Governor Allardyce and the Boer War :
Governor and Commissioner Allardyce looked around his office at Ushuaia rather despondently; he had been made aware that most previous Governors remained in post till they were dead, even if they made a success of it. He had hoped for a position in New Zealand or Australia, but instead had been dumped in a elderly-staffed backwater with a hopelessly-cheerful ageing Captain as his colleague. But Bill Allardyce was only thirty-eight, still hopeful of making a success, so he sat and listened as Captain Herbert explained about the military aspects of the Colony and gave him a background briefing on its economic and government system. The detail would come from subordinates, but it seemed that being a maverick was a definite career-requirement in Ushuaia, with two sparring and increasingly-powerful neighbours to the north. The Colony still had only about 56,000 residents, even with benevolent assistance to immigrant colonists from Britain and the Empire. It made up for that with a most remarkable determination to use its resources – dynamite and powder from the Sullivan Powder Mills was being sold throughout the South Cone for mining and tunnelling, meat, timber, spirits and cloth were supplied to the Navy, and there was a modest income from gold mining.
“Your naval resources are very slim, Captain. Do we depend entirely upon the visiting Squadrons?”
Herbert gave him a measuring look. “Not absolutely. Your predecessors and mind developed some excellent but unconventional defences. Torpedo boats are also perfect in these waters. I’ve kept the Chileans off-balance for years, but they’ll face a very nasty surprise if they attack us. Ashore, we’ve several regiments of territorial Land Guards, the armed Royal Fuegan Constabulary, a Naval Academy of cadets and five hundred well-equipped and well-trained royal Marines. Afloat – well, let’s just say we have naval mines and unexpected strengths in artillery. I’ll demonstrate those to you once you’ve toured your new Colony. The place either grows on you or drives you to resign and leave.”
Allardyce had respected what he had heard of Governor Robinson, and was astonished to find that the old ‘Virago’ paddle steamer – now converted to a screw design – had her mid-nineteenth century cabins but also a fearsome quartet of devices bought in by Robinson. These ‘Maxim guns’ were heavy machine-guns with a powerful rate of fire, replacing the old-fashioned swivel guns used against boarders. It was also intriguing to find that the ship’s cannon had been quietly replaced with stronger long-barrelled Dahlgren guns. At a time when muzzle-loaders had all but vanished, it was strange to see them still in use aboard the ‘Virago’. The naval cadets under Commander Henry Morgan were all colonials, but impressive with their seamanship. Allardyce was amazed to find some crew had Spanish names, others were Welsh, Irish, Scots and even Basque.
“A community of nations – but we’re all Fuegans, now.” Henry Morgan was a clean-shaven officer who was sure of what he knew. “And before you ask, sir – no, I’m no relative to the pirate who became Governor of Jamaica. Our grog is made with Fuegan Brandy, not Jamaica Rum.” From the wry smile on the Commander’s face, it was a very old joke; Allardyce was sure he heard some of the students sniggering.
“Are there no native Fuegans?” That came out before Allardyce could stop himself – a relic of his Fijian service. “The Yaghans – Yamana tribesmen?” He could see some of the students looking dismayed and Morgan frowned. “Fitzroy’s accounts indicate a population of several thousand.”
“Mostly dead, sir.” Morgan was choosing his words with care. “Measles and influenza, on Navarino and in East Fuego. Some were shot when they hunted cattle or robbed isolated farms. Others died from alcohol poisoning or wearing clothes – the Doctors say that their bodies were so used to the cold, mission clothing killed them. There are some in the western islands of the Fuegan Archipelago, but only a few on Fuego itself. We stopped some farmers who went out and shot the Ona – killing the Yamana is now as bad a crime as killing a white man, sir.”
“How many are left?” Allardyce felt his heart sink. “A handful?”
“At the last count, only forty-three on Fuego, maybe two hundred in the western islands. They avoid us now as if we’ve the plague – which is probably true, for them.” Morgan actually looked unhappy. “So we’re the Fuegans, now.”
