PART TWO: FORCES AND FIGURES

The notes below are intended as a guide to the appearance and equipment of the various forces involved in the campaigns in Nyasaland which I
described in Part One. The figures which I use for wargaming this period are all from Foundry's massive 25mm Darkest Africa range, and I have
included a few comments on which of these would be most suitable. In fact Foundry are planning some releases specifically inspired by these
campaigns in the near future. No doubt appropriate figures are also to be found in other ranges and scales, but as I have no personal experience of
them, I hope that the manufacturers concerned will forgive the omissions.
Lugards Expedition
The white men who fought under Lugard and in the earlier actions in defence of Karonga's were all civilian volunteers, and so were not uniformly
dressed or equipped. Illustrations show them wearing the usual costume of Europeans in Africa at the time - basically khaki shirts and trousers,
with broad-brimmed hats. Sun helmets were worn by army officers but were already going out of fashion among civilians, and Harry Johnston
regarded them as useless because they protected only the top of the head. Johnston' s advice on suitable apparel for Africa is amusing as well as
instructive: "To shield the body from the sun... the only way is to carry a white umbrella, and this should be done on almost all occasions except
when to do such a thing would be positively ridiculous, as, for instance, in the middle of a battle... A revolver is not, as a rule, a very useful weapon,
except for accidentally shooting oneself."
TRADERS AND SLAVERS IN NYASALAND, 1887 TO 1895:
A NEGLECTED AFRICAN CAMPAIGN
BY CHRIS PEERS
As might be expected, the armament of the volunteers was a very
mixed bag; medium-calibre hunting rifles, elephant guns and military
Martini-Henrys are all mentioned, and spare weapons were often used
by the white men's personal servants. Alfred Sharpe was able to
supply a number of heavy-calibre elephant guns, which as usual were
extremely effective in the hands of men strong enough to cope with
their ferocious recoil. At Mlozi's first attack on Karonga's, a single
shot by Sharpe against the door of a building in which the enemy were
sheltering is said to have brought down six men, with splinters from
the wooden door no doubt doing much of the damage. Lugard would
not allow the use of explosive bullets against human targets, however,
although there were plenty of them available for the sporting guns.

The most enthusiastic allies of the whites were the Tonga (or Atonga)
from the north-western shore of the lake, many of whom had been
converted to Christianity by the missionaries. They also provided
most of the labour force for the African Lakes Company, and by 1894
1400 of them were on the payroll in various capacities. In Lugard's
time the native auxiliaries apparently dressed in their usual civilian
fashion. A drawing in his book of the first attack on Kopa-Kopa's
stockade shows them mostly in knee-length cloth skirts and not much
else, although a few wear shirts, and even what look like old European
breeches, cut off at mid-calf. Chequered cloth, imported from India,
was very popular. Native troops were distinguished from the
similarly-dressed enemy by bands of brightly-coloured cloth tied
around their heads.
About a third of Lugard's men were armed with breech-loading rifles
(exact type unspecified, but probably the ubiquitous Sniders), another
third with muzzle-loaders, and the rest are described as unarmed,
although they may well have carried spears. Their drill was
rudimentary, and none of them were very experienced with firearms,
as Lugard's somewhat patronising account makes clear: "Each day a
rough drill was carried out, mainly with a view to teaching these raw
savages how to hold and point a gun - aiming was of course beyond
them - and how to advance in something like line, their usual method
being to crowd into a dense mass when advancing to charge".
The 50 or so warriors of the Mambwe contingent wore their
traditional war costume, and must have looked quite colourful. In
Lugard's words, they "were the wildest of savages, almost or
completely naked, with the most fantastic head-dresses". Some of the
latter were made from the mane of a zebra, tied around the head so that
the black and white striped hair "stood out like a halo round the skull".
The Mambwe will obviously have to be a conversion job as far as
wargames figures are concerned, but Foundry's standard explorers,
adventurers and askaris (the latter should be mostly the bareheaded
ones) will be ideal for the rest.
The Nyasaland Protectorate
Even before the official proclamation of the Protectorate in 1891,
regular troops had begun to arrive in Nyasaland. These consisted of
Indian Army units and landing parties supplied by the Royal Navy
gunboats, as well as askaris recruited in Africa. A number of
Zanzibaris were employed initially, but they were not found to be very
reliable, and restrictions imposed by the Sultan because of manpower
shortages made it difficult to get replacements. Before the end of 1893
all the Zanzibaris had been paid off. The men who escorted Johnson
up from the coast on his first visit to Nyasaland were Makua
tribesmen from Mozambique, and these were later drafted into the
native police. At this early stage the Zanzibaris and Makua were
presumably not uniformed, and must have resembled the askaris of
Lugard's time.
