Canadian Soldiers in West African Conflicts, 1885•Fi1905
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Canadian Military History Volume 17 Issue 1 Article 3 2008 Canadian Soldiers in West African Conflicts, 1885–1905 Andrew B. Godefroy Canadian Armed Forces Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh Part of the Military History Commons Recommended Citation Godefroy, Andrew B. "Canadian Soldiers in West African Conflicts, 1885–1905." Canadian Military History 17, 1 (2008) This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Canadian Military History by an authorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Godefroy: West African Conflicts Canadian Soldiers in West African Conflicts, 1885-1905 Andrew B. Godefroy “The Scouts were under Lieutenant [A.H.] Macdonnell, DSO, an excellent officer of the permanent forces of Canada.” Lieutenant-Colonel William Heneker’s narrative of the Ibeku-Olokoro Expedition, Southern Nigeria, 19021 he history of the Canadian army at the that a new approach to the analysis of the pre- Tbeginning of the 20th century is most often 1914 Canadian army is required, one that focuses defined by its operational participation in the as much on the influence of those who left Canada South African War. Between 1899 and 1902 for military service as those who remained within Canada dispatched a few thousand soldiers to the ranks of the institution at home. fight for British interests against Boer settlers, a commitment that had a considerable impact on There is little question that the development both the evolution of Canada’s fledgling army as of a better understanding of the pre-Great War well as Canadian politics in general. The sheer Canadian Army is long overdue. Existing literature magnitude of this event overshadowed just about too often focuses solely on how the British army every other British and Canadian army activity at controlled and influenced a nascent Canadian the time, but it was by no means the only conflict militia.3 As this article reveals, not only are such in which Canadian soldiers were then engaged. analyses incomplete but they do not reverse the In addition to helping secure the veldt of the lens and examine how Canada and Canadians Transvaal for Great Britain, Canada’s soldiers influenced the British army and its operations were also active participants in a number of other abroad during the same period.4 A more complete campaigns across equatorial Africa. Though picture of Canadian army evolution can only exist there were fewer troops who served as part of a through such an examination, and this article general frontier force instead of being organized touches on but one topic that brings new evidence into specific Canadian units, their presence was for that reassessment. influential and at times critical for operational success in these other theatres of conflict. The British Empire in West Africa5 This article examines the role played by Canadians at the turn of the century in West uring the late Victorian and Edwardian eras, Africa.2 Though not intended to draw sweeping Dthe relationship of Europe and Africa was conclusions about the influence of such operations in the midst of a great transition. For centuries on the Canadian army as a whole – such analysis Africa had been the “Dark Continent,” a vast must follow at a later time when more contextual and impenetrable unknown to the European evidence is available – it does rediscover a largely adventurer, often perceived as a place of witch forgotten chapter in the origins and evolution of doctors, juju cults, cannibalism, and savagery the army, as well as raise a number of questions into which one dare not venture. Since the late that obviously deserve greater attention. Most 15th century, the valuable trading commodities important, perhaps, this article demonstrates of West Africa were brought from the interior by © Canadian Military History, Volume 17, Number 1, Winter 2008, pp.21-36. 21 Published by Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2008 1 Godefroy - West Africa.indd 21 14/02/2008 12:56:48 PM Canadian Military History, Vol. 17 [2008], Iss. 1, Art. 3 Map drawn by Mike Bechthold ©2008 native groups for exchange with the Europeans, mid-19th century. Having begun that century few of whom ever ventured inland from the without ambitions beyond holding their collection trading forts they built along the coast. As British of trading enterprises along the coast, they closed historian R.B. Magor later noted, “The main it by endeavouring to extend their involvement products traded were slaves, palm oil, and gold, to full-fledged imperial rule as deep inland as in that order of importance.”6 possible. From the beginning of the 19th century, The British, however, were not the only however, the British renounced their participation Europeans with designs on ruling the region. in the slave trade, and set themselves to blocking The Dutch, Portuguese, and Spanish had all been everyone else engaged in the activity. Both the there, but were no longer serious contenders Europeans and Arabs who shipped the slaves against the rising British military and commercial and the native kings who sold them were soundly power. Instead it was the French and Germans reproved by British sailors and soldiers who who challenged the British. While the British imposed their anti-slavery views justified by a were seizing the hinterlands of the Gold Coast mixture of religion and reformism backed up [now Ghana] and the Niger coast, the Germans by artillery, Maxim machine guns and rifles. By seized Togoland and Cameroon on the east side extension, the British were developing an interest of these British claims. There was some friction in the internal governance of West Africa by the and disputes among traders and officials on the 22 https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol17/iss1/3 2 Godefroy - West Africa.indd 22 14/02/2008 12:56:49 PM Godefroy: West African Conflicts scene, but agreements were soon reached in a military units then in West Africa into a unified more or less gentlemanly fashion. The manner regional army, known as the West African Frontier in which Europeans resolved their African Force (WAFF). Frederick Dealtry Lugard was boundaries is neatly described in the comments gazetted to be its first commandant on 26 August of Britain’s Foreign Minister Salisbury upon a 1897.10 Though only listed as a captain in his subsequent boundary treaty with the French: “We regiment, within the army he was a brevet-major, have been engaged in drawing lines upon maps and in his new assignment as commanding officer where no white man’s foot has ever trod…We of the WAFF he was granted the local rank of have been giving away mountains and rivers and colonel. lakes to each other, only hindered by the small impediment that we never knew exactly where As an organization the WAFF evolved over the mountains and rivers and lakes were.”7 several years between 1897 and 1901. Initially comprised of two battalions of the Northern Contrary to popular conception, the delegates Nigeria Regiment, by 1902 it also included one at the Berlin Conference of 1885 did not lay out battalion of the Southern Nigeria Regiment, the all the borders of modern Africa.8 While they Lagos Battalion, the Sierra Leone Battalion, a did resolve a few disputes about jurisdiction on battalion and a half of the Gold Coast Regiment, certain rivers and a few boundary disputes in and the Gambia Company.11 The ranks of these the Congo basin, the main achievement of the infantry units were comprised of African natives, conference was the establishment of some rules while the officer corps was made up of white men for mitigating disputes among themselves in the from Britain and its colonies. As they had long years to come as they laid their claims to the rest. been doing in India, the British developed strong Over the next three decades, seven European prejudices in favour of recruiting certain races nations extended their dominions inland from for their purported martial qualities. In West the coast, and as they ran up against each other’s Africa, the Hausa was the most favoured tribe, claims, they resolved their boundary disputes in and in English usage “Hausas” was sometimes a series of bilateral treaties. used as a generic term for African soldiers. A detailed treatment of the tribal constituents of While the British had stayed on good terms the WAFF can be found in Haywood and Clarke’s, with the Germans as they worked out their History of the Royal West African Frontier Force, disputes, they nearly went to war with the French which shows that the British, even when local over territorial claims in West Africa. The French recruiting sources were scarce, strove to create as were energetically advancing their territories professional and capable a force as possible, even in the region, while Britain vacillated about if only a small one. Securing officers to lead these whether to expend the effort to move inland. units was another matter, as only “proper white Under Salisbury, British policy was to secure gentlemen” would suffice for such a role. Without east Africa, flanking as it does the vital corridor such resources readily available locally, the War to India, and let the French have most of West Office had to look elsewhere for the solution. Africa without much contest.9 But when Joseph Chamberlain became Colonial Secretary in 1895, While the WAFF was still taking shape in he launched a vigorous drive to prevent any more late 1897 and early 1898, it did its best to show inland and western territory from falling into the flag and thereby validate British claims in French hands by default.