Allardyce let the matter lie and instead allowed them to show him ‘Virago’ from bridge down to stokehold, then was witness to a gun-drill in which a cadet crew fired an APDS round to about two miles away. Morgan explained that the ‘arrow shell’ had tremendous striking power, if used against an armoured ship, but that more usually the guns fired roundshot or powder-filled round shells. It was a peculiarly Colonial expedient, to Allardyce, but it taught him that the Fuegans would use any workable scheme to achieve what they wanted.
The tour of his new Colonial area gave Governor Allardyce a series of surprises and contrasts; it was surprisingly large and diverse, with its mountain ranges and forests, weed-hung islets, open ranchlands and tighter farmlands, farmers in the south obsessed with drainage problems and farmers in the north discussing irrigation. And that was only Fuego itself; Navarino had industry at Port Victoria and Wulaia, mining on nearby Picton, Scots oats and barley, Irish potato-growers and Yaghan natives. Further west were the almost-uninhabited islands running to an ill-defined border with Chile, a sleeping dog that Allardyce was sure he could no longer leave to lie. And there was the Navy – three bases, each growing with every year, employing most people not in commerce, agriculture or colonial infrastructure. Farms and meat-packing works flying the White Ensign were strange enough, but the mines and the school system had naval influences as well.
Welsh influence was nearly as far-reaching as that of the Navy, for this very loyal part of the settlement community had determination, worked hard and saw Fuego as its own; the chapels of Inutil, Mimosa and Trelew, were not unlike ones Allardyce had seen in Wales itself. Methodists outnumbered Catholics and Anglicans, becoming in essence the established church, much as Presbyterianism had in Scotland. The commonest dogs in northern Fuego were Welsh Collies, although Terriers and Corgis were present elsewhere. The Colony also had a strong tradition of public service – if you did not join the Navy, you were a reservist of the Land Guard, or you were a Special Constable, or you worked in some other area of ‘national’ interest. Men tended to save for a small business or to use homestead privileges to offset taxation, so the economy might be tax-poor but it was investment-rich. And then there was the Fuegan Marine, of which Commander Morgan was the most senior officer and Head of the Naval Academy.
“Yes, sir.” Henry Morgan actually grinned; all he needed was a tricorne hat, a beard and a gold earring. “Nicknamed the ‘Colonial Navy’. It started with the cadets and went on to have its own Reserve crews for ‘Virago’ and other vessels. Martini-Henry rifles, some Maxims, a few Armstrong rifled screw-guns. And lads who train with us go on to the merchant trade as Royal Naval Reservists, so we do our bit for the Empire.”
“And you never throw anything away?” Allardyce was starting to guess the truth. “Fuegan Nationalists?” They were safe in Morgan’s office at the time, so plain-speaking was possible.
“The Queen’s Fuegans, sir, through and through.” Morgan jerked a head towards a rather nice lithotype of Queen Victoria in her earlier years as a mother with her family. Allardyce’s office had one of the later portraits of the ageing Widow of Windsor, but he saw why Morgan had retained an 1860s picture. “Even the quarrelsome Irish and the Argentinos. The Navy started Fuego Colony, but ultimately it’ll be Fuego that decides its future. You’ve seen the Colonial Assembly?” He saw Allardyce’s slight shudder. “All good clothes and bad manners, eh?”
The Colonial Assembly had asked that the new Governor come to see them as soon as possible; Allardyce had agreed to come and had regretted it as soon as he entered the Assembly Hall, a building that served as a social centre when not needed for the monthly Colonial Assembly meetings. The Welsh wanted the Assembly moved to Trelew, the Scots, English and Irish, all wanted a larger permanent home in Ushuaia, despite the excellent railway services. The Irish wanted a large list of requirements dealt with in their favour at once, the others were a little more diplomatic, so Allardyce had gently told them that decisions would have to wait until he had audited the Colony’s finances. He invited them all to subscribe to funds for their requested projects, assuring them that these funds would be managed for the sole purpose they were collected for. It was an off-the-cuff solution that had appealed to the Welsh and Scots, used as they were to self-help, but caused some muttering amongst the English and Irish; the words ‘tight-fisted bastard’ came to his excellent hearing from one Yorkshireman. It was not a promising start to relations with some of the most influential colonists.