Most of the police, however, were from the local Tonga people, who
had already demonstrated their loyalty to the British cause. Their
NCOs were either Africans or Sikhs, while officers were British. The
police askaris were now formally organised and issued with uniforms,
consisting of a yellowish khaki tunic and trousers, with a black fez.
There is some evidence that a blue outfit with a red fez was in use at
some stage: this was later to become the undress uniform of the
Central African rifles when these were founded in 1896, and was said
to be "based on the dress of the first native levies" (Peter Abbott, in
Unknown Armies - British East Africa). However, neither Johnston's
account nor the photographs in his book confirm this, and the blue and
red outfit sounds like an Arab-inspired costume which may have been
favoured by some of the irregulars, perhaps as early as Lugard's day.
Contemporary photographs, in fact, show that even the regular
askaris' appearance was not completely uniform in style. Fezzes
varied from the proper tasselled form to fairly shapeless cloth bags;
varying amounts of leather equipment were worn; and trousers could
be of any length from knee to mid-calf. The standard armament was
the Snider, which was basically the old Enfield rifled musket
converted to breechloading. This weapon had been supplied in large
numbers to African troops in British employ since the 1870s, when
regular British troops had abandoned it in favour of the Martini-
Henry. The Snider is often regarded as an unsatisfactory stopgap, but
its range and rate of fire were very nearly as good as the Martini-
Henry, and gave its users a decisive advantage over their native
African opponents. Sir Samuel Baker, for example, describes the
virtual impossibility of charging spearmen making any impression on
steady troops armed with Sniders (see my article in WI 136).
Irregular allied tribesmen who were not uniformed probably retained
their old muzzle-loaders and were distinguished from the enemy by a
strip of white cloth tied around the upper left arm. British officers were
mainly seconded from the Indian Army, and would wear more or less
the standard khaki campaign dress. However, white settlers and Lakes
Company employees were still sometimes placed in command of
native units, and they would continue to wear civilian clothing (see
above), and no doubt to carry whatever weapons they happened to
prefer.

Among the first Indian contingent were some 20 Muslim cavalrymen
from Hyderabad, but their horses quickly died, and they proved not to
be very effective at fighting on foot. In the summer of 1893, when their
initial term of service expired, they were sent home. Thereafter
Johnston came to rely on Sikhs, of whom 71 arrived initially in 1891.
Later drafts brought their strength up to a maximum of about 200.
(Johnston preferred for some reason to recruit Jat Sikhs, rather than
those from the supposedly less warlike Mazbi community who made
up most of the first draft - like a lot of Victorians, he was obsessed by
supposed differences in fighting ability between "races" - but he
admits that there was in reality little difference between the two.)
All the Sikhs were, as always, excellent soldiers, and Johnston came to
rely on them for all the most difficult tasks. He designed for them an
exotic full dress uniform in black, yellow and white, symbolising the
co-operation of three "races" - Africans, Asians and Europeans. On
campaign they wore their usual uniform of khaki tunic and trousers or
shorts, with turban and puttees. Their undress clothing was rather
more colourful, and was probably not standardised: a "blush-rose"
turban, white shirt, fawn waistcoat, white pyjama-style trousers and
pointed Persian slippers made of crimson leather are mentioned.. It is
of course not impossible that elements of this - especially perhaps the
turban - might have been combined with the fighting kit as supplies
ran short, and this would provide a way of adding some variety to
wargames units. During the early 1890s Indian troops were gradually
being re-equipped with Martini-Henry rifles as the British in turn
gave these up in favour of the Lee-Metford, but the photographs in
Johnston's book - while not very clear - appear to show his Sikhs still
carrying the Snider.
Pictures of the naval gunboats in this campaign show the crews
wearing the white tropical rig, with brown leather equipment, and
straw hats or occasionally uniform caps, which was also worn on anti-
slaving patrols off the coast of East Africa. Officers, however,
retained their blue coats. Until 1890, naval uniforms were still
"regulated" rather than "standardised", which meant that within the
limits laid down by the regulations a certain amount of individual
variation would exist. Gaiters, for example, might be black, brown or
white. (With thanks to Ray Boyles of the VMS for some of this
information.)
