The Romance of Modern Sieges / Describing the personal adventures, resource and daring of besiegers and beseiged in all parts of the world

by Edward Gilliat

On Sunday, the 25th of March, they entered Kumassi in state. At the brow of a steep hill the European officials met the Governor’s party, and escorted them into the town. At the base of the hill they had to cross a swamp on a high causeway, and then ascend a shorter hill to the fort. Some children under the Basel missionaries sang “God Save the Queen!” at a spot where only a few years before human sacrifices and every species of horrible torture used to be enacted.

Soon they passed under a triumphal arch, decorated with palms, having “Welcome” worked upon it in flowers. Near the fort were assembled in a gorgeous pageant native Kings and chiefs, with their followers, who all rose up to salute the Governor, while the royal umbrellas of state were rapidly whirled round and round to signify the general applause. Everything seemed to promise order and contentment. But that night Lady Hodgson was informed by her native servants that very bad fetishes, or portents, had been passed on the road through the forest. One of these was a fowl split open while still alive, and laid upon a fetish stone; another was a string of eggs twined about a fetish house; a third was the presence of little mounds of earth to represent graves—a token that the white man would find burial in Ashanti.

The next day Lady Hodgson went to see the once famous Fetish Grove—the place into which the bodies of those slain for human sacrifices were thrown. Most of its trees had been blown up with dynamite in 1896, when our troops had marched in to restore order, and the bones and skulls had been buried. The executioners—a hereditary office—used to have a busy time in the old days, for every offence was punished by mutilation or death; for, as the King of the Quia country once told the boys at Harrow School, “We have no prisons, and we have to chop off ear or nose or hand, and let the rascal go.”

But the Ashanti victim had the right of appealing to the King against his sentence. This right had become a dead-letter, because, as soon as the sentence of execution had been pronounced, the victim was surrounded by a clamorous crowd, and a sharp knife was run through one cheek, through the tongue, and so out through the other cheek, which somewhat impeded his power of appeal. One would have thought that English rule and white justice would have been a pleasant change after the severity of the native law.

The fort is a good square building, with rounded bastions at the four corners. On each of these bastions is a platform on which can be worked a Maxim gun, each gun being protected by a roof above and by iron shutters at the sides. The only entrance to the fort lies on the south, where are heavy iron bullet-proof gates, which can be secured by heavy beams resting in slots in the wall. The walls of the fort are loopholed, and inside are platforms for those who are defending to shoot from. There is a well of good water in one corner of the square. The ground all round the fort was cleared, and it would be very difficult for an enemy to cross the open in any assault.

As soon as the Governor of the Gold Coast knew that the Ashanti Kings were bent on war, he telegraphed for help from the coast and from the north, where most of the Hausa troops were employed. They were 150 miles away from help, with a climate hot and unhealthy, the rainy season being near at hand; and they were surrounded by warlike and savage tribes. Fortunately, some of the native Kings, with their followers, were loyal to the English Queen; these tried to persuade the rebels to desist from revolt, and lay their grievances before the Governor in palaver. But the more they tried to pacify them, the more insolent were their demands. The first detachment of Hausa troops arrived on the 18th of April, to the great joy of the little garrison; but soon after their arrival the market began to fail: the natives dare not come with food-stuffs, and the roads were now closed. On the 25th a Maxim gun was run out of the fort to check the advance of the Ashantis; but they possessed themselves of the town, and loopholed the huts near the fort. The loyal inhabitants of Kumassi had left their homes, and were crowded outside the walls of the fort, bringing with them their portable goods, being upwards of 3,000 men, women, and children. The gates of the fort had hitherto remained open, but it was evident that the small English force would be compelled to concentrate in the fort; and as the refugees seemed to be bent on rushing the gates for safer shelter, the order was given to close the gates.

“Gradually the gate guard was removed one by one, and then came the work of shutting the gates and barricading them. Never shall I forget the sight. My heart stood still, for I knew that were this panic-stricken crowd to get in, the fort would fall an easy prey to the rebels, and we should be lost. It was an anxious moment. Could the guards close the gates in face of that rushing multitude? A moment later, and the suspense was over. There was a desperate struggle, a cry, a bang, and the refugees fell back.” Then they tried to climb up by the posts of the veranda. So sentries had to be posted on the veranda to force them down again. “I felt very much for these poor folk,” writes Lady Hodgson; “but, besides the fact that the fort would not have accommodated a third of them, the whole space was wanted for our troops.”

The hours of that day went on, with sniping from all sides. Sometimes the rebels would come out into the open to challenge a fight, but the machine guns made them aware that boldness was not the best policy.

At night, when our men flung themselves down to rest, the whole sky was lit up with the fire of the Hausa cantonments and of the town. Tongues of fire were leaping up to the skies on all sides, lighting up the horrors of the scene around, affrighting the women and children, and adding to the anxiety of all.