{UAH} Folks, behold Uganda's greatest citizen: Kabalega to Colville: Over my dead body

http://www.monitor.co.ug/SpecialReports/ugandaat50/-/1370466/1374480/-/ujl26nz/-/index.html

In late December 1893, Col. Henry Colville led a war party to attack Omukama Kabalega Cwa II of Bunyoro. Colville's party included eight British officers, 450 Nubian (Sudanese) troops and an estimated 20,000 Baganda infantrymen armed with guns and, in some cases, spears.

Another version that quotes Colville's letters says the eight British officers had 680 Sudanese and Swahilis and 14,100 Baganda, all together armed with 4,200 rifles and two Maxim guns.

The British had long wanted to attack Kabalega to extend their domain in the area and to avenge the defeat of Sir Samuel Baker at the hands of Kabalega's men.

Soon after forcing Kabaka Mwanga to sign away his authority to the Imperial British East Africa Company on December 26, 1890, Frederick Lugard had contemplated "marching straight on to [B]Unyoro and conquering that country" before advancing north to attack the Mahdists in the Sudan who had earlier carried out an uprising against the Egyptians who were British allies.

Lugard had been discouraged by a combination of things: Mwanga's threats that Kabalega was willing to make peace with him but would fight any white man; the tensions that followed among the religious camps in Buganda; and Lugard's own thin resources in terms of men and arms.

In May 1891, Lugard had led a military expedition to Bunyoro and defeated Kalema's Muslim fighters whom Kabalega had supported.

Shane Doyle notes in 'Crisis and Decline in Bunyoro' that Lugard took pleasure in picking out Kabalega's famed Abarusura warriors from 800 yards away using the notorious Maxim gun, killing at least 30. He had intended to pursue the fleeing fighters all the way to Kabalega's capital but flooded swamps and reluctance by the Baganda fighters on his side, averted that course of action.

Instead Lugard installed Kasagama as Omukama of the breakaway kingdom of Toro, set up garrisons in southern Bunyoro manned by his Nubian fighters whom he gave licence to loot and plunder. Still, Lugard never forgave nor forgot Kabalega, noting in his diaries that with Kabalega "alone I don't desire peace. There is nothing I would like better than to turn out the inhuman fiend".

Plans for attack
Preparations for the eventual British attack on Bunyoro had started around mid-1893 by Major James Macdonald, who had replaced Lugard in Buganda and who was keen to have Kabalega's power and prestige "destroyed."

In 1893, Kabalega had launched raids on Busoga and on Toro, which the British now took offence with as the protectors of the two kingdoms although Doyle has noted that Busoga was not under Buganda and that Sir Gerald Portal had "explicitly stated that the [British] government accepted no responsibilities for Lugard's treaty with Toro".

The British also accused Kabalega of being responsible for the death of 13 Sudanese troops in April 1893 including Ali Shukri Effendi, a fort commander, although they had been killed by Nyamwezi traders from northern Tanzania.

In reality, the British were itching for a fight and Colville had, on his first day after arriving in Kampala declared: "I shall have to fight [Kabalega], and have issued orders for the immediate collection of supplies."

Towards the end of 1893, Colville demanded that Kabalega pays tribute to Mwanga (which would have turned his kingdom into a vassal state to Buganda), release all the Baganda slaves in Bunyoro and give Colville 100 tusks of ivory as compensation for the attacks on the pro-British forces.

Doyle says Kabalega was willing to offer the ivory but the British declared war after the Omukama said that "if Colville wanted to 'eat his country, the white man should know that he would only have it when Kabalega was dead'."

The terms of the British demands, Doyle notes, "seem to have been carefully designed to insult Nyoro honour".

Some versions of history present the war as an attack on Bunyoro by Buganda but in reality, Kabaka Mwanga had already lost the authority to declare war and it is unlikely that he would, in any case, have wanted to attack his enemy's enemy.

The thousands of Buganda troops who marched with the British officers to Bunyoro had been mobilised by Apolo Kaggwa, the Katikkiro, who was now in effect the most powerful man in Buganda having collaborated with the British to usurp the Kabaka's authority.

Kabalega had pre-emptively attacked Baker's troops back in 1874 when they had raised the Egyptian flag over their settlement in Masindi but as the British-led forces drew closer to Bunyoro, the Omukama changed tactics and withdrew his forces. One version claims that he torched his own capital at Mparo while others suggest that the attacking forces burnt it.

Kabalega had demonstrated military skills – including knowledge of the terrain and assessment of his forces vis-a-vis the enemy – that would make many modern military planners proud.

He had reason to play to his strengths. Not only was the attacking force superior in numbers and arms, some of Kabalega's forces had not returned from their raiding parties in Busoga and Toro and he needed to buy time to reunite them with his main army.

Kabalega thus adopted guerrilla warfare, trying as much as possible to avoid contact with the enemy.

On January 4, 1894, days after the war had started, Semei Kakungulu, one of the Baganda military commanders collaborating with the British, informed Col. Colville that Kabalega and his bodyguard were only four miles away and good for the taking.

Tired after a long day's march, and considering the reconnaissance information from Kakungulu as too general, Colville chose not to pursue the lead, allowing Kabalega to melt into the darkness.

It would be another six years before the British-led forces had another chance to directly attack the Omukama and his travelling party.

Background

'At one point Ashburnham struck the fresh 'spoor' of a large band of the enemy that had crossed over to his side and, judging by the width of the road they made through the long grass concluded that it was Kabalega and his bodyguard. It, however, turned out to be his mother, a wrinkled old squaw being carried on a litter yelling out for Pombe,'
Frederick Jacson

'I shall have to fight [Kabalega], and have issued orders for the immediate collection of supplies'
Henry Colville's declaration on arrival in Kampala

Moses Ocen Nekyon

Democracy is two Wolves and a Lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed Lamb disputing the results.

Benjamin Franklin

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