15

The Mau Mau Revolt¹

The first phase of the emergency lasted nearly six months from the 20th October 1952, when it declared, until the end of March, 1953. It was a period when both sides were building up their strength.² It is easier now than it was at the time to discern the Mau Mau plan of campaign. The prevalent expectation was that, to the extent of their capability, the Mau Mau would concentrate on terrorist attacks on the lives and property of Europeans in a swift attempt to drive them off their farms, while at the same time conducting a terrorist campaign against loyalists in the Kikuyu districts. Events soon showed, however, that the Mau Mau had laid their plans for a long, rather than a short campaign, and that their primary object was to achieve complete domination of their own home districts, that is to say the three Kikuyu districts (Nyeri, Fort Hall, and Kiambu) and, a little later, Embu and Meru. This they proposed to do by a combination of two methods: firstly by a terrorist campaign conducted by small gangs against chiefs, headmen and other centres of loyalist resistance; secondly, by the formation and training of strong groups in the Aberdares capable of making attacks in force.

The leadership of the militant wing of Mau Mau, wherever engaged – whether in Kikuyu lands or in the mountains and forests of the Aberdares and Mount Kenya – was claimed by Dedan Kimathi. He was described by police as being a former secretary of the Thomson's Falls branch of the KAU and a former clerk of the Tetu Dairies, Nyeri, and at least for the first two years of the Emergency his leadership appears to have been complete and unchallenged. Though speaking English well, his education and subsequent career had been marred by persistent unruliness, but he was possessed of a very forceful personality, hardihood and resource and had risen to prominence as an oath administrator and leader of the Forty Group. He had a fancy for titles, appointing himself Field Marshal of the ‘Land Freedom Army’ and at periods when he judged the Mau Mau morale to be in need of a fillip he would distribute correspondingly high-sounding promotions to his subordinate leaders.³

Meanwhile, other leaders were responsible for the passive wing. Mau Mau cells had been formed in almost every place where considerable numbers of Kikuyu were employed, especially in Nairobi and Thika, as the main centres of supply, and at suitable places on routes used for the movement of recruits. The duty of these cells was to harbour recruits and insurgents in hiding, fit them out, and see to their onward transmission to the active Mau Mau; after the declaration of the Emergency, this system expanded into an elastic organisation of district, divisional locational and sub-locational committees, for each of which there was a parallel committee in Nairobi. There was also an organisation of Mau Mau courts exercising a jurisdiction of extreme severity both in Nairobi and in the reserves. A further elaboration of the system was the provision for substitutes to replace leaders who had been arrested, and even substitutes for substitutes. Little initial difficulty was experienced by the insurgents in supplying themselves with food. They made themselves comfortable in living in underground dugouts, and they had girl companions whom they used as carriers for bringing up supplies. They even had improvised hospitals and kept supplies of penicillin and other drugs obtained from dispensaries (before they were controlled) or purloined from the government hospitals.

Considerable stores of arms and ammunition had been accumulated during the two or three years before the Emergency, partly by illegal purchases, partly by thefts from individuals and largely by theft of supplies from military installations at Mackinnon Road, Nanyuki and Gilgil. A further source from which ammunition was obtained was from the scenes of battle of the Abyssinia campaign. A self-confessed Mau Mau ‘general’ who was captured at a later stage in the Emergency, admitted that, in the capacity of a driver for the Locust Control, he had found it very easy and lucrative to run ammunition to Mau Mau in his government vehicle. At such places as Jigjiga, where there had been heavy fighting, children used to bring it to him by the handful. Homemade rifles also began to appear, made partly from stolen springs and half-inch piping, of very primitive design but afterwards somewhat improved. Nevertheless, the panga, a kind of machete in universal use in local agriculture, and the simi, a short straight Masai sword, remained the principal weapons of Mau Mau all through the Emergency.

On the government side the Lancashire Fusiliers were deployed mainly in the Rift Valley and the foothills of the Aberdares, while the KAR battalions were distributed over the three Kikuyu districts and the Nyeri/Nanyuki area, stiffening the resistance of the loyalists and conducting constant patrols. Under their protective screen it was possible to build up and train the forces of local resistance. Concurrently the district administration was expanded on the basis of two district officers helping the district commissioner at his headquarters, and one district officer at each senior chief's division. In conjunction with them, but a little later, the Kenya Police established divisional units.

It was always clear that the defeat of Mau Mau could only be accomplished in such a way as to produce lasting peace when the majority of the Kikuyu turned against it. Meanwhile, the immediate difficulty was to form a home guard and coordinate the scattered islands of resistance when a preponderance of the athigani, the young men who made up the traditional warrior element, had themselves taken the Mau Mau oath. At this time the elders and the middle-aged were still either loyal or, at least, uncommitted, and after much thought it was decided to make use of the able-bodied among these older age groups and such of the athigani as were deemed loyal after careful screening. In this way the organisation was built up which became known as the Kikuyu, Embu, and Meru Home Guard. It began with the resistance groups formed voluntarily around chiefs and headmen for mutual protection, and with watch and ward groups formed for the same purpose by certain mission stations. The ruthless methods of Mau Mau in enforcing the oath and punishing recusants, sometimes by death, had compelled them to seek protection in this way. By March 1953 the Guard was 15,000 strong and later rose to 22,000 when fighting intensified.

From the outset the Guard had to rely very largely for its support on the tribal police, whose strength was now expanded from a total of 240 for the whole of Central province to 800 by the enrolment of half the chief's messengers. Even so, they were a small force to face the responsibilities thrown upon them. They were never absorbed in the Guard, but two tribal policemen were normally posted as strengthening to each guard post, and their patrols were constantly moving between them. Sixty-three of them were to die in the coming battles, yet throughout they discharged their duties admirably.

Initially, the guard posts were not very strong. Huts were easily burnt and, even when the posts themselves began to be safe, surrounding families including the wives and children of the Guards, had scanty protection. This problem was not solved finally until much later when it became necessary to concentrate these families into protected villages. Meanwhile, the guard posts were progressively strengthened by deep and wide ditches set with pointed stakes in the bottom and ramparts with stockades protected with fences and barbed wire. They were enlarged so as to afford refuge to others besides the immediate members and families of the Guard, and patrols from them were organised to give some measure of protection to the countryside.

The loyalists were armed, initially, only with spears and simis, bows and arrows, the firepower being provided by tribal police. This was because of doubts about the loyalty of the Guards. Initially, it had been formed warily, only from persons who had not taken the Mau Mau oath, although from about the middle of 1953 onwards the provision was relaxed, and many men were recruited into the Guard who had taken the Mau Mau oath, but had subsequently taken the cleansing oath or had publicly confessed. Where the Guard had been raised hastily, however, there had been cases of infiltration, so apprehensions about the security of the force lingered on, especially in the European farming areas where it was only slowly that a system of guard posts, with headmen and tribal police, could be built up, as in the reserves. Despite these apprehensions, however, General Hinde, who had been appointed to take charge of all military operations, gave authority in March for 20 per cent of the Guard to be armed with rifles.

