Sir George Pomeroy Colley was a Victorian general who met his death on 27 February 1881, whilst fighting the Boers in South Africa.

(The author of the book, William Francis Butler, was the husband of the famous military painter, Lady Elizabeth Butler).

The title fascinated me because here was a book about a man that shared my family name, and an important one at that (he had to be important to have had a book written about him). I always assumed we were related because we were both Colleys. And, to add to the excitement, he was a ‘Sir’. Perhaps some great-great-grandfather.

To this day I still don’t know. It might be just a coincidence of name but then why would my father have this book on his shelves rather than a more famous Victorian general?

Colley was an all-round clever man and well thought of. He passed through his military school with the highest ever recorded marks, was fluent in various languages and was a dab hand with the paintbrush. But like many a British general of the time, he underestimated his enemy – and that proved his undoing.

The First Boer War

In 1877 the British had annexed the South African state of the Transvaal, and two years later made it a crown colony. The Boers naturally resented this, and in December 1880 revolted. At the time there were only 1,700 British troops dotted around the Transvaal in small, isolated garrisons. Colley, recently appointed governor in neighbouring Natal, was ordered to deal with the situation.

The Boers, fully expecting the arrival of the British, set up camp on the Natal / Transvaal border at a pass called Laing’s Neck, the only practical route into the Transvaal from Natal. Sure enough, Colley, leading a convoy of over 1,000 troops, duly appeared.

On 28 January 1881, the British attacked the Boers at Laing’s Neck and were thoroughly repulsed. That was the first defeat. Whilst Colley awaited reinforcements, another skirmish resulted in another bloody nose, heavy losses and a second defeat. Within two weeks Colley had lost two battles and a third of his men. And the Boers, it has to be remembered, were not trained soldiers, but simply farmhands who happened to be excellent shots. But things were about to get a whole lot worse for Sir George and his professionally trained army.

Majuba Hill

Colley decided to make use of a flat-topped hill called Majuba Hill overlooking the pass. If he could occupy the hill it would put the Boers, down in the pass, at a disadvantage.

Thus, in the late hours of 26 February, Colley led 500 of his men, each with three day’s worth of rations, on a march up the hill. Silently, most silently, they climbed. Four o’clock the following morning they reached the summit, found it unoccupied and felt so jubilant they started yelling down and jeering at the Boers far below.

Colley too was pleased. The hill provided a commanding position – ‘We could stay here forever,’ he said.

Colley’s assistant suggested that perhaps they should dig some entrenchments. Colley, over brimming with new-found confidence, refused. There was no way the Boers could climb up this hill with his men on top. Satisfied that his position was secure, and tired after the long trek, Colley went off to his tent for a well-earned snooze.

But the Boers did climb the hill – not the seasoned older men, but the younger boys, 200 of them. By midday they had reached the summit and crackshots that they were, the boys quickly decimated the British presence. Over half of Colley’s men fell, killed or wounded; others, in panic, fled back down the hill.

‘Poor Sir G. Colley killed’

Colley was last seen emerging from his tent brandishing a pistol. A bullet hit him right through the forehead and there, on Majuba Hill, he fell. He was 45.

A bunch of untrained boys barely out of school had finished off a professional force double its size and with it, one of Britain’s most thought-of generals. ‘Poor Sir G. Colley killed,’ as Queen Victoria wrote in her diary.

And thus the First Boer War (or South African War) ended in defeat after just three battles over the course of two months. The British government recognised Boer independence and all was well for almost two decades before war erupted again, with the second, much longer Boer War of 1899 to 1902.

A colleague of mine, on an occasion I cocked up at work, said, ‘Good God, Colley, no wonder we lost Majuba!’

WF Butler’s book is still there in my parental home, and I still don’t know whether I’m related to Sir General George Pomeroy Colley.

Somehow I rather hope not.

Rupert Colley.

Gathered together in one collection, 60 of Rupert Colley’s history articles, The Savage Years: Tales From the 20th Century. Available in paperback and ebook formats.

The post The Cleverest General: the Life and Death of Sir George Pomeroy Colley first appeared on Rupert Colley.

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Pass Laws

Painting, The Sharpeville Massacre, by Godfrey Rubens.

The protest at Sharpeville, a black township about forty miles south of Johannesburg, on 21 March 1960 was part of a campaign against the so-called Pass Laws. The law required South Africa’s black population to carry around at all times an identity book that contained pertinent information about themselves, such as name, address, employer details, and even their tax code. Those caught without the books were liable to immediate arrest.

The demonstrations against the Pass Laws were organised and led by the PAC (Pan-Africanist Congress), an off-shoot of the ANC (African National Congress). The march on Sharpeville was to be the first in a series of non-violent actions due to take place over a five-day period. Participants on the march were to present themselves at the police station at Sharpeville without their passbooks and demand to be arrested. If enough blacks were arrested and kept from going to work, the country’s economy would collapse. That, at least, was the theory according to Robert Sobukwe, leader of PAC.

Sobukwe fully informed the police beforehand of the Sharpeville demonstration, emphasizing the non-violent intention of the marchers.

Down with the passes

And so on the morning of 21 March 1960, a Monday, 5 to 7,000 people (although cited numbers vary) converged on the police station at Sharpeville. Many, according to witnesses, were cajoled by PAC members who threatened to burn their passes unless they joined the march. Nonetheless, most joined the demonstration willingly and the march was good-natured, with the unarmed marchers singing songs, dancing and chanting ‘Down with the passes’.