“They were trying you out for size, sir.” Morgan read Allardyce’s expression easily enough. “They’ll fall into line fast enough, in a real crisis. The Irish are always trying to create their own New Limerick on Hoste Island. The Chileans tried to make them leave the area two years ago, in support of their own claims, but the Irish just dug their feet in and told the Chilean agitators that New Limerick is here to stay and a part of Fuego. We – er – Welsh, had told the Irish not to trust anything north and west of the Straits of Magellan. Councilman Seamus Flaherty told the Irish Council that you look as soft as cheese but you’re hard as nails, sir. It’s quite the compliment, coming from the Irish.”
“And the Straits of Magellan run where, exactly?” That had been a headache for Allardyce to work out; there were various maps and few really agreed. The Argentine had taken much of Patagonia whilst Chile was fighting Bolivia and Peru, but the maps were different. The Chileans were saying that Fuego should stop at the Cockburn and Magdelena Channels, off the Fuego Island west coast, but the Straits of Magellan could run as far north as Desolation Island, by the main shipping channel. It meant that the Northwestern Fuegan Archipelago was debateable land. “And could we hold onto it, if pushed?”
Morgan looked up from his charts with a somewhat defeated look. “No, sir – not without a war. It’s just that Chile could stop up the Magellanic navigation if it took those islands. Cockburn Channel narrows considerably and could easily be blocked by artillery. The area west of Mount Darwin is a bit like the Andes and unpopulated except by a handful of hunters, trappers and natives. We’ve introduced the Beaver and Huemul there to help them.” He saw Allardyce was looking slightly at a loss. “The Huemul is a kind of hardy deer, sir. Hunted in Patagonia – good eating, but a bit hard to track. But, about the Chilean problem...”
Diplomatically, it was an attempt by the Chileans to dominate the Straits of Magellan; the route was threatened by Royal Navy use of Fuegan Inutil Bay’s Cameron anchorage, and by Ushuaia. As the secret builders of now almost a thousand naval mines, the Fuegans knew all too well that the Chileans needed only one minefield to control the channel, even as Argentina could threaten to do at what they named the Delgado Narrows, near the eastern end of the Straits. What nobody there appeared to realise was that the Straits were under threat as a seaway in any case – Allardyce had been briefed on what the Frenchman De Lesseps was trying to achieve in digging a Canal across the Isthmus of Panama. The French appeared to have almost given up after nearly ten years of Yellow Fever deaths and unstable geology, but were still plodding on.
“That? Yes, the Colony has paid agents reporting from Panama on progress.” Morgan nodded. “Your Secretary of Colonial Defence, Fred Jarvis. He shares his intelligence with us.” Allardyce raised an eyebrow at that news, for Jarvis had not directly informed him. “An understanding between the Marine, Captain Herbert and Governor Robinson. Very informal, sir. It’s because the Navy wouldn’t pay for agents to keep Captain Herbert and the Admiral of the Pacific Station informed.”
“Did you realise that the United States was becoming interested?” The Governor decided to test the limits of his subordinate’s knowledge and was not let down.
“Yes, sir. But I think they plan to buy the French out, as Britain did at Suez. The French are very stubborn, so if they succeed, the bottom falls out of the Chilean demands. It’ll be years, yet.”
For some months thereafter, Allardyce anxiously wondered if the Navy had accidentally created another group of Boers, with whom the authorities in South Africa were having increasing problems. The Boers had kept quiet during the battles with the Zulus in the 1879, then in 1881 had fought a short war using breech-loading long-range rifles, light cavalry and khaki clothing, to counter red-coated British Army lines and columns. Allardyce reflected that the Land Guard was virtually a Boer Commando system, with trained marksmen living at home and with good horses; Robinson had encouraged marksmanship competitions from 1886, so that the Land Guard were virtually all good snipers. Five hundred Marines, good though they were, would be far outnumbered by the ‘Arloeswyr’ or ‘Pioneers’, as the Welsh called their mounted Land Guard units. Equally, the Land Guard Armstrong rifle artillery could outrange the Marines’ guns, so an independent-minded Colonial Assembly need go only a short way to become an independent nation. But the Welsh paid taxes and subscriptions on time, the Irish by 1890 were grumbling but calling on community effort to build their own infrastructure of schools and roads, whilst the Scots, Argentinos and English just got on with life.
