with which he had begun the campaign.
Dervish outposts offered varying degrees of resistance to the advance, but Kitchener’s men took them just the same. These successes further built up the Egyptians’ morale. When Dongola fell on 21 September, Kitchener took a courageous decision that eventually won him the campaign, namely to build a 380-kilometre (235-mile) railway through the arid and empty desert between Wadi Halfa and Abu Hamed. Work on the railway began on 1 January 1897. It progressed at an average rate of 1.6 kilometres (1 mile) per day and by July was well on the way. The following month the army’s advance guard, which had moved up river with a gunboat flotilla, captured Abu Hamed. Events now speeded up. Unexpectedly, the enemy abandoned Berber, 220 kilometres (135 miles) beyond, which the Egyptians occupied on 13 September. On 31 October Kitchener’s line reached Abu Hamed. This made the position of Osman Digna (still fighting after his defeat by Graham - see the section ‘Sallying from Suakin against Osman Digna’, earlier in this chapter) in the eastern Sudan untenable and he had to withdraw to Omdurman.
The Khalifa could not afford to ignore this threat. Unfortunately for him, he seriously underestimated the extent of the threat and despatched only 16,000 men under the Emir Mahmoud and Osman Digna to destroy the railway, which the British were now extending southwards to Berber. Kitchener’s intelligence provided adequate warning. He despatched one British brigade up the line while a second prepared to follow as quickly as possible. Wily Osman dug himself in behind a thorn zariba (stockade) backing on to the dry bed of the Atbara river. Kitchener had prepared a warm reception for Osman, but when the latter failed to materialise Kitchener decided to attack. At 5.45 a.m. on 8 April 1898 Kitchener’s artillery opened a two-hour bombardment of Osman’s zariba. At 8 a.m. the British and Egyptian infantry stormed the defences and within 30 minutes had cleared the interior. Dervish losses amounted to 3000 killed and 2000 captured, including Mahmoud. The Anglo-Egyptian army sustained fewer than 600 killed and wounded. The road to Omdurman now lay open.
The Battle of Omdurman, 2 September 1898
Kitchener was not inclined to advance further until he was absolutely certain of victory. The second British brigade arrived, but the troops were not set in motion again until August. The gunboat flotilla bombarded Omdurman on 1 September. Simultaneously, 11 kilometres (7 miles) downstream Kitchener’s army was constructing a zariba centred on the village of Egeiga, around which it curved in a half-moon with both flanks resting on the Nile. The British held the left of the line and the Egyptians the right. Outside the zariba was a featureless plain, lacking cover but punctuated here and there with shallow depressions. Some 3 kilometres (2 miles) to the southwest lay a rocky feature known as Djebel Surgan, about 75 metres (250 feet) high, while a similar distance to the northwest were the Kerreri hills.
At dawn on 2 September the Khalifa led out his army. He relied solely on the fanaticism of his 60,000 warriors and left his artillery to follow on.
At 6.25 a.m. with the enemy’s range at 2500 metres (2700 yards), the British and Egyptian artillery opened fire. The gunboats joined in and shortly after the Maxim machine guns, both ashore and afloat, went into sustained fire. At 6.35 a.m., with the range at 1800 metres (2000 yards), 1/Grenadier Guards commenced volley firing. By 6.45 a.m. the whole Anglo-Egyptian line was ablaze, yet still the dervishes came on. But by 7.30 a.m. those of them that were able turned away and walked off. Few had come within 700 metres (800 yards) of the British, or within 350 metres (400 yards) of the Egyptians.
The next stage of the battle is remembered for tactical decisions that varied between the bungling and the brilliant:
● To the north of the zariba, the Egyptian cavalry not only completed a successful withdrawal across the Kerreri hills, but also provoked a large portion of the dervish army into following them, temporarily removing it from the main arena of the battle. The slowly plodding Camel Corps, however, had to attempt a difficult withdrawal towards the northern face of the zariba. The dervishes pursued the Corps so vigorously that it was in real danger of being surrounded and massacred. Luckily, the captains of several gunboats tore the enemy’s packed ranks apart with their concentrated fire, but it was a very close-run race.
● With the main dervish attack beaten back, Kitchener ordered the 21st Lancers, on the extreme left of his line, to worry the enemy on their flank and head them off from Omdurman. The regiment was the most junior cavalry regiment in the army and had never been in action before. The Lancers had not long left the cover of the zariba when their scouts reported a body of 700 dervishes drawn up in a khor or hollow to their right front.