Active operations by Mau Mau in this first phase were mostly in the Kikuyu districts, including Embu. Meru was not yet much affected. The insurgents were not yet strong enough to attack a defended post but, working in small terrorist gangs of a dozen or so, and seldom more than 20, they waylaid loyalists in the open or burnt down their huts at night. Chiefs, headmen and tribal police were the principal targets. In the five months from the declaration of the Emergency to the middle of March three chiefs, seven headmen or sub-headmen, and four tribal police were killed, and three other chiefs and five headmen were unsuccessfully attacked. Only one of these attacks was in any sense a battle. Several of the headmen and some of the chiefs were unable to stand the strain and had to be replaced, but there were many who stood firm and resisted, often in the face of very great danger. It was their staunchness that enabled the Kikuyu Guard to be built up and eventually to prevail.

The pattern of attacks on Europeans and, in some cases, Asians continued the same throughout the Emergency. The Mau Mau chose their targets largely at random and, by attacking one household here and another there, they hoped to spread a general sense of alarm and uneasiness. Sometimes the purpose of their attacks was to steal firearms and invariably their method was to take care to be in superior numbers and, where possible, to suborn one of the house servants to let them in. Usually they struck at about 9 p.m. when the householder and his family would he relaxing after dinner and they still had the long hours of darkness before them in which to make their escape. Occasionally they sprang an ambush in the open, especially if they could waylay a farm manager carrying the month's wages for the farm employees in his car.

The position of European farmers in the Central and Rift Valley provinces was not enviable. Nearly all of them had relied predominantly on Kikuyu for their labour force, and there was no doubt that most of these had taken the Mau Mau oath. To discharge them all would have brought farming operations to a standstill, and their return to Kikuyuland, by swelling the ranks of the discontented, would have made administration still more difficult. Most employers tried to compromise, taking a chance with many of the less suspect of their employees, so that production was kept going and the Kikuyu labourers went on with their jobs so far as Mau Mau allowed them to do so.

On several occasions Asian shops in or near the Kikuyu districts were raided and property taken, while in Nairobi more ambitious safe-breakings and robberies took place. African-owned shops were left unmolested, provided that the owner took the oath and agreed to serve only Mau Mau members. European- and Asian-owned shops were not entirely boycotted but Mau Mau orders forbade any African to buy beer or cigarettes, except the home-made Kikuyu substitute, to wear European style hats or to travel in any bus or taxi owned by anyone not a Mau Mau supporter. Asian shopkeepers in trading centres, if they wanted to be free of Mau Mau raids, had to be careful about supplying non-Mau Mau customers. The fact that all these orders were obeyed implicitly is not surprising when one considers how very severely the secret Mau Mau courts punished offenders. At a later stage in the Emergency, when the sites of these courts were discovered and the neighbourhood searched, large numbers of corpses were found with ropes round their necks. The Mau Mau method of keeping order, both within the forest and over all the affected area, was by reign of terror.

In the face of this provocation the government took counter-measures including the levy of a special tax of 20 shillings against the Kikuyu, designed to help pay for the Emergency. Power was reserved to district commissioners to excuse it in the case of individuals believed to be loyal or in the case of whole locations in recognition of good behaviour. This imposition followed successive orders which had been issued by government in December and January 1952–3 by which all the 128 Kikuyu independent schools were closed because almost everyone concerned, both the school committees and the children, were believed to have taken the Mau Mau oath. After a short interval, 97 of them were re-opened, some of them under the auspices of mission societies and the rest under the government's district education boards. Mau Mau retaliated by issuing notices prohibiting children from attending these schools. In some cases the notices stated that any children breaking the order would have their legs and arms cut off and that their parents and teachers would be beheaded. Some of these notices purported to be issued ‘by order of the Mau Mau Marshal Court, Head Office, Mount Kenya’. Several mission schools were attacked in this period, the worst instance being on Christmas Eve when seven Africans were murdered at Kagumo School in Nyeri district⁴ and, by the end of 1953, 27 teachers had been killed in Nyeri, Fort Hall, Embu and Meru districts, and 55 schools destroyed. It is certain, however, that Mau Mau did themselves harm by these measures. The children stayed away for a time, but so great was the keenness of the Kikuyu for education that, as soon as the risk abated a little, they went back and the schools continued open, not always in the same places, but where they could be given a measure of protection.⁵

Further regulations, which had been imposed in the months after the declaration of the Emergency, included restrictions in the use of vehicles and bicycles and the control of hotels, shops and markets, all of which were subject to closure for short periods of time. There were also communal fines imposed, initially in the form of stock levies but, later on, in cash. Land belonging to Mau Mau could be confiscated under the Forfeiture Ordinance and from February 1953 it had become a criminal offence to supply Mau Mau with food, drink, clothes or medicine.⁶

The immediate impact of most of these restrictions was to stimulate Mau Mau recruitment, although in time the population wearied of them as they became increasingly disenchanted with Mau Mau. In this respect the most serious consequences were felt as a result of the labour controls. The ‘repatriation’ of labour from European farms began in 1952 when all the Kikuyu, Meru and Embu labourers of the Leshau ward of Ol' Joro Orok⁷ were sent back to the reserves wholesale as an example to the others. Later only those labourers who failed the screening test or refused to be photographed were repatriated, but the numbers were enormous and very many also left of their own accord. In addition to these, there were many suspicious characters who did not qualify to be detained, who were sent back to the reserves from Nairobi and other places. There were also ‘repatriations’ from Tanganyika and Uganda. As a result of these regulations, security was strengthened in the European farmlands even though a number of Mau Mau cells still remained. On the other hand, thousands of Kikuyu, Embu and Meru returned to the reserves without homes to go to and many went at once to join the Mau Mau activists. Urgent measures were taken to provide central reception camps in each district and a series of smaller local centres were established. But, whatever measures were taken, an influx of displaced people on such a scale could not be conducive to law and order. Even though they provided useful labour for the construction of guard posts and other emergency tasks, there is no doubt that their presence in the reserves helped to sustain the groundswell of Mau Mau opinion, and the vocal Nairobi element and students from Kampala gave the movement a greater intellectual impetus. It was not until 1955 that there was to be any movement back into the Highlands.

***

Before the end of March 1953 the Mau Mau began the second phase of their campaign to dominate their home districts. While continuing their terrorist attacks on individuals, the burning of huts at night and compulsory oathing, they now felt themselves strong enough to engage the guard posts in direct attacks.

In the middle of March a rumour spread that the Mau Mau might launch a large-scale attack on the loyalists in the Lari location of the Chura division of Kiambu district. All chiefs were alerted, the civil population warned to keep close watch, and arrangements made for constant patrols by tribal police and Kikuyu Home Guards, supplemented by Kenya Police. Unfortunately a company of the 23rd KAR, which had also been available, had to be withdrawn to deal with a riot some 50 miles away at Athi River. At about 9 p.m. on the night of the 28th March, several fires were observed from Uplands police post, seeming to cover the whole Lari area. All available forces were rushed to the scene. They arrived too late to prevent the massacre. The terrorists, afterwards found to be mostly from the Githunguri location, had made widespread simultaneous attacks on villages throughout the area, setting the roofs of huts alight and slaughtering the occupants as they emerged, men, women and children. The few tribal police and 50 or so Home Guards who were present were unable to repulse the attack, but when reinforcements arrived, the battle continued all night and many terrorists were killed before the gangs made good their escape. A police report issued a week later gave the number of victims, including women and children, as 97 killed, 29 wounded, and 46 missing. Ex-chief Luka and 26 members of his family were killed within the space of his own small village. This unprovoked attack, so far from helping the Mau Mau cause, horrified all but the most depraved of the population. Many of the insurgents too were revolted, and waverers rallied to the government side. Although the burning of huts at night continued to be a favourite practice of the Mau Mau throughout the Emergency, they never again attempted a general massacre on this scale.

