Victoria's Wars 1860-1899
The Asanti War 1873-4
The first of a number of colonial wars fought in the last quarter of the c19th was one fought in west Africa with the Asanti people who lived in what is now Ghana. This war was very much a test of the British view of Imperialism. For many it was a clash between British Christianity and an Africa that was full of pagan illiterate peoples with childish customs and debased art. The Asanti though were people with an advanced culture. They were excellent craftsmen in gold, silver and wood and had a capital city, Kumasi that was full of well designed buildings in streets that were clean with avenues of trees and with houses that had toilets, boiling water and with regular disposal of rubbish. The Ashanti though did practice human sacrifice with hundreds slaughtered to provide a retinue for the King. To the British the Ashanti appeared murderous and backward and when they began to make raids on the coastal tribes where British trading forts were based, the British government decided to act.The Asanti War stoked the fires of Imperialism and excited the public imagination. In magazines, novels and newspapers, stories of Imperial victories would now appeal to owners who wanted to boost sales figures. Yet the British public understood little about the real nature of the war and of Ashanti society. This was to be characteristic of many of the succeeding campaigns in Africa. It also gave reassurance to a British public that was becoming increasingly concerned about the nature of British power, particularly coming just after the Prussian armies had destroyed the French armies and occupied Paris. With the victory against the Asanti, the British felt they were quite capable of meeting the demands of empire.
British forces arrive in Kumasi
The Zulu War 1879
In 1877 Sir Theophilus Shepstone, a colonial officer, was the envoy sent to Pretoria to bring about the annexation which would signal the beginning of a federated South Africa with the Boers at last again under the control of the British. Before a federation could be constructed though, the new Governor of the Cape, Sir Bartle Frere, decided it was necessary first to destroy the power of the Zulu nation.At daybreak on 20 January a force of 1,200 troops led by the new commander in chief in South Africa Lord Chelmsford crossed the Buffalo to establish a camp at Isandlwana. Leaving the main force to establish the camp, Chelmford took a reconnaissance force to search for the main Zulu force thought to be to the south. Whilst Chelmsford was still away from the main force, it was attacked and all but wiped out by a Zulu force that had enveloped them. Only six men survived.
The Battle of Isandhlwana
Rorke's Drift
In defiance of orders a Zulu force of 3-4000 then crossed into Natal and attacked the mission station at Rorke's Drift which was defended by 139 men from the 24th regiment, many of them invalids. In a battle that lasted over twenty fours the attacking Zulus were beaten off suffering losses of 500 dead. The Zulus were exhausted from their endeavours at Isandlwana and had not eaten for two days and could not get the better of the British fire power. Eleven soldiers at Rorke's Drift were awarded the Victoria Cross. The Zulus always used the same tactics, a frontal attack with two side horns surrounding the enemy.
Chelmsford had attacked Cetewayo in complete defiance of the British government that had replaced him Wolseley. Wolseley had learnt in May that he was to be sent to Africa to make peace with the Zulus and to safeguard existing British territories. Wolseley reached Cape Town on 23 June 1879 and Durban on 28 June. It was whilst he was at Pietermaritzburg that he heard that Chelmsford was defying orders and marching on Ulundi with 4000 British soldiers and 1000 native allies.
On 4 July Chelmsford attacked and defeated the Zulu army of an estimated number of 20,000. Even though Cetewayo had urged the use of guerrilla tactics the Zulus did not change their tactics and the British this time kept their army together and in the attack on Cetewayo's stronghold of Ulundi used the traditional tactics of the red-square to concentrate their fire power and defeat the frontal attacks of the Zulus. Chelmsford though decided to vacate Ulundi without capturing Cetewayo.
It was left to Wolseley to arrange the surrender of the Zulu chiefs which he had done by mid-August although Cetewayo remained at large. Wolseley setup a series of patrols and eventually Cetewayo was captured on 31 August. The government did not want to annex Zululand so it was divided into thirteen provinces under chiefs from the pre-Chaka period. Every chief was required to sign a document agreeing to the abolishment of the Zulu military system and not to make war or seize land. British residents were not to be imposed on the chiefs though, much to the disgust of Bartle Frere. Zululand kept its independence only until 1887 when it too became a British protectorate. It was then annexed to Natal ten years later in 1897.
First Anglo-Boer War 1880-81
The pacification of the Zulus after the Battle of Ulundi removed a threat to the Boers who had never accepted British rule. General Wolseley made it clear in a meeting with Joubert that British rule was irrevocable but once the Boers realised this, they rebelled. In December 1880 the Boers of the Transvaal declared their independence from the British. Small parties of British soldiers in the Transvaal were attacked bringing a larger force to re-exert British control. This force under the command of Colley was routed at at Majuba Hill on 27 February 1881. Wolseley had made it clear to the British government that the Transvaal was rich in minerals and that gold had already been found.