In fact, the dervish strength was 2700, mostly hidden, and those few dervishes who were visible opened fire. Unable to resist the challenge, the Lancers charged at once. Suddenly the British realised that dervishes 12 deep packed the khor. After two minutes of stabbing and hacking, the horsemen fought their way through and up the far bank of the khor. Lieutenant Winston Churchill (future Prime Minister, troop leader at Omdurman, and Sudan Correspondent of The Morning Post) sensibly chose to sheath his sword and shoot his way through the mass with a privately purchased Mauser automatic pistol. Colonel R.M. Martin, commanding the Lancers, brought his men round on to the enemy’s flank and opened brisk fire with carbines. Sullenly, the enemy retired towards Omdurman. The Lancers lost 21 killed and 46 wounded, but no fewer than 119 of their horses were killed or too seriously injured for further use. It was 9.30 a.m. before the regiment was ready to move off and it was hardly engaged again for the remainder of the battle. Martin had made a mistake that deprived Kitchener of a cavalry regiment when he needed one most, and the Sirdar was far from pleased.
● With the main dervish attack apparently repulsed, Kitchener ordered his infantry to leave the zariba and wheel left towards Omdurman.
The decision was dangerously premature, for it ignored those dervishes, some 20,000 in number, who had tried to pursue Egyptian cavalrymen across the Kerreri hills. These dervishes now returned to the main battlefield, where they immediately attacked Colonel Hector Macdonald’s
1st Egyptian Brigade on the extreme right of Kitchener’s line. Macdonald had risen from the ranks and was a very capable commander; his battalions were already engaged with dervishes to the west, but to meet the new threat he coolly changed front so that his brigade resembled an L. He then opened tremendous fire, with his Maxims and attached artillery in support. Despite this, by the time the first reinforcements reached Macdonald, the dervishes were within 27 metres (30 yards) and his riflemen were down to six rounds apiece.
The Camel Corps came up, dismounted, and extended Macdonald’s line to the right, followed by 1/The Lincolnshire Regiment. The 4th Egyptian Brigade, which had been left guarding the zariba, closed in on the action from the east, while the 1st British Brigade (1/Royal Warwickshire Regiment, 1/Seaforth Highlanders, and 1/Cameron Highlanders) fell on the dervishes’ flank and dispersed them. By 11.30 a.m. the battle was over. The British resumed the advance and took Omdurman during the afternoon.
Nearly 10,000 dervishes died during the battle and perhaps twice that number sustained wounds of varying severity. The Anglo-Egyptian army lost 5 officers and 43 other ranks killed, plus 428 men wounded. His power broken, the Khalifa was hunted down and died fighting. Kitchener continued up river to meet Major Marchand, the officer commanding a small French detachment on the Upper Nile. The two got on well and agreed that the whole question of territorial rights in the area was one for the politicians to settle, which they did in Great Britain’s favour. It provided a satisfactory end to an (almost) flawless campaign.
The Second Boer War, 1899-1902
The discovery of gold in the Transvaal drew outsiders to the country like a magnet. It was not long before these Uitlanders (foreigners) threatened to outnumber the native Boers. Understandably worried about losing their national identity and way of life, the Boers made matters very difficult for the newcomers, taxing them while simultaneously denying them political rights and skewing the law against them. Most stubborn of all was the Transvaal’s president, Paul Kruger, who saw a threat to his country’s existence when the British annexed neighbouring territories in 1895. He commenced a dialogue with the Germans, which did not at all please the British Foreign Office.
Over New Year 1896, at the urging of empire-builder Cecil Rhodes, Dr Leander Starr Jameson led an entirely private invasion of the Transvaal with 500 men in the hope of encouraging the resident Uitlanders to rise and overthrow the Boer government. They did not. Boer commandos rounded up Jameson and his men and forced them to surrender at Doornkop on 2 January 1896. The Boers handed Jameson over to the British to deal with. The British gave him a year’s imprisonment, but regarded him as a hero. Events quickly went from bad to worse. Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, Queen Victoria’s unstable grandson, rashly sent Kruger a telegram hinting that he may consider making the Transvaal a German protectorate. To the British public, that was like a red rag to a bull. The second Boer republic, the Orange Free State, openly sided with Kruger, creating a real danger of the large and sympathetic Dutch population in the British territories to the south responding favourably to a Boer invasion. Only 10,000 British troops were spread across the entire vastness of southern Africa, so the government despatched reinforcements because of the danger of internal unrest. On 9 October 1899 Kruger issued an ultimatum in a fit of hubris, demanding that the British withdraw within 48 hours. Naturally, Great Britain ignored the ultimatum and on 11 October found itself at war with the two Boer republics.