It is well to consider so appalling an outrage in the light of the fact that it was little more than a couple of generations since the days of tribal warfare when the Masai would raid the Kikuyu and wipe out whole villages. The Mau Mau had heard, too, of many ruthless things done in the recent war and saw no distinction between indiscriminate bombing from the air and the slaughter of families by slashing them to death with pangas. One must remember also that there was a great deal of religious fanaticism about the movement and its Karing'a origin. They had been very free in quoting the Old Testament in defence of tribal customs and took very literally Jehovah's injunction to ‘slay and spare not’.

There was also a special reason why the family of Ex-chief Luka was attacked and exterminated with such ferocity.⁸ Along with six or seven other families they had accepted an exchange of land at the time of the demarcation of the boundaries of the White Highlands and, on the recommendation of the Kenya Land Commission, had been given an area cut out from virgin forest. It had never been Kikuyu country but the right-holders on the ridges below had probably regarded it as the natural extension area which their descendants would one day use. Although this had happened 20 years previously without protest at the time, it is notorious that Mau Mau was frequently made an excuse for paying off old scores.

On the same night as the Lari massacre, a legitimate operation of war was skilfully carried out about 15 miles away. A group of about 40 Mau Mau, dressed in great coats to resemble police, raided the Naivasha police station after 10 p.m. and opened fire on the sentries. They ransacked the police station and broke into the armoury, getting away with 30 rifles and 15 machine carbines, while other members opened the police cells and released the prisoners. They also seized two police lorries and were loading ammunition and stores into them when a party of Lancashire Fusiliers arrived and dispersed them.

In the first week in April the 1st Battalions of the Buffs⁹ and the Devonshire Regiment arrived to reinforce the Lancashire Fusiliers and complete the 39th Brigade. Shortly afterwards General Hinde appointed Lt Col P. A. Morcombe, who had commanded a KAR battalion during the war and had also had experience of guerrilla warfare in Malaya with the Suffolk Regiment, to be director of the tribal police and the Kikuyu Guard. The district commissioners retained operational command of them but deferred to him in all matters relating to defences, equipment and training. The beneficial effect was soon apparent and the Guards henceforth were much better armed.

Operationally the first four weeks of April were quiet. The opportunity was taken to strengthen defences, while sweeps were undertaken by the KAR into the Aberdares¹⁰ to keep the Mau Mau on the move, probe their positions, and, in conjunction with the tribal police and guard patrols, to harass their supply routes. Both for this purpose and for the protection of the civil population all huts were moved back a mile from the forest fringe, and the intervening strip was declared a prohibited area.

In the last week of April the Mau Mau attacks on guard posts began in earnest in the Nyeri and Fort Hall districts. They continued until the end of July and then tailed off. Kiambu district was left unmolested, owing its immunity partly to the fact that the main routes for forwarding recruits and supplies ran through the district and also that it contained, or was uncomfortably close to, the main centres of Mau Mau planning. As for the Embu and Meru districts, their plans there had not yet passed the oathing stage.

There were 17 recorded attacks on defence posts in these two districts between the 22nd April and the 31st July. In ten of these cases the attack was repulsed and in seven the posts were overrun. There were also several occasions when clashes took place in the open, and ambushes were frequent. Although the guard posts attacked represented only a small proportion of their total number, the strain for the guards of constantly being on the alert was very wearying. There were frequent alarms when the defenders had to stand to, either under direct threat of attack or in readiness to help some other post that was being assailed. Food was short, shambas went uncultivated, there was constant anxiety and the men themselves, nearly all of them, were beyond military age. As a matter of principle the Guards were unpaid, because it was essential to be a voluntary effort and be seen to be so. The number of Guards armed with rifles was increased to half. They were given some instruction in their use and they were assisted with food supplies and other essentials from Nairobi. The wonder is not that they sometimes failed, but that, in the circumstances, they did so well.

No detailed description of these events need be given, though a few notable incidents should perhaps be mentioned. On the 28th April the guard post at Ruathia on the forest fringe was attacked at night in pouring rain by a gang of 50 and overrun when the defenders' ammunition had run out. Two tribal police and four guards were killed. Headman William escaped but four days later he was killed in an ambush along with a sergeant of the Kenya Regiment. Less than a week after that another determined attack was made at night on Othaya police station in Nyeri district. The raiders had a Bren gun with them and advanced firing right up to the wire and did not break off the action until 16 of their number had been killed. They then retired, leaving four of their wounded and the Bren behind.

On the 7th June and following days Operation Epsom, a large-scale sweep in the Aberdares, was mounted by the security forces, in which the Buffs, Devons, Lancashire Fusiliers, KAR, Kenya Police, Tribal Police and Guards all took part. This was succeeded by a second operation, Royal Flush, the object of which was to round up any Mau Mau dislodged by Epsom from the Aberdares and driven back into the Reserve. On this occasion the Tribal Police and Guard had the leading role. Meanwhile, in the Reserve, attacks on chiefs and headmen continued. On the 27th June Headman Sospiter's post was attacked and burnt out. He escaped but, on the 30th, Headman Thigira of Mununga, a favourite son of that indomitable old man Senior Chief Njiri, was ambushed and killed.¹¹

It was now decided to recruit a number of Akamba retired non-commissioned officers from the KAR to bolster the morale of the Guard. They performed the task admirably, and many were promoted to sergeant major. At this time, too, the Kenya Regiment ceased its operational role, and its British ranks were distributed as district officers (KG) to take charge of groups of guard posts. Within a year there were 200 or more at work in the affected districts. Although the strain on the administration was thus somewhat relieved, the shortage of trained and experienced officers was to create a few problems of its own.

On the 1st July, Nyeri district sustained a severe blow in the death of Chief Reuben of Kirimukuyu, who was caught in an ambush and slashed to death.¹² In the following two weeks a European inspector of police was fatally wounded in the course of an action near Ngaini School and Kigumo post in the Fort Hall district was attacked by a large and well-armed group which advanced in three separate waves after doping themselves with bhang. The guard held out for over two hours until all ammunition was exhausted. The last wave of assailants succeeded in cutting the wire and broke in. Eighteen of the defenders were killed and 23 were carried off. The following morning a similarly named post, Kagumo, some 20 miles south of Nyeri, was attacked and overrun after strong resistance. One tribal policeman and 12 guards were killed.

