THE ASHANTI CAMPAIGN.* IT must be trying in the extreme
to be shot at by an invisible enemy, whether he fire with smokeless powder and a Hauser rifle from behind a- boulder half-a-mile off, or with a "long ' • (1.) The Siege of Kumassi. By Lady Kod5on. With many Illustrations, a Map, and a Plan. London: C. A. Pearson. 211.]—(2.) The Bilk/ of 'AMC'S,. By Captain Harold C. 3. Bias, West African Frontier Force, With 16 Illustrations and Plans, and a Map. Loadoni Methuen and Co. [00.]
Dane" at shot-gun range from impenetrable jungle. In either ease the advantages of the defensive must be plainly apparent to our troops, who seldom enjoy them. Warfare can offer no sharper contrast than that between the two important campaigns which Great Britain had on hand last summer. And though the war of the veldt exclusively preoccupied men's minds, it was not in itself more exciting or more dangerous than the jungle fighting of which we gather some history from the two books before us. How it all happened is not entirely clear. The Governor, Sir F. Hodgson, entered Coomassie on a tour of inspection, with no forethought of revolt, as is amply proved by the fact that he brought his wife. He was met with immense ceremony by the Ashanti Princes, who since the removal of Prempeh had given no trouble. Four days later, on March 29th, he held a big palaver, and addressed the assembled chiefs, and explained to them that henceforward they must make an annual payment by way of interest on the indemnity promised in 1874 after the Wolseley Expedition, but never paid. He also asked for the golden stool to be produced. On March 31st he sent out a small force of Hausas to a village where the golden stool was supposed to be kept. Captain Biss says simply that the object was to bring in the stool, Lady Hodgson that it was only meant to reconnoitre. Anyhow, the party was attacked and suffered over twenty casualties. All available troops were at once ordered up from the coast and from the recently annexed territories to the north, where the bulk of the Gold Coast Halms were employed. The road to the coast was still open when on April 18th a detachment of Hausas came in from the coast. Just at this time a seizure was made. The young King of Kokofu, one of the Royal line of Coomassie, was reported to be in communication with the malcontents. Lady Hodgson says that the information was given by a chief of his tribe who had been alienated by the lad's arrogance. At all events he was suddenly arrested in his own quarter of the town and taken into the fort. Kokofu is close to the main road to Cape Coast, and after the arrest it appears that the road was closed. Expeditions were sent out to disperse the rebels, and one of them met with a severe handling. But it was not till April 25th that the Asha,ntis actually attacked the outlying parts of the town, driving the Basel missionaries and their servants under the guns of the fort. Here also came all the loyal natives to the number of over three thousand. The fort itself was not seriously attacked till the 29th, and even then the assailants never got near the walls. On the same day the Lagos troops fought their way in, and from that date till the relief on July 15th not even a message entered Coomassie from the side of the sea.
In the meantime there had been a general rallying signal sent out to our tropical possessions in Africa, which was to end in the formation of as strange an army as ever took the field under British officers ; and it is not the least merit of Captain Bias's valuable and interesting book that he describes in detail the constituents of the force. He himself belongs to the largest body of troops that were available, the West African Frontier Force, consisting of two strong battalions of Hausas and Yorubas, raised under the direction of Sir F. Lugard in 1897, and quartered in Northern Nigeria. In Lagos and in Southern Nigeria are two more battalions raised from the same people. The Gold Coast itself has a battalion of so-called Hausas,—but that tongue is the lingua franca of the coast, and these men would be Hausas only in speech. From Sierra Leone comes another type of soldier, the West African Regiment, consisting of Mendis and Timanis, agile little men, says Captain Bias, invaluable for scouting. Added to these in the general muster were the Christian and English-speaking negroes of the West India Regiment, men of a perfectly different type, who march shod, not barefoot. And lastly, from the Central African Protectorate came soldiers raised on the shores of Lake Nyassa„ and with them fifty Sikhs from the police of that country. Thus in the force were represented the Indian, the civilised negro, the man of the jungle from Sierra Leone, the Hausa from the open country north of the forest belt, and the Angoni warriors, a branch of the Zulu stock. It was Christian, Hindoo, Mahommedan, pagan, but chiefly Mahommedan. Hausas fought for the great Christian Queen to the war-cry of " Allah il Allah " ; and they fought welL
The first troops to force their way into Coomassie were a
column from Lagos, two hundred and fifty men of the con. stabulary, under Inspector-General Aplin. Severe fighting began about eight miles out of the besieged town, and culmin. ated when the narrow path was found blocked by a stockade.
