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The Leadership of the Natal Native Contingent in the Anglo-Zulu War

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The Leadership of the Natal Native Contingent in the Anglo-Zulu War The Commandants: The Leadership of the Natal Native Contingent in the Anglo-Zulu War By Keith I. Smith, B.A. Hons (Macq.) This thesis is presented for the degree of Master of Arts of the University of Western Australia. School of Humanities October, 2005 Abstract The senior Imperial officers who took part in the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879 are comparatively well known and their service in that brief period has been well documented, as indeed has that of many of their junior colleagues. Much less, however, is known about the officers who served as commandants of the Natal Native Contingent, although more than half of them were Imperial officers on special service duties. Most of the rest were British ex-officers who lived in South Africa, while one of the remaining two was an adventurer and mercenary. Many of them had already found service with the South African force during the Ninth Cape Border War against the Ngqika and Gcaleka which had only ended in mid-1878. According to official documents, the Natal Native Contingent initially numbered more than 8,000 native troops, in three regiments, under the command of European officers and non-commissioned officers.1 At the time of the invasion of Zululand in January, 1879, the contingent therefore made up about 62% of the invading force. This bald statistic, as so often, hides the true story. The thesis examines each of the commandants, and the extent to which their abilities and personalities were reflected in the performance of the native troops under their command, while at the same time revealing the evolution of the Contingent itself as an arm of the invading force under Lieutenant General Lord Chelmsford. One or two of the commandants served quietly and unspectacularly, but others were remarkably controversial and their stories remain largely untold. Some of them were seemingly discarded after the abortive First Invasion, covering only the period from the crossing of 1 We shall see that these numbers were somewhat optimistic. i the Zulu border on 11th January until shortly after the battle of Isandlwana on 22nd January, 1879, while others were re-assigned. The subsequent re-organisation of the Contingent led to the introduction of some new commandants, who are also included within the purview of the thesis. The quality of the new officers is compared to that of those whose services were terminated. The reputation which the NNC earned during the war was generally perceived as entirely discreditable. The perception was, however, largely based on the performance of the native forces during only the few days of the First Invasion as recounted by their officers. That sullied reputation was not merited by all units, but it was to overshadow the service of the re-constituted NNC in the later stages of the war. The haste with which the regiments were assembled, their often inhuman treatment by their officers, the minimal or non-existent training they received and the way they were armed and dressed all combined to qualify their subsequent performance in the field. A comparison of the NNC is drawn with the performances of the Native Mounted Contingent, and the men of Colonel, later Brigadier General, Evelyn Wood’s Irregulars. The conclusion of the thesis is that the commandants did indeed have a profound effect on the quality and performance of the Africans who served under them. In general, the units under serving British officers performed best, while the colonial officers did less well. The mercenary officer was almost certainly the worst, but by only a slim margin. ii Contents Abstract i Abbreviations iv Acknowledgements v Introduction 1 Chapter 1 The Background to the War 7 Chapter 2 Genesis of the NNC 23 Chapter 3 Invasion and Defeat 53 Chapter 4 Withdrawal and Re-organisation 78 Chapter 5 Demonstrations and Relief 100 Chapter 6 Victory and the Aftermath 126 Conclusion 150 Appendix I Post War Careers of the Commandants 160 Appendix II Instructions for the Management of Natives 164 Bibliography 167 Maps The First Invasion 52 The Second Invasion 125 iii Abbreviations AGO Records of the Attorney-General’s Office, Natal. BPP British Parliamentary Papers, Command series, in the Library of New South Wales, Sydney. CP Chelmsford Papers, National Army Museum, UK. CSO Records of the Colonial Secretary’s Office, Natal. GH Records of Government House, Natal. JSA Webb, C. de B. and Wright, J.B. (eds.), The James Stuart Archive of Recorded Oral Evidence Relating to the History of the Zulu and Neighbouring Peoples, in five volumes. MSCE Records of the Master of the Supreme Court, Estates, Natal. NGG Natal Government Gazette. PP Pearson Papers, National Army Museum, UK. RSC Records of the Supreme Court, Pietermaritzburg. SNA Records of the Secretary of Native Affairs, Natal. SP Shepstone Papers. TNA (PRO) The National Archives (Public