Each ship's company would usually be re-equipped when the ship
returned home for refitting rather than on station, and so not all sailors
would receive new issues of clothing or equipment at the same time.
However, within each unit they would be fairly uniform. The new
Lee-Metford bolt-action rifle had probably been issued to all or nearly
all naval personnel by 1891. At this time they still received training in
the use of the cutlass, as well as the rifle and bayonet. As usual, they
seem to have combined the tactical skill of regular soldiers with the
reckless bravery which was encouraged by the Royal Navy's
traditions.
Figures specifically for this campaign are due to be released by
Foundry in the near future. These will include British officers, native
askaris, Sikhs and sailors. The Almost-uniformed Askaris pack (DA
70) already available is also useful for giving a bit of variety to the
native askaris.
The Arabs
In this part of the world, "Arab" was more of a cultural than a racial
designation. Many of those who called themselves Arabs were in fact
of African descent, although they may have had somewhere among
their ancestors one of the genuine Arab immigrants from Oman.
Lugard in his account distinguishes between warlords like Mlozi and
Salim bin Nasur, who were Arabs, and Kopa-Kopa and Msalema, who
were Swahilis, ie. Arabised Africans from the east coast. In fact it
cannot always have been easy to tell the difference, although the "real"
Arabs looked down on the Swahilis, and resented the fact that the
Sultan of Zanzibar (who probably looked down on the whole lot of
them) sent them such a man as an envoy. Other "Arabs" were Baluchis
from India, who had been brought to Africa as mercenaries by the
Zanzibaris, and had later established themselves as independent slave-
traders. To complicate matters further, any of the above who had
acquired a smattering of "civilised" manners was liable to refer to
himself as a "muzungu", or "white man".
Not all Arabs, of course, were enemies of the Europeans. The Sultan of
Zanzibar was at least nominally an ally against the slave trade,
although the misbehaviour of the Germans in Tanganyika was not
making many friends for the European cause. The Sultan's protege,
Jumbe of Kotakota, fought alongside Johnston's forces against the
Yao with some 4000 men. Two chiefs from the eastern shore of Lake
Nyasa, Mirambo (not to be confused with his more famous Nyamwezi
namesake) and Majid, offered their assistance to Lugard's expedition,
but in the event never turned up. The dhows which represented Arab
naval power on Lake Nyasa were relatively small and lightly-built
wooden sailing vessels. Johnston describes them as gaudily painted,
with brown masts, and black and pink hulls.
There were no Arab military units as such in Nyasaland. Men like
Jumbe and Mlozi relied on African soldiers, either recruited locally or
brought in from Tanganyika. Many of their chief officers were also
locals - Ngoni, Yao, Bemba, Wahenga and others. Therefore actual
Arab figures will only be needed for the leaders of a slaving army and
some of their officers and richer followers who might have adopted
Arab dress, and for these the Foundry Zanzibaris will be ideal. Armies
like Mlozi's were well supplied with muskets imported from the coast,
and even possessed the occasional light cannon - one was apparently
being carried in the dhow which Lugard shot up. However, their
musketry was not very effective, as the small number of casualties
sustained even in failed assaults on their defences suggests. Arab
powder was often of poor quality, and Lugard believed that the
muskets were not always even loaded with balls, as many of the shots
fired during his assault on Kopa-Kopa's stockade appeared to have
been blanks. This may have been the result of mistakes made in the
heat of the moment, or alternatively may reflect the fact that as in
native warfare the effect of firearms was intended to be mainly
psychological, the flash and bang were considered to be at least as
important as the projectile. Inevitably, although Arab forces were
fairly effective when defending their fortified villages, they would be
no match for British troops in the open.
The Ngoni
The Ngoni (or Angoni) of Nyasaland were the descendants of those
Ngoni who had separated from the Zulus in the 1820s. Their great
chief Zwangendaba had led them north across the Zambezi, after
which they split up into several independent groups and rampaged
through eastern Africa as far as Lake Victoria. They were cattle-
herders by trade, but as often as not made their living by conquest and
pillage. Defeated men were often incorporated into the Ngoni armies,
and their cattle of course appropriated. Few tribes could resist the
Zulu-inspired Ngoni battle tactics, although some - notably the Hehe -
copied them more or less successfully. Eventually most of the Ngoni
settled down in one area or another, and continued to terrorise their
neighbours on a more limited scale.