On the night of the 26th the guard at Gacharagueni in Fort Hall district saw the torch flashes of Mau Mau preparing to attack. A prompt sortie was decisive and the would-be assailants suffered severe losses. The following night Headman Kiarie's post in Fort Hall location 1 was attacked and most of the guard bolted. A tribal policeman, who later received the George Medal for bravery, posted himself at the main gate and, despite Mau Mau rifle and Bren gun fire, almost single-handedly prevented the raiders from entering until, seeing the headlights of approaching relief, they abandoned the attack and made off. On the last day of the month in location 14 of the Fort Hall district, Chief James Kiru and Assistant District Officer Jerome Kihori were ambushed and killed at a road block. Both were highly capable and the latter was a 27-year-old Makerere graduate.

After two further attempts on guard posts in August, both repulsed, direct attacks in force slackened off for a time, and the Mau Mau confined their activities to short raids, ransacking shops in trading centres and driving off cattle from European farms. Frequent clashes took place with the guard patrols so that raiding parties were compelled to fight in the open.

In one of these the noted gang leader Matenjagwo was killed and his authority was assumed by Kago, one of his former lieutenants, who had already established himself independently and was to prove the boldest and most resourceful leader that Mau Mau produced.¹³

The methods which had proved so successful in fighting Mau Mau in their own home areas now began to be applied to the European farms. The Kenya Police established strong posts, and labour on farms was concentrated in defensible positions. African headmen were appointed for group farm areas, each with a posse of Tribal Police and a guard post. The same kind of thing was done in Nairobi, where breakings into shops and warehouses had been sharply on the increase. Thirty headmen were appointed for African wards, supported by 200 Tribal Police.

***

Under the accepted convention respecting the relations between military and police, it was not permissible for the Army to take offensive operations in the Kikuyu tribal lands, since officially there was no war, but only a State of Emergency. They might only act in support of the police when called upon by them to do so for the prevention of crime. This meant, in effect, that they could search huts and make arrests of suspected persons but must then hand their captives over to the police. This was the position obtaining generally throughout the country but there were exceptions. Mount Kenya and the Aberdare Mountains and an additional strip of land 1 mile wide at the foot of them where they bordered with the Kikuyu tribal lands were proclaimed prohibited areas and anyone found there was automatically committing a crime. Here the Army might operate without hindrance from anything, except the wild fauna and the density of the forest, to hunt down Mau Mau or drive them back into their homelands where the police and guards could deal with them. In the early months of the Emergency little progress had been made by the Army in the Aberdares because of the density of the bamboo forest. Nothing was attempted beyond occasional raids, using game tracks, and the Mau Mau always had ample warning of their approach, time to set ambushes or, at need, to evacuate their hide-outs and vanish. No attempt could yet be made by the troops to establish a permanent presence. But, with the arrival of fresh forces in September 1953, it became possible to move over to the offensive in a more positive way.

The first battalion, the Black Watch, relieved the Lancashire Fusiliers in August, and in the following month, the 49th Infantry Brigade, consisting of the Royal Northumberland and the Inniskilling Fusiliers, arrived by air. General Sir George Erskine had been appointed in June to the overall command of the security forces with authority to report directly to the War Office, thus by-passing the Middle East Command, and General Hinde continued with him as his deputy director of operations. It was now possible to proceed to a comprehensive plan for crushing the Mau Mau both by crippling them in their main centre of planning and supply, which was Nairobi, and by attacking them in their main base of operations, which was the Aberdare range, and forcing them out into the open. Both these plans demanded some months of preparation. To purge Nairobi, which had become a Mau Mau stronghold with all its principal committees centred there, thousands of arrests would have to be made and there had to be due provision in advance for the construction of detention camps and for their supply and staffing, and also secret advance preparation for the screening of suspects. As regards his plans for fighting in the Aberdares, General Erskine arranged for a regiment of Royal Engineers to be flown out for the making of roads through the forest. He also arranged for a squadron of RAF Harvards and, later, a squadron of Lincoln heavy bombers to be flown out for the location and bombing of the Mau Mau hideouts and bases.

In August, as a last chance, government made the rebels an offer. It was conveyed by leaflets dropped from the air and undertook that anyone who surrendered carrying a green branch in his hand would be immune from prosecution for his part in Mau Mau, provided that he had not committed murder. Mau Mau discipline was so strong that the immediate effect was negligible but, later, when they were scattered by air attack, individuals who had grown tired of their forest existence sometimes took the opportunity to desert and after living for a while foraging in the prohibited strip along the forest edge, would pluck up courage to surrender.

The last quarter of the year saw some increase of Mau Mau activity, with renewed attacks on guard posts, but no longer with the same intensity. They now began to turn their attention to Embu district where the guards were less trained and the defences weaker. But the posts held out and only one was overrun, an action in which the much respected Chief Fausto was among those killed.

***

Unexpectedly the Mau Mau offensive flared up again in January 1954, and continued intensively until May. The insurgents did not yet appear to be suffering from shortage of men, for they were able to mount attacks in strength of 300 or more, and sometimes in more than one area at a time. But they were no longer able to maintain this strength without resort to press-gang methods. They were also finding difficulty in obtaining supplies as readily as before from their passive wing. Although they continued to attack guard posts, in fact in greater strength than before, they had to choose their objectives with care. They selected those posts which lay close to their supply routes or otherwise interfered seriously with the passage of recruits, ammunition or food. To ensure the cooperation of their passive wing in the reserves, which had become lukewarm through their lack of success, they intensified their campaign of terrorism, compulsory oathing, and the burning of huts. Schools and schoolteachers were particular objects of their attention. The buildings, being mostly temporary and roofed with thatch, were easily burnt and in the Embu district alone more than 100 were destroyed in the course of the year.

The fighting was no longer confined to the Nyeri and Fort Hall districts. All districts of the province now had their share and the threat to European farms was accordingly increased. An account of the Mau Mau attacks on European or Asian homes would serve little purpose, but an exception may be made in the case of the raid on the farm of P. E. Grimwood in the South Kinangop on the night of the 13th January. The attack began about nine o'clock that evening, when a gang of between 60 and 100 terrorists raided the labour lines. On hearing the firing Grimwood's wife telephoned the police post at Njabini just before the wire was cut.

Meanwhile the terrorists, after setting fire to the labour lines where they killed one man and wounded another, turned their attention to the house. With bugle and whistle calls and armed with automatic weapons and home-made grenades, they advanced to the attack, threw a grenade into the kitchen, smashed windows and doors, climbed onto the roof and tried to force an entry. While his wife stood guard, Grimwood rushed from room to room, using his rifle and keeping the terrorists at bay. Just as he was running short of ammunition, four policemen arrived and engaged the gang, who diverted their fire and then made off. In their flight they ran into an ambush which had been set by the remainder of the police patrol.

There were also several spirited actions between security forces and Mau Mau in January and early February, in one of which, near Karatina, General China, Waruhiu ltote, was captured. He was rated third in the Mau Mau hierarchy after Dedan Kimathi and Stanley Mathenge, and had command over several ‘battalions’ in the Mount Kenya forests. In consequence of a report by him that many of the insurgents now wanted to surrender, overtures were made and on the 30th March, Mau Mau representatives appeared at Nyeri for talks with the chief native commissioner and the army chief of staff. After what appeared to be a promising start the talks came to nothing, but it was now clear that large numbers of rebels in the forest were only held there by fear, possibly of both sides.

