The Fall of the Asante Empire

by Robert B. Edgerton

  British officers and newsmen generally agreed that between two and three thousand Asante must have been killed, but to everyone’s amazement, after twelve hours of fighting by over one thousand five hundred British troops and seven hundred Africans against endless Asante fire, they had suffered only four dead, three of them British. However, there were at least two hundred wounded, many of them in serious condition. Surgeons worked throughout the day and into the night extracting slugs, nails, and a few Snider bullets (usually the unintended result of British troops being unable to see one another’s positions) and bandaging wounds as best they could. The British doctors had morphine and used it liberally, but many of the wounded were nevertheless in great pain. Observers were struck by how well they endured their suffering. When one young lieutenant was carried in with a severe shoulder wound, a surgeon left a wounded Hausa soldier whom he had been treating to attend to the British officer. The officer refused to be treated until the doctor had done his best for the wounded African.23

  Even before rations were handed out, rum was served to the troops and brandy to the officers. The general’s sense of victory overcame his insistence on a dry campaign, but class distinctions were, of course, maintained. Soon after, torrents of rain and tornadic winds struck, the first serious storm since the British force had invaded Asante land. The troops had no tents or cover of any kind, no fires could be made to burn, and the ground soon became a morass of mud. The wounded lay uncovered on their stretchers all night in misery that it would be difficult to exaggerate. The engineers were equally miserable as they worked throughout the night to bridge a rapidly rising stream that the army would have to cross the next day. Everyone in camp went without sleep, and few men even bothered to lie down in the mud. Wolseley called the rain the heaviest he had ever been under.24 He was greatly concerned about his exhausted men but still determined to march on Kumase in the morning.

  The Asante army spent an equally miserable night, although not for quite the same reasons. Many were able to find shelter from the rain, and the old campaigners were accustomed to rain, mud, and the lack of cooking fires. They were dispirited more by the knowledge that British firepower was too destructive to stand against than they were by the elements. Their greatest concern about the rain was keeping their powder dry. If the rain continued into the next day and the British advanced as they were expected to do, their ancient flintlocks would be extremely difficult to fire. The Asante were also disturbed by the heavy losses they had suffered. Many were seriously wounded, including the king of Mampon, and General Amankwatia had been killed. To inspire his men to fight harder, the general had stood on his stool, an act that was intended to make his men fight more fiercely. As he exhorted his men, he was shot through the back and died on the battlefield.25 Their morale did not improve when it was rumored that King Kofi Kakari had left the battlefield early in the day.26 When the decision for war was made in 1873, King Kakari had ordered his retainers to recite praise songs for his martial valor. His favorite was, “Kakari the hero, the champion who will fight at the cannon’s mouth.” Although far in the rear during the fighting, actual cannon fire did not please him. He fled with a few slaves whom he then had executed in a vain attempt to prevent word of his cowardice from spreading. His actions were widely considered to bring disgrace to the Asante nation.27

  In Kumase a fearful populace was making ready to flee, and they were not pleased when the severed head of a Highlander was triumphantly displayed. Many worried that this was a bad omen. This Scottish soldier, whose name is unknown, resisted his death so resolutely that the fingers on his hands were found to be almost entirely severed as he tried in vain to prevent the Asante from taking his head by fending off their knives.

  After the terrible night of deluge, the British were not able to organize themselves to advance until one the next afternoon, giving the Asante time to fortify the next town along the road to Kumase and dry their powder. Houses were loopholed, and a huge tree trunk was dragged across the road. When the British advanced, fire from the houses and the tree wounded seventeen of Gifford’s scouts, and he was forced to withdraw. With the help of artillery fire, men of the Naval Brigade were able to drive the Asante back, but one sailor was killed and several wounded. At the same time, supply convoys in the rear of Wolseley’s army were harried by a series of attacks. Many of these carriers had been ordered to carry wounded back to Cape Coast, but when they were fired on by the Asante, they dropped their charges and fended for themselves, to the great suffering of the wounded men. One large group of African carriers refused to carry even their own wounded, insisting that it was customary for them to leave wounded men behind to die. Colonel Wood who had argued and pleaded with them to no avail, finally had their leader flogged “until I was nearly sick from the sight.”28 It was not until he had given a second man twenty-five lashes, a terrible, back-scourging punishment, that the African carriers finally agreed to carry their own wounded away.