In the 1890s the western shore of Lake Nyasa was still one of their
strongholds, inhabited by four separate bands, under chiefs Mombera,
Chiweri, Mpeseni and Chikusi. Contemporary pictures show Ngoni
warriors still looking very Zulu-like, armed with the traditional
patterned oval hide shield and a short stabbing assegai with a plume
attached to the butt end, as well as a bundle of throwing spears.
Johnston describes their costume thus: "The Angoni generally tie a
piece of red cloth round the waist and don a huge kilt of animals' tails
or of dressed cat skins. On the head they will place either a circlet
made of zebra mane or a huge headdress of black cock's feathers.
White frills are worn round the ankles, made of the long white hair of
the Colobus monkey or, failing that, of goat's hair".
Ngoni tactics also clearly revealed their ancestry. Their individual
chiefs could field armies (still called "impis") of several thousand
men, organised into age-graded regiments. On the battlefield the
warriors were divided into a centre and two wings, or "horns", whose
function was to envelop the enemy's flanks. They possessed few if any
firearms, and continued to emphasise a massed charge with assegais.
Consequently they preferred if possible to fight in the open. It seems
very likely, however, that by the 1890s the Ngoni were living very
much on their reputation, and that while they continued to prey on
neighbouring tribes and massacre them whenever they got the chance,
they no longer had much stomach for a real fight. Lugard writes of the
fear which they struck into their neighbours with their "character for
invincible courage", but according to Johnston, who met them only a
few years later, the Ngoni warriors were nowhere near as brave in a
stand-up fight as their reputation suggested. Large bands of them
joined forces with the British against their Yao enemies on occasion,
but in at least one battle they ran away, leaving their allies in the lurch.
Several sources describe the usual course of one of the bloodthirsty
Ngoni raids on less formidable enemies, which were generally carried
out in darkness. Taking advantage of the fact that few African villagers
kept a proper watch at night, even in time of war, they would stealthily
enter a village and station a man outside the door of each hut. Then
they would launch a surprise attack, accompanied by "unearthly yells,
grunts, and groans". As the enemy warriors rushed out of their huts,
the waiting Ngoni would spear them with their assegais. The huts
would then be set on fire, and in the hellish confusion all the men and
boys would be massacred (the former policy of recruiting the defeated
warriors having apparently been abandoned by this time). The
women, livestock and other valuables were then rounded up and
carried off. Some tribes along the lakeshore tried to counter these
tactics by building their villages on piles out in the lake, but a more
widespread response to the approach of an Ngoni war party - if the
alarm could be given in time - was to pack up everything and flee.
A range of Ngoni figures will be available shortly from Foundry.
Failing this, you could always use Zulu or Matabele figures, perhaps
with some ordinary Foundry tribal spearmen mixed in. It is not clear
whether much attempt was made to maintain a system of regimental
shield patterns and other distinctions as used by the Zulus, but it is
unlikely that many vestiges of such a system remained by the 1890s.
Impis could therefore plausibly look somewhat more irregular than
their Zulu prototypes.
The Yao
The Yao were also known as the Ajawa. They had originally lived on
the plateau east of Lake Nyasa, in territory which is now southern
Tanzania and northern Mozambique. By the middle of the 19th
century they had come under strong Arab influence, and had taken
with enthusiasm to both Islam and slave-raiding. They migrated into
the Lake Nyasa region in the 1860s in search of new business, and
were understandably not very popular with the original inhabitants.
The Yao warriors were well supplied with muskets, using the long
horns of the local breed of cattle to carry their powder. They adopted
many items of Arab dress and culture, and contemporary pictures
often show them in turbans and long, white Arab-style shirts or gowns.
A mixture of tribal musketeers, lightly-equipped askaris, Zanzibaris
and Ruga-Ruga figures from the Foundry range would probably be the
best way to represent them on the tabletop.
Yao men were famous for their skill and strength as porters, and in
Harry Johnston's opinion they excelled neighbouring tribes at all
physical activities. Being musketeers rather than spearmen, they
preferred to fight from cover, and were unhappy in the open or when
attacking a fortified position. In Johnston's words, "Having dropped
on one knee, and fired their guns, they hastily retreat and reload whilst
another rank takes their place in firing". However, they were probably
not quite as well-organised as Johnston's reference to "ranks" might
suggest; as noted above, Lugard's native recruits are described as
fighting in a formless mass, and having no idea of how to keep in line.