It must be rememberedthat all roads in that country are simply tracks like rabbit-runs, up which a column can only advance in single file, with untraversable bush on both sides. This path was swept by the enemy's musket-fire, and the solid stockade of logs resisted the projectiles of a 7-pounder. Rifles grew hot in men's hands, the 7-pounder was being charged with stones. Finally an officer, with a party of thirty men, succeeded in forcing a way through the bush, so as to enfilade the enemy :—
" The charge was ordered," said Captain Aplin, quoted by Lady Hodgson, "but for a moment the worn-out troops hesitated, when a native officer, waving his sword and addressing his men in Hausa, adjured them in God's name to charge. They rose as one man, almost knocking me over in their enthusiasm, and charged the stockade."
Clearing it, they entered Coomassie, but with every white man wounded and one hundred and thirty casualties among two hundred and fifty native soldiers. After this the cordon of stockades—a new feature in Ashanti warfare—was drawn tighter; they blocked every road leading out of the town, and connecting paths were cut through the bush in a circle, so that the Ashantis could reinforce easily any point in the cordon that was attacked. The next force that got in did so in part by a stroke of good luck. Major Morris, in command of the northern territories of the Gold Coast, heard of the rising on April 18th at Gambaga, three hundred and forty miles north of Coomassie. By May 9th a column of about three hundred men, with seven British officers, was drawn together at Kintampo, on the north of the forest belt, and prepared to fight their way through. They met with sharp resistance on the way, but none at Coomassie itself, for they happened to arrive during a short armistice which had been arranged. By this addition the garrison in Coomassie was brought up to something over seven hundred men.
The full seriousness of the situation did not appear till the report of the resistance to Captain Aplin's column came in. It was only then that Colonel Willcocks, commanding the West African Frontier Force, was asked to direct operations. He was actually in the field on another expedition, and did not reach Djebba, the base of his force, till May 13th. The Niger was too low for steamers, there was a fortnight's march overland to Lagos, and three days' steamer to Cape Coast. Captain Bias made, and describes, the same journey. Before the Commandant reached Cape Coast a good deal had happened. On May 22nd a column of three hundred and fifty men had reached Bekwai and Esumeja, places within a day's march of Coomassie. But the country to the south of them belonged to the Adansi tribe, who rose, cutting off this advanced post. On May 24th a column, which advanced to clear this road met a terrible opposition at a place called Dompoasi. The Adansis had built a stockade some four hundred yards in length parallel to the road, with ends turned back so that it could not be outflanked. They allowed the column to pass their front,—and the officers, new to that warfare, had not then realised the necessity of scouting in the bush, even when the way has to be cut with knives and progress is only a mile an hour. Then when it was fairly in the trap, fire was opened along the whole line. Heavy loss was inflicted, and in the end only the gallantry of a British sergeant who rallied the men and carried the stockade prevented a great disaster. It was, however, necessary to withdraw, and matters did not improve. By June 15th the whole force, except the Bekwai garrison, was back at the Prah with only one small outpost. It is necessary to read Captain Biss's book to realise how terribly black things must have looked. The roads, never easy, were made almost impassable by rains, and every river was in heavy flood. Under ordinary circumstances campaign- ing at such a season is not undertaken in West Africa. And nothing definite was known as to the fate of Coomassie.
Despatches had come through announcing the Governor's re- solve to break out, but saying nothing of his leaving a garrison.
On June 30th a stroke of luck came ; the Dompoasi stockade was rushed by a surprise. This was followed by a failure to capture Kokofu, but still the road was cleared up to Bekwai. Not till july 4th did Colonel Willcocks hear that on June 23rd the Governor and Major Morris had broken out with six hundred men, leaving a small garrison in the fort with rations to last till July 15th. Accordingly, things were pushed on so as to relieve them that day; and it was done, but after a terrible fight. Captain Bias describes the scene when the relieving column, having forced the big stockade, entered Coomassie and pushed on along a winding path strewn with dead bodies, dreading what they might see when the fort came in view. The whole account is highly coloured, but the occasion warranted it The relief was in no sense the end. Camp after camp, each with its stockade, had to be attacked and in most cases carried with the bayonet, not without heavy loss of good lives. The Sikhs, who came up after the relief, had seventeen hurt out of fifty in their first engagement. One of the most interesting things in the book is the account of a night attack on one of the barricades,—an ugly business to undertake with black troops, but well carried through. Captain Bias shows an agreeable enthusiasm for his men, and a very natural admiration for his commandant, which makes his book more pleasant reading than Lady Hodgson's rather querulous record of her own experiences. Both the narratives are, of course, obviously the work of amateurs ; but Captain Bias has given a very full account of very com- plicated military operations, and cannot fairly be blamed if the narrative is not always quite lucid. His illustrations also are excellent. We cannot refrain from observing that the one book costs a guinea, the other six shillings, and that the cheaper is by no means the less valuable.
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