  Wood was concerned by another problem common to his African militia: they insisted on carrying everything balanced on their heads—rifles, ammunition, cooking pots, blankets, food, and what all. Whenever a shot was fired from the bush, the men ducked, and everything fell down with a crash, leaving them defenseless until they could crawl around and recover their weapons. Wood solved the problem by ordering them to wear military crossbelts on which their equipment could be neatly hung. One man refused to comply and continued to carry everything on his head. Wood fined him, to no effect; so he called a doctor to witness punishment and ordered the man flogged. His comrades implored Wood not to carry out the punishment, but Wood explained that the man must obey orders. Frustrated and puzzled, he asked the man why he would not obey orders and was told that the belts were painful. Wood examined the man and to his horror found that he had a gaping slug wound in his chest into which he had shoved a wad of grass. Wood and the doctor were properly impressed. The doctor treated him and the man was not punished.

  Wolseley’s army spent the night of February 1 in a large, comfortable town that impressed the officers with the beauty of the bas-relief ornamentation of its houses. It provided ample, clean, and comfortable housing for the exhausted men. Correspondent Henty of the Standard found the Asante houses so well made and their furniture so finely carved that he could not comprehend how these people could endure the rigors of campaigns in the unforgiving jungles near the coast. Perversely, that night, when the troops had cover, there was no rain. Much better rested, the troops moved out at daybreak on the second. After crossing a river on a bridge elegantly built by the always remarkable engineers, they encountered a series of ambushes, but the Asante opened fire at such long range that they did no damage. The British returned fire but made no serious effort to attack. Earlier in the day the Asante had made an attack on the main British supply depot, an attack so ferocious that the carriers now refused to leave the fortified camp. Short of supplies, Wolseley camped in the early afternoon, hoping that a convoy would reach him. When he learned that night about the disruption to his supply system, he made the audacious decision to attack Kumase with no more than his troops could carry. This meant that he would have to get to Kumase and back to his supply dump at Fomena in five to six days without expending too much ammunition. Colonel Wood concluded that no other British commander would have had the confidence and courage to make this decision.29 Wolseley had both, but he also knew that with the rains now upon him, he could not long afford to be on the wrong side of flooded rivers, nor could he safely expose his troops to malaria for much longer. He took the gamble.

  Wolseley’s advance guard moved out early on the third and quickly encountered heavy Asante opposition. British artillery fire drove them back, but they re-formed again and again, and the firing continued while the British slowly advanced north on the road to Kumase. At mid-afternoon an Asante messenger arrived carrying a white flag of truce designed by Joseph Dawson. The gold-breastplated envoy presented Wolseley with yet another disjointed appeal to halt and
negotiate but did nothing to comply with Wolseley’s demands. Dawson, in fear of his life, wrote a separate note appealing to the general. He insisted that the king now truly wanted peace, that the Asante were beaten, but that members of the royal family could not be handed over as hostages and the king needed time to raise the gold. All this was true, but Wolseley sent back a brusque note rejecting the king’s request, and he ordered his troops to press on. (This time he said nothing about being the king’s true friend.) That night they camped on the south bank of the formidable and rapidly rising Ordah River. Heavy rain fell all night, and as the Royal Engineers worked to bridge the river, the rest of the troops tried, without any semblance of success, to stay dry by crouching under large plantain leaves. It was another sleepless night.