Meanwhile, on the 17th February, Mau Mau made their most ambitious effort of the whole revolt. A very large group led by Kago started from the neighbourhood of Thika in the morning, and advanced on Kandara, one of the three divisional centres of the Fort Hall district, and a main base for the storage of ammunition and supplies. It had also a strongly defended police post and the alarm was given only just in time for the defences to be manned. The raiders ransacked and set fire to a number of houses outside the perimeter of the police post, including offices, stores, Tribal Police lines and the houses of four British officers. Then with great suddenness the tables were turned. Police officers who had been out on patrol returned with their men, and were shortly followed by other police and troops from Thika and Fort Hall. The assailants, in full retreat, lost 40 men, killed or severely wounded. Next morning, when contacted again on Mununga Ridge, they suffered further loss.

A determined effort, aptly named Operation Anvil, was now carried out in Nairobi in an intensive drive to round up Mau Mau and restore order.¹⁴ In spite of many screening operations the number of Kikuyu in the city had continually increased, and they were now three quarters of the total African population there. The headquarters and principal committees of the Mau Mau organisation were known to be in Nairobi, and something like a reign of terror among Africans not actively supporting them prevailed. Hold-ups were a commonplace and murders very frequent, but practically no information was reaching the police. The intention to take drastic action was announced on the 24th April, and the operation of rounding up and screening continued for the next four weeks. Twenty-seven thousand Kikuyu who failed to pass the test were interned at specially prepared centres, whence, in due course, they were filtered back to their homes in the Reserve through a system of works camps. This dealt a shattering blow to the Mau Mau organisation. Control thenceforward passed to the men in the forests and disintegration and rivalry in command were the natural result.

On the 5th March the Mau Mau struck a bitter blow in the Fort Hall district when the district officer of the Kangema division, James Candler, was ambushed and killed. As he and his escort of tribal police were returning home in the evening they came under heavy fire near Mihuti trading centre. While covering the withdrawal of his men, he was hit by one burst of fire and then another. His last act was to hand over his gun to a tribal policeman to prevent its loss to Mau Mau and order him and the rest of the escort to make good their escape. Candler had always been outstanding in building up resistance, and an example of his initiative was the formation of a highly mobile rover section of picked Tribal Police which, disappearing sometimes for weeks on end, would harass the Mau Mau with stealth and surprise, thus beating them at their own game.¹⁵

On the morning of 28th March members of Kago's group dressed in police and tribal police uniforms appeared at Headman Kiarie's guard post at Kiriaini in the Fort Hall district and tried to persuade the guards to come out and join them ‘to look for a gang’. The headman's suspicions were aroused and, as he attempted to withdraw the moat bridge, the raiders opened fire. Many more then appeared from all sides and succeeded in exploding grenades inside the post, one of which killed the headman. The four defending riflemen held out until all ammunition was expended, when the attackers then forced their way in and demolished the post. Only two of the defenders escaped. Police reinforcements then arrived and the attackers made off. Large numbers of Guards took up the chase and, by evening, 23 of the raiders were killed or severely wounded. Contact was then lost for a time but re-established on the night of the 30th. During the remainder of the night and into the afternoon of the next day a running fight continued. With the help of a platoon of Inniskillings, which by then had joined the pursuit, further casualties were inflicted. The Mau Mau dead included Kago himself, shot by a tribal policeman.

In this action District Officer Ian Paterson was killed. A fortnight later, another district officer, Richard Wood-White, was killed in action in the same district. He had set off with two tribal policemen in pursuit of two Mau Mau when they ran into a large gang near Gakurwe. The two police were killed outright and Wood-White was wounded in the shoulder while attempting to save their rifles. Headman Daciano came to his assistance but, before they had gone far, Wood-White was killed. The headman escaped through thick bush. Reinforcements then arrived and dispersed the gang.

Mau Mau attacks continued into May and then ceased as far as armed posts were concerned, but tip-and-run raids and ambushes continued. An order from Dedan Kimathi written about this time fell later into the hands of the police, admitting that Mau Mau was now too weak to attempt further attacks on guard posts. That was the beginning of the end, but two and a half more years were to elapse before the complete finish came.

The last phase of the revolt began in about September 1954, when serious offensive operations by Mau Mau had almost ceased. The revolt was virtually over but the remaining insurgents had to be worn down and rounded up, until the last remnant was captured. It ended in December 1956 with the capture of Dedan Kimathi by Tribal Police as he was attempting to cross a ditch which had been dug along 50 miles of the forest edge.

The only notable features of this phase were those of organisation. Concentration of the Kikuyu population into protected villages had begun in parts of Nyeri district in 1953.¹⁶ The primary object in the first instance had been to enable a watch to be kept on doubtful characters and prevent their helping Mau Mau, but it was soon realised that they had equal value for the protection of loyalists when provided with guard and observation posts. All districts of the province took up the plan. A strict curfew was observed. Cattle were driven to pasture under armed escort and, as far as possible, agriculture was similarly protected. Village schools were brought inside the enclosure. From first to last the process took about two years and it was applied, in general, to all exposed locations.

By the middle of 1955 the general population had veered decisively to the government side, and were now prepared to turn out in their thousands in support of sweeps by the security forces. In the changed circumstances it was no longer necessary to retain as many as 22,000 Kikuyu, Embu and Meru guards, but there was more need for fully-trained mobile patrols and combat units. The tribal police was therefore increased to 1,800 men, and a Tribal Police reserve was formed by a selection of the best from the Guard, the remainder of which was run down at the discretion of district commissioners to the number required for watch and ward duties. This both increased the efficiency of the forces needed to cope with the changed circumstances and also forestalled the potential danger of a decline in morale of Guards; for courageously as they had fought in the struggle for the reserves, there was always a threat of indiscipline when frustrations mounted, and, although there was no longer very much danger of desertion, several had taken to the life of vagrants, eking out a precarious existence in and around the prohibited strip.¹⁷

Meanwhile a new type of combat unit had taken the field after some months of intensive preparation. These were the pseudo-gangs, comprised of captured Mau Mau now operating under the general control of the Special Branch. Any apprehension as to the wisdom of the experiment was soon dispelled for, disguised as Mau Mau gangs, they fought with astonishing bravery and with no desertions.¹⁸ The Kenya Police and the KPR, both of which had been enormously expanded since the beginning of the Emergency and had given valuable support to the district administration throughout, were now able to divert the greater part of their attention to the protection of the towns and the Highlands.

In an effort to restore normal conditions, the African tribunals, which had been inoperative in the affected districts since the beginning of the acute phase of the emergency, were now re-established. Large numbers of detainees were filtered back through works camps to their homes by a process which involved careful screening, open public confession of their Mau Mau past, and a fine of 60 shillings to the African district council in token of sincerity.