The easy victories of the First Boer War (detailed earlier in this chapter) probably influenced Kruger’s decision to go to war, together with the fact that at this stage the Boers fielded some 50,000 men, mostly armed with the latest German clip-loading Mauser rifle, who outnumbered the small British garrisons. The Boers still fought in locally raised commandos as mounted infantry who made the most of their mobility and were expert at concealing their positions. Their artillery, however, was a regular force equipped with modern guns that were dispersed in action, making them difficult to spot. In comparison, British infantry advanced in line and presented a splendid target for any marksman. British cavalry continued to regard the lance and the sword as its primary weapons, with a lesser reliance on firearms. The artillery fought its batteries wheel to wheel, making them easier to spot than their Boer counterparts.
The British army was involved in a new kind of warfare against the tricky Boers and couldn’t produce results until it understood and adopted some of its opponents’ methods. In fairness, however, no grounds exist for believing that any other western army could have done better.
Opening moves
By the end of October 1899 after some early skirmishes, most but by no means all of which ended in favour of the Boers, most of the original British troops in South Africa were under siege in Kimberley and Ladysmith. Good tacticians though they undoubtedly were, the Boers were poor strategists and the sieges, once begun, became matters of bombardment, counterbombardment, digging, sniping, attack, and counter-attack. Some Boers did move south along the railway from Ladysmith to Durban, but halted after they had taken Colenso on the Tugela river, which offered a good position from which to defeat relief attempts. The British sent an armoured train up the line to investigate, but the Boers ambushed it at Chieveley. Among those captured was the Morning Post’s roving correspondent, Winston Churchill (who saw action in the Sudan, but was now a civilian). The Boers took him to Pretoria but he managed to escape and make his way to freedom through Portuguese territory. The incident did his subsequent political career no harm at all.
Defending Mafeking
On 13 October 1899 some 8000 Boers under Generals Piet Cronje and Koos de la Rey laid siege to Mafeking, in British territory just across the border from the Transvaal. Frankly, the place was simply not worth all that trouble - it resembled an American Wild West township and its only real importance was that it contained a railway workshop. The Boers hated the town, partly because Jameson had launched his abortive raid from there (see the previous section), and partly because the Baralong tribe had a village close by and had worsted the Boers in several years of sporadic fighting. If the Boers had not expected an easy victory over the little British garrison, they would certainly not have bothered. Yet far from winning a victory, the Boers became tied down in a siege that became symbolic to both sides.
The one British professional present was the garrison commander, Colonel Robert Stephenson Smythe Baden-Powell, although some of his men had previous service in the Army or the Royal Navy. Baden-Powell’s troops had been raised locally in recent months and included 21 officers and 448 men of the Protectorate Regiment, 5 officers and 77 men of the Bechuanaland Rifles, 10 officers and 81 men of the British South African Police, and 4 officers and 99 men of the Cape Police. In reserve were 450 men of the Railway Volunteers and the Town Guard.
As the siege progressed, Baden-Powell mobilised the town’s boys as messengers; they became the forerunners of the world-wide Scout Movement that he later founded. An armoured train was also available, for which the British constructed an additional spur to bring its weapons within range of more sectors of the defence. Baden-Powell constructed inner and outer defences, laid dummy minefields, taking steps to ensure that the Boers believed they were real, and used a stock of carbide (employed in bicycle lamps at the time) to made searchlights. When the siege began he started a newspaper telling everyone what was happening, and an internal postal service using specially printed stamps. There was no area into which his inventive mind did not reach, including ingenious ways of eking out the garrison’s food supplies.
Baden-Powell beat off the enemy’s attacks and made the Boers’ lives a misery with constant sorties and raids. In due course, Piet Cronje took himself off to Kimberley with many of the besiegers, but Mafeking continued to tie down large numbers of Boers. The British press eagerly reported details of the siege. When the Boers abandoned the siege on 16 May 1900 the news generated a wild, joyful riot in London that lasted all night: In British eyes, Baden-Powell was a hero who had been the plucky underdog from the beginning. He deserved to win, he had won, and that was that.
Struggling on through Black Week, 10-15 December 1899
General Sir Redvers Buller, VC, commanded the army corps despatched from England to bolster troops in South Africa. In some ways he was a good choice, as he had wide experience of African wars and was popular with the troops. In one important respect he was not ideal, however: He had proved himself to be an excellent second-in-command, but when it came to exercising command himself he was a ditherer.