Three hundred police officers with loaded guns were waiting for them at the Sharpeville police station, many being reinforcements especially drafted in, some sitting on top of armoured cars.

They must learn their lessons

At about 1.15, a policeman was knocked down and the crowd surged. The police later claimed that the demonstrators had started throwing stones at them but none of the journalists present, of whom there were many, could confirm this. The police opened fire straight into the mass of people in front of them – there was no warning, no announcement, no warning shots. The shooting lasted no more than two minutes, but armed with sub-machine guns, the police killed sixty-nine. Most of the victims, it was later revealed, were found to have been shot in the back. One police officer infamously said, ‘If they do these things, they must learn their lessons the hard way.’

Unlawful Organizations

The Sharpeville Massacre prompted the ANC leaders to call on black people to make a public display of burning the hated passbooks. The outbreak of demonstrations caused further violence and the government reacted by declaring a state of emergency. Meetings of more than ten persons were prohibited, and 18,000 arrests were made including leaders of the ANC and PAC. Both organisations were initially banned, then outlawed altogether with the introduction on 7 April of the Unlawful Organizations Act.

When, six months later, victims filed claims against the government, the government, whose president was H. F. Verwoerd, responded by rushing through the Indemnity Act which rendered all police officers immune from prosecution for their part in the Sharpeville Massacre or subsequent demonstrations.

Thirty-six years later, on 10 December 1996, following the end of the apartheid era, the new South African president, Nelson Mandela, signed the new national constitution into law – the venue he chose was Sharpeville.

Rupert Colley.

The post The Sharpeville Massacre – a brief outline first appeared on Rupert Colley.

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After the Second World War, Britain had begun the difficult and lengthy process of decolonisation. In African countries that were entirely black in population, such as Ghana, the process was relatively straightforward. Where it was more difficult were the nations that had sizeable population of white settlers. Rhodesia being an example of this latter category, as was Kenya.

The Crown Colony

Kenya’s official association with Britain had started in 1895, when the country became British East Africa. The British government encouraged the settlement of Kenya’s fertile highlands by Europeans, utilising the labour of the very peoples they had dispossessed, such as the traditional tribes of the Kikuyu. In 1920, British East Africa became an official crown colony of the British Empire, renamed the Colony of Kenya. The white settlers were given preference in all spheres of politics, administration and society, and Africans were barred from political involvement until 1944 when a small number were appointed (not elected) onto the legislature.

Resentment of white expansion and settlement deepened. During the late 1940s, the Kikuyu established a secret society bound by oaths whose aim was the eventual expulsion of the white settlers by means of force. The society was known as the Mau Mau.

Uprising

The Mau Mau entered the stage on 20 October 1952 with a series of violent attacks on whites, including murder and arson. The British authorities responded by introducing a state of emergency, rounding up thousands of alleged Mau Mau members and subjecting many to torture, including, as we’ve heard in the news these last few days, rape and castration.

The man the British suspected of being the Mau Mau leader, although he himself denied it, was Jomo Kenyatta (pictured), leader of the Kenya African National Union (KANU). Kenyatta, a graduate from University College London and once an extra in a film directed by Alexander Korda, became the focal point of the uprising. His sentence of seven years hard labour, which he served almost in its entirety, only elevated his standing among the rebels.

But the primarily targets and victims of the Mau Mau’s insurgence over the next four years were not so much the whites but fellow Kikuyu and Africans whom they suspected of collaborating with the British. Thus the Mau Mau alienated the support of many of their countrymen. Many Africans, victims themselves and appalled by the level of violence, sided with the British.

The Hola Camp Massacre

By 1956, the British had all but squashed the uprising but its detainees were detained further until the state of emergency was finally lifted in January 1960. The British treatment of its prisoners was harsh and brought widespread condemnation. The British massacre at the Hola Camp in 1959 being an example of colonial abuse. The camp in the town of Hola in the south east of the country, contained what the British considered the ‘hardcore’ insurgents and their aim was to brainwash these detainees into accepting the right of the British to rule. When on 29 March 1959, eighty-eight prisoners refused to carry out labour as ordered by their captives, guards set upon them with clubs, killing eleven and severely injuring the rest.

The Hola incident, although it gained particular coverage, was only one of many and the camp at Hola only one of about 150 across the country holding some 150,000 Mau Mau suspects. The Kenya Human Rights Commission says up to 90,000 Kenyans were executed, tortured or maimed during the uprising.

Independence

Following the defeat of the Mau Mau, the British authorities in Kenya reformed land tenure, allowing greater number of Kenyans access to and ownership of land. In 1957, the authorities staged the first direct elections for Africans to the Legislative Council but based on a limited suffrage, too fearful to permit universal suffrage. Finally, on 12 December 1963, Kenya was handed its independence with Jomo Kenyatta its first president. Kenya, which two years later was declared a republic, had become a member of the British Commonwealth.

But the scars inflicted on the Mau Mau ran deep and, as we have seen from the news media, are still felt today. “I would like to like to make clear now, and for the first time on behalf of Her Majesty’s government,” said William Hague today to the House of Commons, “that we understand the pain and grievance felt by those who were involved in the events of the emergency in Kenya.”

Rupert Colley

Rupert Colley’s compelling novel, This Time Tomorrow, set during World War One, is now available.

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