  At dawn the men tried to dry themselves around large fires, but few succeeded. Soon the scouts were across the new bridge, and the main body followed. Asante prisoners had said that an army of ten thousand men was ahead of them but that it was under orders not to fire unless fired on.30 As the British advance approached, however, the Asante opened a deadly fire that stopped the white troops in their tracks. The Rifle Brigade was sent forward, but it could not advance either. As the men lay down to exchange fire, the Asante launched a strong attack against the Highlanders on the British right flank. The attack was so persistent that Wolseley was worried, but once again, when artillery was brought into place, the Asante attack was held off. Wood’s adjutant, Lieutenant Arthur Eyre, was standing upright as most officers did, but the firing was so heavy that Wood told him to kneel down. He had no sooner done so than he was shot through the bladder. Despite morphine he was in such agony that a shaken Wood, who loved him like a son, was relieved when he died two hours later, his last wish being that his rings be given to his mother.31

  While Eyre lay dying, the battle was not going well for Wolseley. Russell’s African regiment in the front wavered, firing aimlessly, and even a company of the Black Watch lost its discipline and fired wildly at nothing. Amid loud singing, cheering, and drumming, the Asante pressed attacks on both flanks with such determination that the usually staunch Rifle Brigade also began to lose its composure. The Asante charged so close to the British lines that officers shot them down with their revolvers.32 One officer who saw an Asante unit in the open was astonished to see that they marched in perfect order, their muskets all held at the same angle. He said that they were “disciplined, under command and well in hand.”33 As casualties mounted, Colonel John McLeod, or “Old Jack” as he was better known, rushed about giving a copy of the Book of Psalms to wounded officers. McLeod’s faith in the healing powers of the Scriptures was so well known that many officers found his actions hilarious. One seriously wounded officer had such a laughing fit when McLeod approached him that he claimed it stopped his bleeding and saved his life.34

  Just as Wolseley had decided to send the Highlanders to the front to replace the shaken Rifle Brigade, a slug hit him in the head with enough force that it knocked him down, but the thick leather strap on his helmet deflected it enough that he was able to carry on. The bearded, sweat-soaked Scotsmen, their numbers now reduced by 25 percent, moved up the road toward yet another Asante roadblock, an immense tree that sheltered riflemen. This time they did not wait for Rait’s artillery. With their pipers playing as loudly as possible, their officers leapt up and led the cheering men on a bayonet charge that broke the Asante line. After two hours of valiant fighting, the Asante finally fled, leaving behind chiefs’ umbrellas and war chairs, drums, muskets, powder, and many dead and wounded. The Black Watch attack was so successful that the men trotted and walked forward for four miles, firing as they went, before sheer exhaustion forced them to a halt. As the Scots rested, they congratulated themselves on a fine fight, although one man insisted that if they had been able to wear their traditional green coats and their “kilts and bonnets,” they would have routed the Asante easily. They also discovered that all had been hit by Asante slugs and compared their cuts and bruises with good humor, except for one man whose beard had been partly sheared off by Asante fire. He complained that his girlfriend would be furious about the loss of his “manhood.”35

  At 1:45 P.M. General Alison sent word to Wolseley that the road was open and that if he were supported from the rear, he would be in Kumase that night. When Wolseley shared this news with his men, they erupted in an enormous cheer, and those Africans among them who could speak Asante shouted the news as loudly as they could. The Asante gunfire on the flanks immediately halted. Knowing that the battle was lost, the Asante began to withdraw toward Kumase on parallel paths to the road that the now-triumphant British hurried along.36 The Black Watch, now led by Colonel John McLeod and followed as closely as possible by Sir Archibald Alison, reached the outskirts of Kumase at 5 P.M.

