The Story of the British Army

by Charles Cooper King

But in 1817 the 72nd was engaged in suppressing a rising of the Kaffirs of the Great Fish River; and in 1834 it was again employed against Macomo in the same district. The frontier troubles were getting rather more serious, and the Kaffir invasion of the colony was marked by the usual savage atrocities. Almost the only military operation of the practically peaceful reign of William IV. was the punitive expedition of Colonel Peddie’s Highlanders against these tribes.

The frontier, however, still remained restless for some years after this; and in 1843 the tables were somewhat turned, inasmuch as the 91st Regiment was despatched to assist the Griquas, who had placed themselves under our protection, against the Boers, on the Orange River.

Shortly after, in 1846, the first serious Kaffir war broke out, and in it the first and reserve battalions of the 91st, the 6th, 73rd, 45th, and Rifle Brigade were actively engaged for nearly two years. There was much hard fighting in the Amatola Mountains, at Burn’s Hill and Block Drift, and one noteworthy act of bravery may be recorded of Privates Walsh and Reilly, who, when Fort Cox was beleaguered, managed to convey a despatch through the investing savages to Governor Maitland.

At the close of the year 1850 the racial antagonism again appeared, and this second Kaffir war lasted until 1853, requiring the services of the 2nd, 6th, 43rd, 45th, 60th, 73rd, 74th, and 91st Regiments of the Line, besides the Rifle Brigade, the Cape Mounted Rifles and Colonial Irregulars. The British frontier, when war broke out, was supposed to be represented by the Kei River, between which and the Great Fish River the country had been informally considered more or less neutral. But all buffer states are dangers as a rule, and neutral belts are no better. So thought Sandilli, a powerful Kaffir chieftain; jealous of his own waning power as that of the white man increased, and also at being deposed by the governor of the colony, he broke into open revolt. The country was dense forest, roads rare, and the conduct of the war desultory. To destroy the rude kraals of the enemy, carry off his cattle, cut down his crops to starve him out, and finally assault some central stronghold such as are to be found in hill districts like the Amatolas, or some isolated hill honeycombed with caves, was the method of procedure then as it is now. Nothing has changed less in the army’s history than the tactics of savage war, especially in Africa.

Sir Harry Smith, who commanded, was not particularly successful either in his conduct of the campaign or in his judgment of the military situation. There were several small disasters, such as befell detachments of the 6th and 73rd under Mackinnon at the Keiskamma defile, and which partook then, and often after, of the nature of ambuscades. A detachment of the 45th escorting a convoy was cut off. The garrison of Fort Cox was for a time surrounded and completely isolated by the Kaffirs. Meanwhile, numerous European villages were destroyed by the enemy, and in many cases the inhabitants massacred with extreme barbarity and with horrible mutilations.

In the spring of 1852 a determined advance was made against the Amatola Mountains, in which was Sandilli’s stronghold, and the Highland “tortoises,” as the enemy called the 74th, from a fancied resemblance of their tartans to the markings of the land tortoise of South Africa, after much heavy fighting and hard work, succeeded in clearing the district, but it took until September, when there was a sharp skirmish at Kromme.

Early in October the Kaffirs assembled on the Waterkloof heights, where the fortress of Chief Macomo was attacked seven times before the enemy were subdued. It cost the lives of many officers and men, including that of Colonel Fordyce of the 74th. Thus hostilities practically ended, as the expedition across the Orange River against the Basuto chief Moshesh, with the 2nd, 43rd, 73rd, 74th, Rifle Brigade, and 12th Lancers, with some artillery and irregulars, was not opposed.

The next important outbreak of hostilities occurred on the West Coast. There had been, long before 1873, frequent troubles in the Hinterland of the West Coast settlements. There had even been war about 1824 and 1826, when we had to defeat the natives at Accra, after much previous desultory skirmishing, in one of which Sir Charles Macarthy, the Governor of the Coast, was slain, and the force with him practically destroyed. There was a further slight disturbance in 1863; but in 1870, a more serious dispute arose as to the ownership of Elmina, which we had taken over from the Dutch. Many impolitic acts were committed as regards the assistance that might have been rendered by us to those tribes most exposed to the Ashanti attack, and finally, in January 1873, the Ashanti army crossed the Prah, and attacked the Assims and Fantees, and these after a while were worsted, and the roads to Cape Coast Castle and Elmina were thus left open. The Elminas and Ashantis fraternised, and made an effort to seize the Elmina Fort, but were repulsed by Colonel Festing, with some Royal Marines and a Naval Brigade; and thus matters remained, with 20,000 Ashantis at Mampon, ten miles distant from the British forts, until the arrival of the expedition commanded by Sir Garnet Wolseley, which reached the coast in October 1874. Partly by way of a diversion, and partly as a punitive expedition, a small force was first sent to Elmina, and landing there, advanced against the allied natives at Essiaman, and dispersed them with little loss. Native levies were raised, and placed under the charge of European officers; posts were prepared, and the road improved between Cape Coast and the Prah, one result of which preparation was the abandonment by the Ashantis of their Mampon camp, and their falling back behind the river. Sundry other small expeditions from Dunquah and towards Abracampa also assisted.

In addition to the main advance, another was prepared under Captain Glover and Captain R. Sartorius, and was designed to advance from Accra on Coomassie. It was composed entirely of native levies led by a few British officers, but did not reach the Ashanti capital until it had been captured and abandoned by the main column.

This was composed of the 2nd Battalion of the Rifle Brigade, the 23rd, and the 42nd, and by New Year’s day, 1874, these troops had landed at Cape Coast Castle. No expedition could have been better managed or organised. Every attention was paid to the slightest detail. Sir Garnet’s instructions for the officers, as regards their attention to their men, are more than instructive: they evidence the patient study of details necessary for the well-being of his command, which only a careful leader knows to be as essential to success as the fighting of his men when the time for action comes. Sir Garnet’s Notes for the Use of the Troops should be read by everybody who has to conduct a similar campaign.