Shangani Patrol

This article is about the military battle. For other uses of Shangani Patrol, see Shangani Patrol (disambiguation).

Shangani Patrol
Part of First Matabele War
A panel from the Shangani Memorial at World's View in Zimbabwe, c. 1905
Date December 3, 1893 - December 4, 1893 Location Shangani River, Rhodesia (today Zimbabwe) Result Ndebele victory
Belligerents
British South Africa Police	Ndebele
Commanders and leaders
Major Patrick Forbes Major Allan Wilson † Capt Henry Borrow †	King Lobengula Mjaan
Strength
34	est. 3,000
Casualties and losses
31 dead, 3 escaped	Over 500 suspected

The Shangani Patrol was a group of white Rhodesian pioneer police officers killed in battle on the Shangani River in Matabeleland in 1893. The incident achieved a lasting, prominent place in Rhodesian colonial history.

Setting and battle

Following the abandonment of Bulawayo, during the First Matabele War, a column of soldiers led by Major Patrick Forbes had been despatched by Leander Starr Jameson to attempt the capture of King Lobengula, leader of the Ndebele nation. The column camped on the south bank of the Shangani River about 40 km north-east of the village of Lupane on the evening of 3 December 1893. Late in the afternoon, a dozen men, under the command of Major Allan Wilson, were sent across the river to reconnoitre. Shortly afterwards, Wilson sent two men, Trps. Judge and Ebbage, with a message back to the laager to say that he had found the king, the prospects of capturing the king were so good he had decided not to return that night, and he was requesting reinforcements. Major Forbes planned to make a rush the next day, capture the king and at once turn back for Bulawayo.

It was a dark night and rain fell at intervals. At about nine o'clock an alert picket heard the sound of horses and aroused the laager. Captain Napier and two troopers reached Major Forbes and reported that the patrol had got close to the bush enclosure protecting the king and his wagon but had had to retreat and, to prevent themselves from being surrounded, had taken up a position in the bush to wait for daylight and required reinforcements. But earlier that day Forbes had received a report that the bulk of Lobengula's warriors, under his chief induna(general), Mjaan, had turned back and intended to attack the column that night. Unwilling to set off across the river in the dark, Forbes sent 20 more men under the command of Henry Borrow, intending to send the main body of troops and artillery across the river the following morning. However, on their way to the river the next day, the column was ambushed by Ndebele fighters and delayed.

The Wilson party was attacked that morning by large numbers of Ndebele warriors and forced to retreat, unable to safely cross the now rain swollen Shangani river and re-unite with Forbes. Vastly outnumbered, Wilson and his men retreated to make their last stand. During the final lull in the fighting, in an act of near desperation Wilson asked his two American scouts and Trooper Gooding, an Australian, to cross the Shangani, find Forbes, and bring back further reinforcements. In spite of a shower of bullets and spears, and the swollen Shangani river to cross, the three men set off to find Forbes. When Frederick Russell Burnham, Pearl "Pete" Ingram, and Gooding did finally reach the Forbes encampment, the battle raging there was just as intense and there was no hope of anyone reaching Wilson in time. As Burnham loaded his rifle to beat back the Matabele warriors, he quietly said to Forbes, "I think I may say we are the sole survivors of that party." In the meantime, Wilson, Borrow, and their men were surrounded by a large number of Ndebele, and the Shangani River had suddenly risen in flood, making it impossible to cross. All of the remaining 31 men were killed, but the inaccessibility of the spot and the risk of attack by the Ndebele made it impossible to recover the bodies until February 1894.

Wilson’s Last Stand was produced on the stage as a patriotic play and ran in London for two years. In the play, based on some embellished facts, it is said that in the killing of Wilson and his thirty-one men, Lobengula lost 80 of his royal guard and another 500 Matabele warriors. Wilson was the last to fall and the wounded men of the Shangani Patrol loaded rifles and passed them to him during the final stages of the defense. When their ammunition ran out, the remaining men of the Patrol are said to have risen and sung, God Save the Queen. Once both of Wilson’s arms were broken and he could no longer shoot, he stepped from behind a barricade of dead horses, walked toward the Matabele, and was stabbed with a spear by a young warrior.

The Shangani Patrol entered Rhodesian colonial history as part of the mythology of white conquest, with Wilson and Borrow hailed as national heroes.