The situation Buller was presented with made too many demands on the resources he had available. His original intention was to concentrate his troops for an advance on Bloemfontein, the capital of the Orange Free State, but the situation in Natal was potentially dangerous, and in diamond-rich Kimberley, 950 kilometres (600 miles) to the west, Cecil Rhodes - who possessed a very loud political voice - was demanding immediate relief.
Uncertain what to do, Buller tried to deal with everything at once:
● Lieutenant General Sir William Gatacre was to remain on the defensive south of the Orange river, covering the approach to Cape Colony from Bloemfontein. On 10 December 1899, Gatacre disobeyed his orders and attempted to recapture the railway junction at Stormberg. Having lost his way during a night approach march, he ordered his troops to assault a Boer position on top of a precipitous rock face.
Not surprisingly, the assault failed. His orders to withdraw did not reach 700 men still on the feature and they had to surrender. In addition, the Boers killed or wounded 135 of his men. The humiliating reverse cost Gatacre his job.
● Lieutenant General Lord Methuen was to relieve Kimberley. On 11 December, Methuen launched an attack on the Boer positions at Magersfontein. The Boers, under the command of General Piet Cronje and Jacobus de la Rey, were well concealed. They also possessed excellent fields of fire, of which they took full advantage when Methuen’s brigades advanced in neat lines. The Highland Brigade in particular suffered cruel losses, the Boers pinning it down for much of the day and then forcing it into a disorderly retreat. Altogether, Methuen lost 120 killed, including Major General Andy Wauchope who had commanded a brigade at Omdurman (see the section ‘The Battle of Omdurman,
2 September 1898’ earlier in this chapter), and 690 wounded. The Boers lost 87 killed and 213 wounded, mainly from artillery fire.
● Buller himself, with the remainder of his force, concentrated on the relief of Ladysmith. On 15 December Buller, with 21,000 men, 5 field artillery batteries, and 14 naval guns on travelling carriages, tried to force a crossing of the Tugela river at Colenso without adequate reconnaissance, maps, or knowledge of either the ground or the Boer positions. Everything that could go wrong somehow did. One brigade marched into a loop of the river from which no way across existed and was subjected to intense fire from three sides. Ten guns were lost, 143 men were killed, 755 were wounded, and 240 were posted missing. The enemy had consisted of just 6000 Boers and 8 guns under General Louis Botha. This defeat so shook Buller that he sent a signal to Lieutenant General Sir George White, commanding the besieged Ladysmith garrison, advising him to surrender. White may not have been one of the army’s top commanders, but he had no intention of giving up and ignored the signal. One point of interest relating to the battle was the presence of Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi, the father of Indian Independence, with a contingent of Indian volunteer stretcher bearers in British service.
Taken together, the three defeats in six days became known as Black Week.
To a British public used to tales of victory, they came as a profound shock. Other nations rejoiced at the sight of two insignificant African republics humbling the mighty British Empire. Obviously, the situation required a drastic solution. The government restricted Buller’s authority to Natal and appointed 68-year-old Field Marshal Lord Roberts as commander-in-chief. Roberts received the news of his appointment on the day he learned that his son Frederick had died of wounds received while trying to bring out the guns at Colenso.
Taking the initiative from the Boers
Roberts, taking charge after Black Week, appointed Kitchener as his Chief of Staff and reached Cape Town on 10 January 1900. He had already decided that the solution lay in mobility allied to an indirect approach, as opposed to the frontal assaults that had so far proved to be such a dismal failure.
His intention was to relieve Kimberley first, then drive on Bloemfontein.
He concentrated his forces, now numbering 37,000 men, south of Kimberley and began the task of raising and training a mounted infantry regiment.
The British beat off a Boer attempt to capture Ladysmith on 6 January. Buller, who had recovered his nerve somewhat, tried to break through the enemy at Spion Kop (Spy Hill) on 23 January. The summit of this hill became the scene of a murderous close-range fire fight and both sides simultaneously abandoned the position. The Boers, however, quickly realised their mistake and reoccupied the feature. British losses included 243 killed and wounded plus 300 captured, while the Boers lost 335 killed and wounded. Buller tried again on 5 February, with equally indecisive results.
The initiative now passed to Roberts:
● During the early hours of 12 January, Roberts’ cavalry division, under the command of Major General John French, headed east to Waterval Drift on the Riet river, only to find the crossing in enemy hands.