When all active resistance had ceased, the governor, Sir Evelyn Baring, resigned. In spite of his own increasing ill-health he had seen the Emergency through to its successful conclusion and normal conditions of peace and security restored.¹⁹ A considerable period of time, however, was still to elapse before an official end to the Emergency could be proclaimed. Establishment had to be reduced to normal size, and many thousands of detainees had to be released, rehabilitated, and restored to their homes – a process which demanded patience and caution and could not be rushed. Finally, three full years after the arrest of Dedan Kimathi the new governor, Sir Patrick Renison, was able to declare the Emergency officially over, on the 12th January 1960.

***

The intention of the above description has been to present the Mau Mau revolt as a military campaign fought out in battles; and so far as possible without distorting the picture, mention has not been made of atrocities, or at least they have not been dwelt on. It is common knowledge that they occurred, but no lingering over these tragedies will help the sufferers; and besides, I fully respect the desire of the government of independent Kenya to approach the future in a spirit of amnesty and good will.

The matter, though, cannot be wholly set aside for the purposes of this account, for it had political consequences. As well as the savage and unprovoked attacks by Mau Mau on civilians and their homes, there was also constant anxiety about the treatment of detainees by unruly elements in the security forces, and while by far the former was the most sensational, it was the latter that caused the most searching questions to be asked. In some of the guard posts and a few camps, especially those where the most obdurate detainees were held, there were incidents of prisoners being beaten and mistreated, and allegations were made of a few Mau Mau suspects having died under interrogation while in custody of the Guard. Further, there was reason to believe that there were instances of violence and extortion where certain members of the Guard had used their power to pay off old scores. Another cause for concern was the sanitary condition of the camps where outbreaks of fever claimed several lives.²⁰

It is abundantly clear that there was never any policy of systematic torture of detainees by government, and not one case has been established of an order to abuse a prisoner having been given on good authority.²¹ On the contrary, the government and Army chiefs took care to maintain law and discipline at all times. In April 1953 the government delivered a stern public warning to its officials concerning the treatment of detainees and their property and General Erskine, likewise, gave warning to the Army and police in no uncertain terms that maltreatment of civilians and prisoners would not be tolerated. Putting words into action, scores of prosecutions were subsequently brought for the mistreatment of prisoners. It was clear, however, that the legal process was not the most efficient way of dealing with the problem because, as with Mau Mau cases, evidence was hard to gather and also, perhaps, because it was felt that excessive zeal to prosecute and harsh penalties might lower morale and only serve to increase indiscipline. The eventual result was that a second amnesty offered to the Mau Mau in January 1955 was also applied to the Guard under the same terms.²² Meanwhile, at field level, district commissioners made strenuous efforts to weed out unsuitable temporary officers in camps and guard posts. The same efforts were also made by the inspector general in the KPR. As for the conditions in screening and detention camps, although it was argued that some of the illness was caused by external infection, there was no denying that they were insanitary and efforts were made to clean them up, with better equipment and proper inspection. The result was a marked improvement in sanitation and health.

For all these efforts the fact remains that throughout the Emergency there were persistent complaints about the treatment of Mau Mau suspects and detainees. Many of them must have had a factual basis – although there were several attempts by Mau Mau to fabricate evidence – and there can be no doubt that successful convictions only represent a part of the problem. This recurrent indiscipline attracted criticism but, more than that, at a time of slender parliamentary majorities in Britain, it provided opposition members with the opportunity to embarrass the government. This came to a head in March 1959, when the scandal of the Hola camp broke shortly before the British general election.²³ At Hola camp in Coast province a number of the most intractable rebels were detained where they refused to co-operate with the camp authorities at all. In an effort to coerce them into work a riot broke out which was beaten back with batons leaving 11 dead. In the subsequent political furore it was not so much these deaths that were at issue as suspicion of a ‘cover-up’ for, most ill-advisedly, the camp staff had initially reported that the tragedy had been caused by polluted water. No evidence was produced to show that the administration of the colony was culpably party to this conspiracy,²⁴ but the opposition lost no chance to hound the Conservative government of the day and the colonial secretary in particular. Inevitably the storm passed, but the government had had an anxious moment and the prime minister, Harold Macmillan, and aspiring young Conservatives may well have formed a definite view at this time that the colonies were not worth the fuss.

***

There are discrepancies in the estimates of casualties incurred during the Emergency but the number of Mau Mau killed in action was probably rather more than 10,000, and nearly half of them were accounted for by the Guard and Tribal Police. Against this the security forces lost nearly 600, the great majority being Africans. There is no reliable estimate of the number of civilians killed by Mau Mau. There were probably at least 2,000, but not more than 3,000, and of these, 32 were European and 26 were Asian. The number of convicted terrorists executed during the Mau Mau campaign was just over 1,000. The great majority of these were for the offences of murder, oath administration in its most serious forms, the illegal possession of firearms and explosives, and supplying Mau Mau. In the later stages of the campaign, as restrictions were eased, the mandatory death penalty was lifted from a number of offences. This was partly because of doubts which had been raised about the quality of the evidence in a number of firearms cases.²⁵

When hostilities had ceased, everyone but a handful of irreconcilables was immensely pleased that it was all over and it left surprisingly little bitterness behind. As the trouble subsided, however, many questions still remained to be answered. Those which need here to be considered concern the nature of the war and the strategy of either side.

As to the first question, it is beyond dispute that the campaign had an element of civil war in it. Even at a personal level it was most distressing that of the two leading Africans I knew best and, perhaps, respected most, one should have been allegedly implicated in the plot to kill the other.²⁶ But despite the fact of African fighting African, the loyalists could not have held out by themselves without the Army and police at their backs. Only in the latter phases, in 1955 and 1956, could it be said that Kikuyu public opinion was firmly for the government and that the loyalists, by themselves, or with little outside support, were strong enough to drive the Mau Mau out.

Whatever the strength of the loyalists as against Mau Mau, the choice they faced was never one between British rule and self-government. There could have been few Africans, if any, who could not have hoped for the latter. The differences arose as to how it should be achieved and even among the Kikuyu there were divisions between those for whom it was an immediate aspiration and others who favoured orderly change.²⁷

The first group were mainly young men who were easily influenced by agitators and worked up into a state of indignation by highly exaggerated stories about stolen land. The other group was essentially comprised of chiefs and headmen who, with later support from the elders, saw Mau Mau as a flouting of tribal custom as much as of law and order; and there were many besides those with local vested interests who ranged themselves readily in their support. In the middle were perhaps the majority, who were mainly in sympathy with Mau Mau aims but waited to see how things would go and, finally, disgusted with terrorism in its extreme forms and longing for a return to a more peaceful life, rallied to the government side. In shaping loyalist opinion, another element that should not be overlooked is the influence of the Christian church. Some of the most outstanding loyalists were staunch Christians appalled by the Mau Mau excesses, and there were one or two cases of true martyrdom.²⁸

As to the Mau Mau and government plans of campaign, the most curious feature of the former is that they never attempted any major act of sabotage. For instance, the main piped water supply to Nairobi, exposed for a considerable part of its length, ran through Kikuyu country, but no attempt was ever made to damage it. Nor, beyond nuisances such as thefts of telegraph wire, were any serious attempts made to damage main communications. It certainly is not the case that Mau Mau failed to think of these things. Probably the chief reason why they refrained is that they realised that such acts would damage themselves as much as the government and that the repercussions throughout the country would alienate them from the sympathy of other tribes; for they were well aware that outrages such as Lari had seriously undermined their chances of building a wider basis of support and had put paid to any hopes of attracting help from sympathisers living outside the country.