Ironically, it was the Argentinos who liked Allardyce most; he acquired a liking for Argentine food such as Cornalitos and Rabas at a small Ushuaia restaurant, so was invited home to an estancia near Lake Fagnano by the proprietor’s brother for cervezas and a Cordero barbecue. The word spread that Allardyce was prepared to trust them as Fueginos, not merely trusting the Welsh and Scots, so when there was some legal dispute, the Argentinos could rely on Allardyce in his official capacity. When one of his new friends exclaimed in dismay about a political headache in Argentina that was affecting his relatives, Allardyce wondered if Welsh diplomacy could help, but was told that it only helped in Patagonia.
“The cymryos, they are above all folk.” Morales raised expressive eyebrows and hands. “But they never understood Buenos Aires and the Chaco. Maybe – maybe if I tell my relatives to come here?”
“Immigration and homesteading? If they will understand and sign citizenship to Fuego, why not?” Allardyce was delighted. “I was thinking of releasing some Crown land for settlement, just south of Inutil or by the mouth of the Rio Grande.”
There were only a few hundred new Argentino immigrants, but they liked the land and the welcome, so took oath to live as citizens of Fuego and to support it as best they could. Some farmed, others added skills as farriers, smiths, restaurateurs, bankers, leatherworkers (they made excellent boots) and even as builders and carpenters. The community of Rio south of the river was very much an Argentino start, but was settled by the ubiquitous Welsh and Scots soon enough. In 1902, the Fuegan Railway Company built a spur line to ‘Rio del Fuego’ and the town’s future was ensured. Thereafter, every time there was some political upset in Argentina, a trickle of enterprising souls made their way south to Rio or to Ushuaia or Port Cameron on Inutil Bay, to take up citizenship and to add their own norteargentino cultural flavour to their ‘raw’ Patagonian neighbours. For their part, the Welsh and Argentino Patagonians thought the porteños to be a bunch of ‘city slickers’ and took a long time in regarding them as genuine Fueginos.
But the outside world moved on and presented more challenges to little Fuego Colony, as Allardyce discovered in mid-1899 when it became clear that the Boer States of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State were determined not to be annexed by Britain. They had imported magazine rifles and a quantity of artillery, so would be a much tougher prospect to fight than in 1881. The foolish Jameson Raid attempted by Cecil Rhodes had given the Boers justification, but the real argument was about gold and the sovereignty of the Boer states. Colonial administrations around the world – even the small British Fuego Colony – were faced by requests from London for volunteers and support for the war. Allardyce brought this to the Colonial Assembly, having already sent a reply that the small Colony population could ill-afford to lose its limited weapons and armed forces, in view of Chilean and Argentine interests in the Fuegan colony. He offered to expand the Sullivan Powder Mill at Wulaia to produce cordite for firearms and artillery and to send across quantities of canned meat and vegetables, ship’s biscuit, beer, brandy and woollen cloth.
“...Naturally, if any colonists wish to take part, this administration will do its best to equip and supply them suitably.” Allardyce assured the special meeting of the Colonial Assembly. “Those who return from what I fear may be a conflict of some years, may have military information that the Colony can use.”
“The Royal Naval Reserve will be activated for transport crews.” Captain Herbert warned the Assembly; the old Captain was sombre, seeing the risk of losing many of his best-trained men. “It appears the major risks will be to men fighting ashore.”