Majuba Hill
The new government in London though decided to drop plans for federation and restore Boer independence. In negotiations at Pretoria (1881) and London (1884) independence was conceded although the British government clung to the notion that they still had sovereignty over the Boer republic - this was part of the justification for the war in 1899.
Egypt 1881-2
In 1869 the Egyptian-French financed Suez Canal was opened. Little interest in the project had been taken by the British but when opened it was realised that it shortened by some considerable distance the journey to India. The distance around the Cape to Bombay was 10,450 miles but just 6,000 miles through the canal.The opening of the canal increased the need for Britain to remain the dominant power in the middle east as it was now India's lifeline. In 1875, Disraeli was able to buy a controlling interest in the company on behalf of the British government for £4 million by buying the 40% allocation of the ruler of Egypt who had gone bankrupt. The canal now became part of Britain's strategic interest.The stability of Egypt was crucial to British strategic interests in the Middle East, and the ambition of Khedive Muhammad Ali seemed to be taking Egypt towards becoming a modern state. There had been investment in railways, cotton plantations, and irrigation as well as schools but by 1882 total debt totalled £100 million. Despite attempts by an international commission to keep the country solvent, internal dissension with international interference led to unrest and a revolt by army officers in February 1881 led by Urabi Pasha. In September 1881 he carried out a coup d'etat and made himself Minister of War with full control of the army.
The British were concerned at the possibility of an anti-British government. They sent an armed ship to Alexandria but this had no impact. A riot in Alexandria in June 1882 was interpreted as the first step towards anarchy and Parliament demanded action. The French parliament decided against action but Gladstone's government decided that they had to take action. The port of Alexandria was bombed and Gladstone declared that he would send an expeditionary force to restore order.
The opening of the Suez Canal
During August two armies, one of 24,000 troops from
India and one of 7,000 from Britain and led by Wolseley converged on Egypt.
Warships occupied the canal and the military force landed on 18 August at
Ismailia. Four weeks later Urabi's camp at Tel-el-Kebir was stormed following a
night march and overrun enabling Wolseley to march on Cairo. Urabi was captured
and banished to Ceylon. Egypt became a virtual protectorate bwith power in the
hands of British senior civil servants who saw it as their task to return Egypt
to solvency. A British army of 5,000 men was kept in Egypt and Alexandria
became the main Mediterranean base for the Royal Navy.
The Battle of Tel-el-Kebir which gave Britain control over Egypt
10,000 kingdoms become 40 states
In the period after 1880, Africa was to be divided between five European powers with Britain ending up ruling a third of the continent. 10,000 kingdoms became forty states, many of them British. The British land grab was a response to the new imperial ambitions of France and Germany at a time when Britain had lost its dominance of the world. The British conquests were achieved by resorting to the methods used in the c17th. Private chartered companies were set up and like the East India Company were given the powers to raise armies and make treaties with local rulers. These companies acquired land by negotiating treaties with local rulers and then sought settlers to buy land to farm or mine. With the aid of the maxim gun, any resistance to the companies' militia could be easily overcome as when in 1893 Rhodes invaded Matabeleland with a volunteer force of 700 to confront Lobengula's force of 3.000. The Battle of Shangana River saw one of the first uses of the Maxim gun and the destruction of Lobengula's men who never got nearer than 100 yards. Men like Rhodes in South Africa, Goldie in Nigeria and Lugard in East Africa advanced the empire or dealt with local resistance with the aid of this new weapon. In this way Kenya, Uganda, Rhodesia and Nigeria were formed.Second Anglo-Boer War 1899-1901
In 1897 Lord Milner was appointed High Commissioner for South Africa. Already relations between Britain and the Boer republics were poor as a result of the Jameson Raid - a failed attempt at bringing down the Transvaal government. Milner was a man who was an avowed British race patriot who wanted world supremacy for the British empire-he had no illusions about what was needed and he wasn't taken in by the flag waving and triumphalism that had been part of the 1897 Jubilee celebrations. Milner came to the view that for Britain to reassert her position in south Africa then Kruger's Transvaal would have to submit to British control. The question of the 'uitlanders' would be used as the excuse to achieve this.In May 1899 the Cape PM, Schreiner and Hofmeyr, leader of the Cape Afrikaners, proposed to Milner that he should meet with Kruger to try and settle matters and so on May 30th Milner found himself steaming north to Bloemfontein to a conference with Kruger. He was determined that it should not succeed.