The Fall of the Asante Empire by Robert B. Edgerton

Author:Robert B. Edgerton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Free Pressa
Published: 1995-06-12T16:00:00+00:00

WOLSELEY’S CAMPAIGN ROUTE of 1874

As far as the jungle would permit, a traditional British square would advance along a six hundred-yard-wide front. Royal Engineers and African laborers would do their best to open up the brush enough for the men to move forward. The 42nd Highlanders, bearded veteran troops led by clean-shaven officers who seemed to Henry Stanley to be mere boys, would be in front, closely followed by Rait’s Hausa artillerymen with their cannon and rockets. The front line would be commanded by Brigadier General Sir Archibald Alison, a veteran who had lost an arm in the Crimean War twenty years earlier. The left flank, which would extend very loosely for over two miles to the rear, would be manned by half of the Naval Brigade followed by Russell’s African troops. The right flank, equally long and vulnerable, would be led by the other half of the Naval Brigade followed by Wood’s African brigade. The Rifle Brigade would be the rear guard. Wolseley and his staff would direct the battle from the middle of the square, which would also hold the supply carriers and the 23rd Royal Welch Fusiliers led by their aggressive colonel, the aptly named Honorable Savage Mostyn. Because the serious thigh wound he had suffered years earlier in Burma had been causing him great pain, Wolseley had ridden all the way to the battleground in a rickety American-made buggy pulled by four Africans, but once the battle started, he would be on foot like the other officers.

Lord Gifford’s advance guard once again came under Asante fire at the village of Egginassie, but reinforced by two companies of the Black Watch, he pressed forward until he ran into the main Asante line. By 8:15 A.M. the entire front was engulfed in pungent sulfurous smoke from thousands of Asante muskets. There was no wind, and the smoke hugged the ground, obscuring everyone’s vision. Under the command of Colonel Cluny MacPherson, whose name left no doubt about his Scottish ancestry, the Highlanders did everything men could to press forward against the Asante fire. The sound of the weapons was so intense—the Dane guns booming, the Sniders much sharper—that the Scots could not hear the skirl of the bagpipes that always accompanied them into battle. The Highlanders came under tremendous fire before they could see anyone to fire at, and they began to take heavy casualties. Lying down, they returned fire in the general direction of the Asante smoke, but they could not advance. Sir Archibald Alison, who had campaigned in India and the Crimea, wrote, “The Ashantis stood admirably, and kept up one of the heaviest fires I ever was under.”15 Wolseley’s written assurance that the Asante would never dare to stand against white men must have caused a few dark thoughts among the troops.

After an hour the battlefield resembled a scene from the Western front in World War I. All the bark and leaves had been stripped off the trees, but as usual the Asante fired high, sparing most of the men who were lying down.

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