Composition of the Patrol

Initially (left column at 5pm on Dec 3, 1893):

1. Major Allan Wilson (Scottish)
2. Chief of Scouts Frederick Russell Burnham (American)
3. Scout Robert Bain (American)
4. Capt. Freddie Fitgerald
5. Capt. Harry Greenfield
6. Capt. William Judd
7. Capt. Argent Blundell Kirton
8. Capt. Napier
9. Lt. Arend Hofmeyer
10. Lt. George Hughes
11. Sgt. Maj. S.C. Harding
12. Sgt. Maj. Judge
13. Sgt. G. Bradburn
14. Sgt. H.A. Brown
15. Cp. F.C. Colquhoun
16. Cpl. Ebbage
17. Tpr. D. M.C. Dillon
18. Tpr. A. Hay-Robertson
19. Tpr. H.J. Heller
20. Tpr. J. Robertson
21. Tpr. E.E. Welby

1893 Photograph of two survivors of the Shangani Patrol - Burnham & Ingram. Left to right: (standing) Pete Ingram, Capt. Charles White, Art Cummings, Stocker, Moffat, Robert Bain (member of Wilson party, killed in action), Frederick Russell Burnham and Maurice Gifford.

Reinforcements (left column at 1am and arrived at dawn on Dec 4, 1893):

1. Capt. Henry Borrow
2. Scout Pearl "Pete" Ingram (American)
3. Sgt. W.H. Birkley
4. Sgt. H.D.W.M. Money
5. Cpl. H.G. Kirloch
6. Tpr. Abbot
7. Tpr. W. Bath
8. Tpr. W.H. Briton
9. Trp. E. Brock
10. Tpr. P.W. de Vos
11. Tpr. L. Dowis
12. Tpr. W. Gooding (Australian)
13. Tpr. Landsberg
14. Tpr. E.G. MacKenze
15. Tpr. M. Meiklejohn
16. Tpr. Nesbin
17. Tpr. P.C. Nunn
18. Tpr. W. A. Thompson
19. Tpr. H.StJ. Tuck
20. Tpr. F.L. Vogal
21. Tpr. H.G. Watson

Notes:

• Trps. Judge and Ebbage sent to column for reinforcements at 9pm on Dec. 3rd;
• Capt. Napier, Tpr. Robertson, and one other Trp. detached to column at 9pm on Dec. 3rd;
• Tpr. Robertson returns with Capt. Borrow's reinforcements;
• Tprs. Landsberg and Nesbin, part of Capt. Borrow's reinforcements, get lost on their way to Wilson;
• Scout Burnham, Scout Pearl "Pete" Ingram, and Tpr. W. Gooding sent to Maj. Forbes for reinforcements the morning of Dec. 4th)

Jameson letter and Lobengula's response

Just before Capt. Borrow, Burnham, and the rest of the advance-guard of the Jameson-Forbes column arrived at Bulawayo, Lobengula had fled in the direction of the Bubi river and was reportedly hiding there. Jameson sent Lobengula the following message:

"I send this message in order, if possible, to prevent the necessity of any further killing of your people or burning of their kraals. To stop this useless slaughter you must at once come and see me at Bulawayo, when I will guarantee that your life will be saved and the you will be kindly treated. I will allow sufficient time for this message to reach you and return to me and two days more to allow you to reach me in your wagon. Should you not then arrive I shall at once send out troops to follow you, as I am determined as soon as possible to put the country in a condition where whites and blacks can live in peace and friendliness."

Jameson never received a response and the Matabele war raged on. However, later in the war it was learned that Lobengula had sent two messengers to Jameson to admit his defeat, along with a large quantity of gold-dust. The message and the gold-dust were handed over to two troopers of the rear guard, Daniels and Wilson, who then traitorously suppressed this information and kept the gold-dust for their own. Both men were tried by the Resident Magistrate and four assessors at Bulawayo, found guilty and sentenced to fourteen years' imprisonment with hard labor. But the High Commissioner's legal experts pointed out that the magistrate's powers did not entitle him to pass sentences of more than three months' imprisonment. The sentences were afterwards quashed and the men released. The treachery of these two troopers indirectly led to the deaths of thousands of Matabele warriors and of the Shangani Patrol.

Memorial

The remains of the Patrol members were interred at World's View in the Matopo Hills and are currently buried next to the bodies of Rhodes and Jameson. At the request of Rhodes, a memorial to the Shangani Patrol was erected at the site. Designed by John Tweed, the monument was dedicated by Bishop Gaul of Mashonaland in 1904. The memorial is an austere, oblong monument, 33 feet (10 m) high and made of granite blocks hewn from the neighboring kopje, with a panel on each of the four sides depicting the members of the patrol in bas relief.