On occasions of civil insurrection government is seldom allowed to be right, whatever it does, and there has never been any shortage of criticism of the government plan of campaign. Of all its policies it is probably the detention camps that have occasioned the most disquiet, even though the authorities were well aware that detainees should be constantly filtered back into the community and, to that end, had provided craft instruction in the camps. I have often wondered, though, whether the government could not have been adventurous. It was a view I held at the time and still maintain, for my experience in Germany after the Second World War had taught me how essential it was to keep the tap running. Further, it seemed to me that although the attempts to negotiate an amnesty with the insurgents were a failure, there was a chance that if one or two of the senior and influential detainees had been released for talks and also allowed to take part in approaches to Mau Mau, far better results might have been obtained. None of the young men who formed the leadership of the active Mau Mau had any significant influence before the hostilities, but there were some among the detainees who were of high standing in the Kikuyu tribe and were respected for their moderation. Although these senior detainees may have thrown in their lot with Mau Mau, it is almost certain that some of them were disturbed, if not horrified, at the turn events had taken, and could possibly, on release, have exercised a highly beneficial influence among their people.

1 This account of what is now generally called the Mau Mau war relies heavily on the History of the Loyalists which Fazan had compiled in 1960–1 from earlier district accounts. For extended comment see the Foreword. While his analysis of the war's changing character would be accepted in outline, few would now agree that the insurgents had planned a long campaign. Relying on past precedent, they probably hoped that Britain would dismantle white-settler supremacy immediately British troops had been sent in. That the insurgents had one overall command structure and strategy is also debatable. Mau Mau has generated as large a historiography as any other episode in Africa's decolonisation. What follows is a very select bibliography. For the army's campaign, with evidence from the rediscovered ‘migrated archive’ at Hanslope Park (with files on the abuses that Fazan deplores below), see Huw Bennett, Fighting the Mau Mau: The British Army and Counter-insurgency in the Kenya Emergency (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013). For the legal, social, and political aspects of the war, see Berman, Control and Crisis, Chapter 8; Maloba, Mau Mau and Kenya; Daniel Branch, Defeating Mau Mau, Creating Kenya: Counterinsurgency, Civil War, and Decolonization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009); David Anderson, Histories of the Hanged; and Caroline Elkins, Britain's Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya (London: Cape, 2005) – published in the USA as Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya (New York, NY: Henry Holt, 2005). Elkins' high mortality estimates are refuted by John Blacker, ‘The demography of Mau Mau: Fertility and mortality in Kenya in the 1950s, a demographer's viewpoint’, African Affairs 106 (2007), pp. 205–27. The insurgents' accounts of their war are discussed in Marshall S. Clough, Mau Mau Memoirs: History, Memory and Politics (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1998). Varied views are found in E. S. Atieno Odhiambo and John Lonsdale (eds), Mau Mau and Nationhood: Arms, Authority and Narration (Oxford: James Currey, 2003).

2 Bennett, Fighting the Mau Mau, sees the British blindly lashing out while ‘building up their strength’. Initial counterinsurgency reflected ignorance of who ‘the enemy’ were. The random brutality that resulted, Bennett argues, created a culture that frustrated later efforts to curb the security forces' use of illegitimate violence. For this argument applied to late-colonial emergencies in general, see David French, The British Way in Counter-Insurgency 1945–1967 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011) who reports, on p. 156, the extraordinary number of 430 African suspects ‘shot trying to escape’ in the first six months of the Emergency.

3 The chief witness to Kimathi's autocratic leadership is Karari Njama, in (with Donald Barnett) his Mau Mau from Within: Autobiography and Analysis of Kenya's Peasant Revolt (London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1966); a similar picture is drawn in Ian Henderson, with Philip Goodhart, The Hunt for Kimathi (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1958). Maina wa Kinyatti (ed.), Kenya's Freedom Struggle: The Dedan Kimathi papers (London: Zed Books, 1987) translates captured documents. Despite the editor's politically corrected, Marxist, introduction, the actual translations retain the ring of truth.

4 For a vivid account, see Anderson, Histories, pp. 72–6.

5 For both the experience of a school at the time and the futures of its students, see David P. Sandgren, Mau Mau's Children: The Making of Kenya's Postcolonial Elite (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2012).

6 Anderson's Histories of the Hanged analyses these and other measures whose formal legality had to be created by exceptional Emergency regulations.

7 At the northern end of the high Kinangop/Nyandarua plateau on the eastern wall of the central Rift Valley, south of Thomson's Falls/Nyahururu.

8 Fazan here gets to what historians consider the origins of the Lari massacre: the ‘Tigoni exchange’ whereby Kikuyu ‘right holders’ on land surrounded by white farms were in the late 1930s resettled on forest reserve land next to the ‘reserve’. The problem originated in the land alienation in the Limuru area noted in Chapters 2 and 12. Fazan had proposed the exchange when district commissioner of Kiambu in 1930 and got the Carter Commission to endorse it. Thereafter, as Provincial Commissioner of Nyanza, he could only advise from afar on the implementation of the move. For elaboration of Fazan's analysis, see Anderson, Histories, Chapter 4, and Branch, Defeating Mau Mau, pp. 55–9. Both note, as Fazan did not, that the retaliatory killings of alleged Mau Mau outnumbered those first murdered by Mau Mau. There were two Lari massacres, not one. For Mau Mau revulsion against the first massacre, see Itote, ‘Mau Mau’ General, Chapter 18; and for the reputational risk run by an officer for not joining in the second, see Parker, Last Colonial Regiment, p. 265.

9 Nickname of the Royal East Kent Regiment, disbanded in 1961.

10 Now the Nyandarua Mountains.

11 For Senior Chief Njiiri's revenge, another retaliatory massacre not mentioned here see Branch, Defeating Mau Mau, pp. 61–2; also, Anderson, Histories, p. 264; Elkins, Britain's Gulag, pp. 78–9; and Bennett, Fighting the Mau Mau, p. 216. Fazan's History of the Loyalists, p. 38, on which his memoir is here based, was similarly silent. This, in turn, relied on the 39-page typescript ‘History of the Kikuyu Guard’ by Jock Rutherford, edited by John Pinney (DC Fort Hall), in 1957 – a copy of which is in Oxford's Rhodes House Development Records Project collection, Mss.Afr.s.1915(2). Rutherford's history is published by David Lovatt Smith as A History of the Kikuyu Guard 1953–1955 (Herstmonceux: Mawenzi Books, 2003). In these official accounts at the time, we see British reluctance to criticise or discipline atrocities committed by the Kikuyu Guard, for fear of alienating the sometimes doubtful loyalty of essential allies in the war against Mau Mau. For this concern at the highest level, see Charles Douglas-Home, Evelyn Baring, the Last Proconsul (London: Collins, 1978), pp. 250–6, 260–1, 287–99; and French, British Way, pp. 171–2, for Njiiri's bewilderment at attempts to discipline the Kikuyu Guard. See discussion in the Foreword and, below, for Fazan's added, retrospective, reason for reticence; namely, to do nothing to hinder the reconciliation subsequently proclaimed by the post-colonial government.