Leaving one brigade to watch the Boers, French led the other two brigades east to De Kiels Drift, which they crossed without incident. On learning of this, the Boers at Waterval Drift faded away and by afternoon the entire British division was across the Riet.
● On 13 January, French swung north, covering 40 kilometres (25 miles) of sun-scorched veldt (grassland) to secure Rondeval and Klip Drifts over the Modder river. While French rested the following day, Cronje sent back troops to seal off the penetration, but they were too few to make much difference.
● On 15 February, the division charged along a shallow valley and smashed through the enemy line out into the open. Together, speed and dense clouds of dust provided a defence against Boer marksmanship. The British lost only a handful of men and horses. By mid-afternoon they had relieved Kimberley. Cronje began withdrawing towards Bloemfontein along the Modder, but the slow pace of his ox-drawn wagons hindered him. Roberts followed closely with his infantry while French, striking southeast from Kimberley, brought him to a standstill at Paardeberg.
● On 18 February, Roberts, temporarily unwell, handed over to Kitchener, who launched a frontal attack on Paardeberg incurring pointless casualties. Returning to duty, Roberts decided to bombard the Boer position into surrender. As the laager (Boer encampment) also contained women and children, the gunners did not welcome the task. Cronje could have broken out, but he declined to abandon his wounded and his men’s families. He held out until 27 February, then surrendered. The British had killed or wounded 1000 of Cronje’s men and marched 4000 into captivity. By coincidence, the surrender took place on the anniversary of the Battle of Majuba Hill, which the Transvaal Boers celebrated as a national day (see the section ‘The Battles of Laing’s Nek and Majuba Hill, 28 January and 26 February 1881’ for this battle in the First Boer War). Elsewhere, Buller finally succeeded in breaking through the Tugela line on 18 February and relieved Ladysmith ten days later.
The tide had turned. Roberts advanced into the Orange Free State, took Bloemfontein on 13 March, and reached Kroonstad on 12 May. Buller continued to mop up in Natal. Both commanders then pushed into the Transvaal. Johannesburg fell on 31 May, then Pretoria, where 3000 British prisoners were released, on 5 June. Roberts and Buller joined forces at Vlakfontein on 4 July. The last formal actions of the war took place at Diamond Hill on 9 June and Bergendal on 27 August 1900, dispersing the remnants of the Boers’ field armies. President Kruger escaped through Portuguese territory. Great Britain formally annexed both Boer republics and on 29 November Roberts departed for home, leaving Kitchener to tie up the loose ends. Unfortunately, the most difficult phase of the war was about to begin.
Fighting the guerrilla war
A number of the more prominent Boer commanders, including Botha, De Wet, and De La Rey, refused to accept that the British had beaten them. They rallied their commandos and began to raid the British lines of communication, almost at will. Given the vast areas in which they were able to operate, they possessed the initiative and could strike where and when they wanted. Dealing with this type of warfare involved the British in developing new tactics that not only required time to produce results, but also large manpower resources.
Kitchener first established lines of manned blockhouses to guard the railways, heavy timber structures used for defence with loopholed walls. Life in these was monotonously boring and months passed without anything of interest happening, if it happened at all. Initially, the commandos received food and support from their own people. Obviously, this had to stop and Kitchener resorted to measures first adopted by the Spanish army against Cuban rebels a few years early. These involved concentrating the Boer families in camps. The tragic and unintended consequence of this was that as many as 20,000 people died when epidemics of disease broke out, despite the attempts of the authorities to control them. Likewise, the commandos used abandoned farm buildings as shelter, so the British burned these down. This was always an unpopular but necessary duty. Next, hundreds of kilometres of barbed wire, originally designed as quickly erected cattle fencing, was used for military purposes for the first time, dividing large areas of the veldt from each other and so inhibiting the commandos’ free movement. Increasing numbers of trained British mounted infantry units became available as the months passed, and Kitchener used their mobility to conduct drives within the enclosed areas, pushing the Boers back against the blockhouse stop line.
Gradually the British whittled away the commandos’ strength until by the spring of 1902 Kitchener had taken some 40,000 men of the commandos prisoner. On 31 May the Boer leaders accepted the inevitable and surrendered at Vereeniging. Their stubborn courage had earned them the respect of their enemies. Among the generous peace terms they were granted were funds with which to repair their property and the right to buy now redundant army horses at giveaway prices. Their language and culture were guaranteed. As a result of this, when the two former republics were absorbed into the Union of South Africa in 1907, few objections were raised.