In the circumstances, the small colony decided to support Allardyce’s caution; the RNR men in the handful of Colony merchant ships had to hand over to cadets and subordinates before reporting to HMS Maitland in Ushuaia. Captain Herbert had gallantly volunteered for sea duty in the Royal Navy, but the Admiral of the Pacific Squadron gently refused to allow him to be posted elsewhere as he was too useful where he was. Nevertheless, a hundred and eighty-four men from a variety of backgrounds – many, surprisingly, Irish, Welsh and Argentino – volunteered to serve in South Africa as Mounted Infantry, taking their horses with them on the brig ‘Myfanwy Adams’ in November 1899. Allardyce wrote a letter to Sir Alfred Milner, his counterpart in Cape Province, telling him that the ‘Fuegan Land Guards’ were trained as snipers and scouts, so would be best used as light cavalry to track and intercept Boer Commandos ahead of British Army advances. In a remarkable exercise of common sense, Milner and his Prime Minister Cecil Rhodes decided to take Allardyce at his word, the word ‘Guard’ maybe having something to do with it. Furthermore, the ‘Fuegan Guards’, in two short companies, were armed with the new short-magazine Lee-Enfield, an expense that was Allardyce’s one major concession to the Boer War. The two Guards Lieutenants in charge of the Companies were under the authority of Captain Charles Thomas of the Royal Marines, who had understood about the Boer methods and tactics of 1881 and expected to have to deal with them. Herbert and Allardyce had promised Thomas that they would see to it that any ‘special weapons’ required by the ‘Fuegan Guards’ would be prepared by the Sullivan Powder Mills – now renamed ‘Wulaia Arsenal’ – and sent in Colony ships to Capetown.
That forethought paid off when it became clear that the Boer knew how to use Maxim guns, barbed wire and trench warfare. General Buller’s disastrous campaign in late 1899 cost the Fuegan Colony 17 dead men, including Lieutenant Alfredo Morales, who was mourned by William Allardyce and other friends. But the close-knit Fuegan community all had a friend, relative or acquaintance to mourn, a feeling expressed in the determined way that they saw to it that widows, orphans and other dependents, were given a war pension at Colonial expense.
“Is there anything you can send us to throw a shell into the Boer entrenchments? It must be light enough to carry on a horse and for one or two men to carry.” Captain Charles Thomas’s request arrived in late December, so the Arsenal got to work at once.
Back in the early 1800s there had been small brass portable trench mortars, but these were too old-fashioned to be worth using. There was also the now-obsolescent screw gun, a 7-pounder rifled muzzle-loader for mountain work. But, as became clear, what was needed was a device that fired a shell or grenade at a high angle so it would fall into a Boer entrenchment. A howitzer was the automatic thought, but that was again too heavy. A telegraph message to Capetown established that the ranges could be up to a hundred yards but generally about twenty yards. Herbert and the Arsenal designers, MacDonald and Jones, came up with two solutions – a grenade that could be shot from an adapted rifle and bipod, and a simple tube mortar with a bipod and base plate. The second design had a shell that, like a bullet-cartridge, had a fulminate igniter to set off its propellant charge. After tests with breech-loaded designs, MacDonald looked at an APDS round, apparently said “Of course!” and made a round with a warhead on top of a fin-stabilised rocket-like propellant container. The final MacDonald-Jones Mortar had a spike in its breech to ignite the mortar shell which was loaded by being dropped down the muzzle. The tube, base-plate and bipod, had a crude angle-protractor to tie angle to range and was easy enough for one man to carry. The mortar shell – or mortar bomb – weighed eleven pounds and five could be carried by a reasonably strong soldier.
The first four Fuegan Arsenal MJ-1 Mortar and 400 bombs were sent out on the second of February 1900, arriving with the Fuegan Guards on the 2oth February. They were too late to assist in the great push north into the Transvaal, but the Guards found them of great value against entrenchments and small fortified positions. In fact, the main problem was of making and sending enough bombs to keep up with the demand, for twelve bombs could be fired every minute, by a skilled three-man crew. The porteño leatherworkers were to build special mule-saddles to hold twenty bombs per mule, but even four each of these per mortar was not enough. The MJ-1 was the first open military success of Fuego Arsenal and a further fifty were made for local use in case of Chilean attack. More significantly, the Royal Ordnance was to produce a variant of the design, which was well-suited for areas like the North West Frontier in India. Fourteen years later, it was to have an even more dramatic use.
