Charles Warren by Kevin Shillington

Author:Kevin Shillington
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Brown Dog Books

In his opinion, the expedition had ‘restored to Englishmen the prestige which they had lost during the last six years’.527

Warren had ‘restored the natives to their lands’ – at least in the Mafikeng region, though not in Stellaland. He had negotiated a satisfactory settlement of the Bechuanaland Protectorate – satisfactory from both the British and the Batswana point of view. His troops had remained healthy, with no significant disease – there were just eighteen deaths, half of them from accidents. And his almost entirely mounted force of 4000 officers and men had lost less than two per cent of their horses to disease in a country where a loss of between ten and twenty per cent to ‘horse-sickness’ was the norm.

With Warren’s withdrawal, a number of his staff officers remained behind to serve the new Bechuanaland administration. Lieutenant Alfred Haynes was to serve as secretary to the Bechuanaland Land Commission that began hearing evidence at Taung in 1886, while Colonel Frederick Carrington commanded the Bechuanaland Border Police (BBP) and went on to become the first Resident Commissioner of the Protectorate. Many from Warren’s volunteer regiments joined the BBP and some of them, including Carrington, went on to form the military element of Rhodes’s ‘Pioneer Column’ which began the colonisation of Zimbabwe in 1890.

As he made his way south in September 1885 Warren was accorded a triumphal reception in Kimberley. It was a city very much dominated by British mining and commercial interests, and he received thanks and congratulations from businessmen, municipality and the Freemasons. Warren’s success in securing British access to the ‘road to the north’ and ultimately the wealth of Central Africa, gave a huge boost to imperialistic enthusiasm. The railhead had just reached Kimberley that month and special trains were laid on to convey the troops southwards. Warren himself had been invited to visit President Brand in Bloemfontein where he was received with great enthusiasm by the Free State Afrikaners. They had feared a clash between Britain and the Transvaalers which would have had the potential to set Afrikaner against Briton across the colonies and republics of South Africa. According to his friend Colonel Fred Terry, who accompanied Warren on the visit:

At Bloemfontein, the capital of the Orange Free State, the ovation with which Sir Charles Warren was received was not merely of a private character, but was public – guns being fired and military guards of honour provided. The whole time Sir Charles Warren stayed at Bloemfontein he was fêted, and shouts of welcome greeted him wherever he went, the utmost satisfaction being expressed at the manner in which he had settled the Bechuanaland difficulties, had united the [white] races, and had brought about confidence in the future maintenance of peace.528

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