  Many Asante greeted them by saying “thank you,” the only English they knew. They were also greeted by a high-ranking Asante officer in a leopard-skin uniform, who begged the scouts to stop and allow for a proper truce. Because his men needed a rest, Sir Archibald agreed. He needed one as well. Only a few minutes earlier as he was riding across the fetid swamp that lay before Kumase, his wretched mule slipped, pitching the general into the vile water before collapsing on top of him. The one-armed officer was vainly trying to extricate himself when his adjutant came to his rescue. Covered with fecal-smelling water, he tried to gather his wits and his dignity while his men restored their strength. All the while, Asante soldiers with loaded guns stood nearby, their faces contorted by anger. The British soldiers were nervous until Asante officers spoke to the men and they reluctantly moved away.

  At 5:30 P.M., less than an hour before darkness would fall, Alison received Wolseley’s order to move into Kumase. His men were greeted by large crowds of credulous Asante eager to see the white men. A court buffoon danced and tried to amuse the British by kissing them, a courtesy that was not well received. It was a tense moment as the advance guard of Highlanders, who numbered only 340 men at best, moved along, surrounded by several thousand Asante soldiers whose numbers increased by the moment. The powder-stained men were all fully armed and clearly capable of further hostilities. As Alison and McLeod looked on, hundreds of men and women passed by them carrying food, powder, guns, and boxes on their heads. The British conquerors could do nothing to interfere.

  Shortly after six Wolseley rode into Kumase on another less-than-splendid mule followed by his staff and very eager newsmen. For reasons that are still unclear, when British envoy and interpreter Joseph Dawson met Lieutenant Lord Gifford on the outskirts of Kumase, he did not lead him to the king’s palace as ordered but instead took him on a thirty-minute wild-goose chase that ended with Gifford threatening to shoot Dawson and Dawson claiming to be confused. It seems likely that the avaricious Dawson had been paid to delay the British as long as he could. As a result, much of great value could have been removed from the palace before the British could find it. When the British did locate the palace, they quite inexplicably did not place guards around it.37

  As the remainder of Wolseley’s force of barely more that one thousand white troops made their way into Kumase, he ordered sentries posted on all avenues of approach to the central square, where he billeted his men. He sited cannon to command every street that hostile Asante soldiers might use in an attack, something the seemingly terrified Dawson had warned him was very likely to take place that night. Large supplies of gin were discovered, and when medical officers declared it to be fine Hollands gin, it was served out to the troops, a greatly appreciated reward for taking the city. At 8 P.M., well after dark, Wolseley sent a messenger, whom Dawson had provided, to the king, assuring him that if he returned to Kumase to make peace, his palace and the city itself would be left untouched. But he also warned the king that if any Asante were to shoot at the British troops, the city would be burned and everyone in it killed.

  By Wolseley’s order the Fante prisoners were located and freed, often to touching scenes of kindness as Fante carriers
tenderly ministered to the wounds of their long-fettered and mistreated countrymen. Wolseley also decreed that anyone found pillaging would be executed. The general’s orders notwithstanding, the city soon burst into flames as the newly-released Fante prisoners wreaked vengeance on their captors, whose powder-filled houses caught fire and exploded. As the fires spread, engineers and troops were called out to pull down neighboring houses in an attempt to contain the blazes, but parts of the city burned all night. Against orders, pillaging also took place. Several carriers caught looting were flogged, and when a seventeen-year-old Fante policeman was caught with a stolen cloth in his hand, he was promptly sentenced to death. The young man was hanged from a tree, but his hangmen neglected to tie his hands. His agonizing efforts to avoid strangulation were so loud that many people rushed to the scene. Let down, he was hanged again, but the rope was now tied across his mouth to silence him. It took another 15 minutes of appalling agony for him to die. Asante who witnessed this event were disgusted and later pointedly wondered why the British thought the Asante’s method of executing their criminals was so barbaric.38

  The execution did little to prevent arson or looting that night because very few men were aware that the hanging had even taken place, but it served some small purpose the next morning. When Captain W T. Dooner marched his African soldiers from Russell’s brigade past the hanged man, he warned them that they would suffer the same fate if they were caught looting: “To my amazement they then emptied their haversacks on the road, and out came beautiful silks and cloths of all kinds, and there we left them.”39