The Colonies had to carry out another and largely unwanted duty, holding prisoner some of the 28,000 Boer fighters who surrendered in stages over 1901-1902. Fuego was considered suitable, but the choice of a prison camp site was a headache. The best location – Hoste Island – was unfortunately too near the Irish, who regarded the Boers as victims of Imperial oppression and might be too helpful to escapees. Anything near a port or railway might also be unsuitable, as Argentina and Chile were not far enough away. Site after site was proposed but found unsuitable – above all, the Land Guards and the Royal Fuegan Constabulary had other tasks – so Allardyce was forced to give up the MJ-1 mortar design to the Royal Ordnance in London instead. MacDonald and Jones shrugged it off; they had developed a system of varying the propellant-rings in each bomb to change the range and were looking at a very nasty 6-inch mortar loaded and fired from the breech. That large design had a range of nearly 900 yards and could in theory be used from a ship with reinforced decks or be deployed as a coastal defence gun.
The Fuegan Guards (their title now official, their overseas duty numbers boosted to four companies), were to suffer a disproportionate total of 47 dead and 112 wounded, mainly because they were a tactically useful and rapid-use mobile response force. Captain (by 1902, Colonel) Thomas, was to later complain that Colonial troops such as his men and Australian regiments, seemed to be regarded as ambush tripwires against the Boers. For their part, the Boers regarded ‘Fuega Commando’ as being men who fought on equal terms and preferred to surrender to them, rather than to regular troops. The Guards were to protest publicly at the appalling treatment given to the Boer women and children in the Kitchener ‘Concentration Camps’ and that is one reason why they were rapidly repatriated as soon as possible after the war’s end. Rather less well known was the Fuegans’ relief efforts in sending a Medical Convoy in May 1902 under Doctor Andrew Maclean and Matron Redvers, whose Red Cross nurses helped in two concentration camps despite official attempts to deter them.
Early in 1903, old Captain Herbert fell ill and died; it was the end of an era, his coffin being carried to All Saints to be interred beside that of his friend Governor Robinson. His place as Captain HM Naval Base Maitland and HMS Sapphire, then came under review; the Royal Navy had learnt that the United States was going to finish the moribund French-inspired Panama Canal and that would make Ushuaia of much reduced value. Port Cameron at Inutil Bay and HMS Baynes were going to be scaled back and the Royal Navy saw no need for a permanent and up to date destroyer or cruiser to be stationed at Ushuaia. Governor Allardyce and the Admiral of the Pacific Station were asked if the Fuegan Marine had anybody suitable, and Captain Morgan was chosen on the basis of local knowledge, seniority and excellent service as an RNR officer during the Boer War. It was later established that this was an experiment on the Admiralty’s part, Captain Morgan being given an 1895 destroyer, ‘HMS Ardent’, which had been rapidly outdated by the Royal Navy’s continuing developments.
With the appointment of Captain Henry Morgan and his commissioning as a Royal Navy Captain RN, the Colony could have been said to come of age, for there was now Colonel Thomas of the Fuegan Guards in charge of the Colony’s small land army. The Colonial Assembly had powers to use some of its taxation already, but the Governor still had over-riding authority. What the Admiralty did not tell the Fuegans or their Governor was that there had been a secret re-assessment of the Colony’s defensive capabilities and that a Naval Intelligence agent had even taken pictures of APDS rounds being fired and mines being tested. With the permission of the Colonial Office, the Colony was to be told to organise its own defence arrangements; whilst it had a modest population, the unusual success of the self-supporting Fuegan Guards and their mortars had been the final proof that they would be able to hold their own in a modern conflict.
The Colony's heading towards self-sufficiency economically. but it's still got too small a population base to afford or crew large ships.
Hope you all like it - but I apologise for its length.