Desertion controversy

Some doubt was later expressed as to whether the three surviving members of the Shangani Patrol actually were sent back to fetch help or whether they had simply deserted Wilson's command when things got nasty. The accounts of Burnham, Gooding, and Ingram and the members of Forbe's Column were all recorded at the Court of Inquery in 1894 and in later historical records by contemporaries, and findings of the Court supported their accounts. Based on the findings the British government presented Burnham with the Campaign Medal and as recognition for outstanding service each man was given 300 square miles (780 km²) of land in Rhodesia. Nevertheless, this claim of desertion was made by John C. Coghlan, a cousin of Charles Coghlan the first Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia. On December 14, 1935, John Coghlan wrote a letter to John "Jack" Carruthers stating that: Gooding confessed on his deathbed that he, Burnham and Ingram were not sent back by Wilson at Shangani but they cleared off on their own accord. Noteworthy is that Coghlan attributes this claim not to any personal knowledge, but according to: "A very reliable man informed me that Wools-Sampson told him"—in other words, this 1935 account of the 1893 incident is attributed to an unnamed source who himself heard it from another source altogether. Also curious is that the 1899 obituary of Will Gooding fails to mention his confession or any controversy and instead it recounts the historical events as they were described by Gooding in the letter to his mother in 1894.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, some Rhodesian writers such as Peter Emmerson, John O'Reilly, Hugh Marshall Hole elaborated on the desertion theory. Emmerson suggests his reasons thusly: Would Wilson at such a crucial time have reduced his forces still further from their already meagre level? But Emmerson overlooks that at 9pm the night before, only hours earlier when Wilson's position was almost as dangerous and when he had far fewer men, Maj. Wilson had sent four men to Maj. Forbes for reinforcements: Capt. Napier along with Tprs. Robertson, Judge and Ebbage. O'Reilly states: Wilson would have expected Forbes and understandably would have sent a scout to find the Patrol and expedite its passage through the forest; but only if there were no undue risk (sic) to the men's lives. Perhaps two would have been necessary, but why Trooper Gooding? O'Reilly overlooks that Wilson originally asked only Burnham to make the precarious ride to Forbes, that Burnham requested that Ingram accompany him, and that Capt. Borrow requested the addition of Gooding. Hole suggests that these men deserted during confused fighting. But firsthand Matabele witnesses support Burnham's accounts that the three men left during a lull in the fighting after Wilson withdrew to his final position and any desertion at this time would have been stopped with Wilson's bullets. Additionally, rather than flee the conflict altogether, which two American scouts trained in woodcraft could easily have accomplished, all sources agree that the three men fought the Ndebele all the way to Maj. Forbes and then actively participated in the fierce fighting taking place there. Maj. Forbes further demonstrated his confidence in these men when he made the decision to retreat and sent Ingram ahead as the scout to lead the column.

See also

• First Matabele War
• Pioneer Column
• Shangani Patrol (film)
• Shangani Patrol (soundtrack album)

References

• History of Rhodesia, by Howard Hensman (1900) -- the full-text of the book can be found online for free PDF
• Scouting on Two Continents, by Major Frederick Russell Burnham, D.S.O., Autobiography. LC call number: DT775 .B8 1926. (1926)
• Shangani Patrol, a feature film, docudrama by David Millin. Filmed on location by RPM Film Studios. Stars Brian O'Shaughnessy as Major Allan Wilson and co-stars Will Hutchins as Fred Burnham. Internet Movie DataBase(1970)
• A Time To Die, by Robert Carey, the story of the Patrol.
• 35mm copies and publicity stills of this film are preserved at the South African National Film, Video and Sound Archives, Pretoria. [1]
• Pursuit of Lobengula, by W.D. Gale (1958) The story of the Shangani Patrol [2]
• Shangani Patrol dvd, Shangani Patrol [3]
• The Matabele War. Mr. F. C. Selous's Narrative. The Times, Tuesday, Feb 06, 1894; pg. 4; Issue 34180; col C.
• An eyewitness account written by Trooper W.L. Gooding and published in The Times, Thursday, Feb 08, 1894; pg. 3; Issue 34182; col G
• The Downfall of Lobengula: The Cause, History and Effect of the Matabeli War, by W A Wills & L T Collingridge (1894)

There is also a ballad of the Shangani Patrol, by Nick Taylor (1966), and a version sung by John Edmond (NB: still registered under South African copyright and NOT "free"; so-called free versions are in violation of current copyright) - [4].

External links

• Major Alan Wilson Last Stand a.k.a Shangani Patrol
• "Blue & Old Gold - The History of the British South Africa Police 1889-1890" published September 2009 http://www.30degreessouth.co.za sample images at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Sqrk8yn9r4