The Bemba
The Bemba (variously Awemba, Awabemba, etc.) were another tribe
which had been enticed into slaving by the Arabs, and supplied by
them with guns. They were a branch of a very powerful confederation
of chiefdoms which dominated the plateau of what is now north-
eastern Zambia. One group had migrated to the northern end of Lake
Nyasa, where like the Yao they made a good living by raiding the
locals. They were closely allied to Mlozi, and made up a large
proportion of his officers as well as the rank-and-file of his armies.
The dress of the Lake Nyasa Bemba was strongly influenced by their
northern neighbours the Nyamwezi, and in many ways was similar to
the classic "Ruga-Ruga" garb associated with the followers of
warlords like Mirambo - vaguely Arab-inspired, but always
individualistic, eccentric and colourful. For a wargames army, Ruga-
Ruga and tribal musketeer figures are the obvious choice. Popular
accessories were coils of rope (intended for tying up captives), and the
entire head and beak of a large hornbill, worn as a headdress. (For
anyone wishing to paint up a conversion, this was the silvery-cheeked
hornbill, which has black plumage; a bright blue eye; a yellowish-
brown beak with a white casque running along the top of it; and -
you've guessed it - a patch of silvery feathers on its cheeks). Despite
their reliance on guns, the Bemba are described by Johnston as
preferring to fight in the open rather than stage ambushes like the Yao.
They were a "warlike race", and even managed to beat off the Ngoni.
They fought the British independently as well as in alliance with the
Arabs, and continued to launch attacks on the road linking Lakes
Nyasa and Tanganyika well into the 1890s. A stockaded fort, Fort
Hill, had to be built to deter them. Nevertheless, they quickly came to
terms with the new colonial power after the final defeat of their Arab
allies.
The Nkonde
The Nkonde (or Wankonde) were among the main victims and
enemies of the slavers, so naturally they were denied access to Arab
guns. They were not notably warlike, although those from the far
north end of the lake were more so than their relatives who lived
around the station at Karonga's. The latter could nevertheless be
roused to action against the slavers if supported and led by Europeans.
It was 5000 spearmen of the northern Nkonde who played a vital role
in the relief of Karonga's in 1887. Unlike the Tonga, however, they
were reluctant converts to Christianity, and seldom took formal
employment with the whites.
On several occasions hordes of Nkonde accompanied Lugard's army
into action, but he preferred to discourage them when possible,
fearing that they would accomplish little and would distract his own
native troops, who would be impossible to control if they feared that
the tribesmen would be first to get to the loot after the battle. Their
warriors went virtually naked, wearing only a long, narrow strip of
cloth hanging down in front from the waist. They wore no headgear,
though some of them artificially lengthened their hair by weaving into
it bits of black thread or animal hair. They fought with spears, and for
defensive armament carried a long, narrow rectangular shield with a
slight curve, like a section of a cylinder. Apart from the distinctive
shields, which might have to be home-made if you insist on having
specific Nkonde figures, Foundry's bareheaded tribal spearmen will
fit the bill perfectly.
Further Reading
Although seldom mentioned in modern general histories, the campaigns in
Nyasaland are covered in detail in two books written by the two leading
participants:
Capt. F. D. Lugard, The Rise of Our East African Empire, Vol. 1. Blackwood
and Sons, 1893.andSir H. Johnston, British Central Africa. Methuen and Co,
1897.
Below: Tugboat #2 is a model built from a Lindberg Shrimp Boat plastic kit and cut down to the waterline. The rear part of the superstructure is scratch
built and a section of 3/4" PVC pipe is used to make the stack. The rope bumpers along the hull were added from string and thread. The model was
made to represent the Confederate States Navy tug Lady Davis and used in several Brother Against Brother games but could equally be used on Lake
Nyasa and in any other mid to late 19th century waterborne adventure! All boat work by the inimitable Herb Gundt of H G Walls. Contact him (in the
USA) on 001 219 299 0352. Photo by Nanette Gundt.
Above left : Zanzibari
gun and crew. Above
R i g h t : ( A l mo s t )
Uniformed Askaris and
Askari Characters. Hut
by Herb Gundt of H G
Walls. Left: Ruga-Ruga
Characters. Right:
Convert ed Bal uchi !
Models 28mm Foundry
Darkest Africa. Painting
by Steve Dean and Kevin
Dallimore. Photos by
Kevin Dallimore.