Record Office), Kew, UK. VLM Resident Magistrate records, Verulam. iv Acknowledgements The composition and actions of the Natal Native Contingent (NNC), and associated units, from its inception to the capture of King Cetshwayo, are related comprehensively in the only substantial work on the subject by a modern author, Dr Paul Thompson.1 The detail provided by Dr Thompson on the sources for his work is remarkably extensive and is obviously the fruit of many years of research. His scholarship has not perhaps reached the wide audience that it should, when one considers the proportion of African to European troops in the conflict. In his very detailed account of the force, Dr Thompson has touched only lightly upon the men who led the regiments and their component battalions and yet these men must have had some impact, positive or otherwise, upon the way each unit behaved. Why, for example, did the NNC perform so poorly? To what extent was the imposition of a British military leadership responsible for that performance? These are questions, among others, to be resolved in this present work, and the great debt owed by the writer to Dr Thompson in unwittingly providing the stimulus for this research is hereby readily acknowledged. That debt was substantially enhanced when Dr Thompson gave me permission to examine his personal notes, now donated to the Pietermaritzburg Archives Repository. I am also indebted to those curators and staff of museums and libraries who have been so sympathetic to my frequent visits and enquiries. In particular, I must mention the staff of the following: Killie Campbell Africana Library, Durban; the library of the University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg; the Pietermaritzburg Archive Repository; the National Archives (Public Record Office), Kew; the National Army Museum, Chelsea; 1 P.S. Thompson, The Natal Native Contingent in the Anglo-Zulu War 1879, (Pietermaritzburg, 1997). v the State Library of New South Wales, for access to their British Parliamentary Papers in a very deep basement. The photographs used to illustrate the work are from the following sources: Commandant R. la T. Lonsdale, from R. Lock and P. Quantrill, Zulu Victory, p. 111; Major Bengough, frontispiece, H.M. Bengough, Memories of a Solder’s Life; Commandant Hamilton-Browne, frontispiece, G. Hamilton-Browne, A Lost Legionary in South Africa; Commandant Montgomery, Natal Who’s Who, 1906, p. 140. Photographs of the other commandants, other than Lieutenant Colonel Durnford, were not able to be traced. The photographs of the men of the 2nd Regiment NNC and of Sikhotha are reproduced by courtesy of the Killie Campbell Africana Library. The photographs of the 2nd and 4th Battalions NNC are reproduced from Christopher Wilkinson-Latham’s Uniforms and Weapons of the Zulu War.2 The two maps are taken from Ian Knight’s, The National Army Museum Book of the Zulu War.3 Finally, particular gratitude is extended to Professor Norman Etherington, whose supervision of my work in the preparation of this thesis, while rigorous, has always been constructive, with large measures of encouragement. The work would be of much less worth without his most valuable contribution and any blemishes which remain are entirely those of the writer. 2 Christopher Wilkinson-Latham, Uniforms and Weapons of the Zulu War, (London, 1978). 3 Ian Knight, The National Army Museum Book of the Zulu War, (London, 2003). vi How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use! Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Ulysses, 1842. vii Introduction The subject to be examined in this work is that of the relative quality of the leadership of the Natal Native Contingent (NNC) during the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879. Due to the limitations imposed upon the length of the work, its scope is limited to that of the infantry arm of the African troops so employed, and thus excludes the men of the Native Mounted Contingent, and the Native Pioneers. The Contingent proper was a force which remained essentially discrete throughout the war, while the mounted units changed over time, and were complemented by later additions. The Pioneers were too small a group to have played any more than a peripheral role in the war. Similarly, the African troops employed in Colonel (later Brigadier-General) Evelyn Wood’s force, known as ‘Wood’s Irregulars’, have also been disregarded since they were not a part of the Contingent. The principal reason for subjecting this matter to scrutiny is the very large proportion represented by the Contingent in the early stages of the war, and the way in which they were disposed. The footmen of the NNC originally numbered more than 8,000 African troops, in three regiments, under the command of European officers and non-commissioned officers. At the time of the first invasion of Zululand, the force thus constituted no less than 62% of the invading army.1 With only a minimum of training, they were then thrust into military engagements for which they were totally unfitted.
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