12 Kirimukuyu's home guard, like others, was composed of wealthier farmers, teachers and traders: Branch, Defeating Mau Mau, p. 68.

13 Fazan's high opinion of Kago is shared in all memoirs of the war, British and Kikuyu; Kago's differences with Kimathi over sexual and other disciplines had forced him out of the forest into the more dangerous operational area of the Kikuyu reserve.

14 Anderson, Histories, pp. 200–12, gives a full account of Anvil; Walton, Empire of Secrets, p. 249, puts it into the context of imperial counterinsurgency more generally.

15 Jimmy Candler was a hero-figure for the administration and Kenya Regiment. A school rugby-player, he had escaped from a prison-of-war camp in Italy, to fight alongside anti-Fascist partisans: see Chenevix Trench, Men who Ruled Kenya, pp. 189, 262–3; Lovatt-Smith, History of the Kikuyu Guard, pp. 40–1; Parker, Last Colonial Regiment, p. 327.

16 Elkins, Britain's Gulag, Chapter 8, argues that villagisation was the most brutal price Kikuyu paid for Mau Mau; Branch, Defeating Mau Mau, pp. 107–15, shows that protected ‘loyalist’ villages fared little better than punitive ‘Mau Mau’ ones.

17 This is not the whole story behind the disbandment of the Kikuyu Guard in early 1955; Fazan returns to the more pressing reasons below, as discussed in the Foreword.

18 Frank Kitson, Gangs and Counter-gangs (London: Barrie & Rockliff, 1960) and Parker, Last Colonial Regiment, pp. 288–314, 331–2, for complementary accounts of the pseudo-gangs; Bennett, Defeating the Mau Mau, pp. 152–9, 243–6, summarises the story; for reference to personal memoirs, see Lonsdale, ‘Kenya: Home County’, p. 109, footnote 58.

19 Douglas-Home's biography, Evelyn Baring, pp. 243–4, 251, 253, 258–9, 275, 281, 285, 299, does not support Fazan's apparent inference that Baring resigned on health grounds once military victory was won; on the contrary, while Baring was never strong and his indecision often criticised, his health had been protected by the appointment of a deputy governor, Frederick Crawford; his five-year term of office was also extended by two years, to late 1959, when he was aged 56. The British government, under parliamentary attack for counterinsurgent brutalities, was anxious to preserve the public appearance of confidence in Baring, lest the whole apparatus of authority collapse under scrutiny. Moreover, Baring was himself keen to embark on what was called the ‘second prong’ of counterinsurgency, the economic developments discussed in the next chapter.

20 Fazan notes two different sectors of the counterinsurgency campaign: the detention camps, under the colony's prisons department; and, among the fighting forces, the Kikuyu Guard, for which his old service, the provincial administration, was responsible. The often disgraceful conditions and punitive abuses in the detention camp ‘pipeline’ have received increasing exposure with the emergence of archival evidence. The earliest firsthand account, Josiah Mwangi Kariuki, ‘Mau Mau’ Detainee (London: Oxford University Press, 1963), told how detainees were at times able press for (temporary) relief of harsh conditions; Wambui Waiyaki Otieno, Mau Mau's Daughter: A Life History (Boulder, CO: Lynne Reinner, 1998), Chapter 5, remembered unremitting brutality and sexual violence – what Elkins, Britain's Gulag, called the continued war behind the wire, with white officers and black staff determined to exercise control over detainees equally determined to resist illegal confinement. Derek R. Peterson, Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival: A History of Dissent c. 1935–1972 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), Chapter 10, has complicated Elkins' analysis with discussion of how detainees conducted self-criticism and corresponded with their wives, in an effort to re-examine the moral basis of their society – an effort that in one case Fazan, as member of the committee to review detainees' appeals, regarded as ‘sincere fanaticism’ (Peterson, p. 228). Two ‘rehabilitation’ officials had contrasting recollections of what ‘worked’ – force and negotiation, respectively: Terence Gavaghan, Of Lions and Dung Beetles: A ‘Man in the Middle’ of Colonial Administration in Kenya (Ilfracombe: Stockwell, 1999) and James Breckenridge, 40 Years in Kenya (Bridport: Creeds, 2002). Anderson has followed up his earlier inquiry into counterinsurgent ‘crimes of punishment’ (Histories, Chapter 7) with research prompted by the successful Mau Mau legal case for British reparations; this research was made possible by the release of the ‘migrated archive’ of secret late-colonial files from Hanslope Park into the National Archive (formerly the Public Record Office or PRO) at Kew, to be archived in the series FCO 141. See D. M. Anderson, ‘Mau Mau in the high court and the “lost” British Empire archives: Colonial conspiracy or bureaucratic bungle?’ Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 39 (2011), pp. 699–716, for an indication of what will emerge about the sometimes atrocious lengths to which officials, policemen, soldiers and prison warders felt driven in order to dominate when the legal institutions of power, never sophisticated, reverted to brute force under insurgent attack. Fazan goes some way to explain the loss of discipline; Bennett in Fighting the Mau Mau, deepens the analysis, in stressing the legacy of the ignorant anger of the first phase of counterinsurgency and, later, the growing acceptance by the higher command that to restore discipline in the security forces, both white and black, would require sanctions that neither British troops nor Kikuyu Guard were likely to tolerate. Denials and covers-up were the inevitable consequence. Some British conscripts had little sympathy for settler landlords and were reluctant to shoot, and the loyalty of ‘loyalists’ always needed tender care, frequently averted eyes and, at times, official collusion or perjury. For the high-political calculus of denial, see Philip Murphy, Alan Lennox-Boyd, a Biography (London: I.B.Tauris, 1999), pp. 150–5. For the inevitability of escalating violence, see Branch, Defeating Mau Mau. For solidarity between former district officers and their Kikuyu allies, see David Lovatt Smith, Kenya, the Kikuyu and Mau Mau (Herstmonceux: Mawenzi Books, 2005). French, British Way, pp. 132–7, concludes, after comparing casualty rates in 11 late-colonial or post-colonial emergencies from Palestine to Borneo, that British conduct in Kenya was the ‘most vicious’ of all, if much less so than French conduct in Algeria.

21 While there may have been no government policy of systematic torture, the archival evidence now becoming available leaves little doubt that it became a practice that the government, increasingly, found it had to tolerate. For firsthand white admissions of this fact see Robert B. Edgerton, Mau Mau: An African Crucible (London: Collier Macmillan, 1989), Chapters 5 and 6; Parker, Last Colonial Regiment, pp. 367–8.

22 As discussed in the Foreword, Fazan made no mention of this second amnesty in his History of the Loyalists.

23 For the Hola massacre's place in the wider history of British decolonisation, see Robert Shepherd, Iain Macleod, a Biography (London: Pimlico, 1994), pp. 154–61. Ronald Hyam, Britain's Declining Empire: The Road to Decolonization 1918–1968 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 263–4, argues (in an oracular echo of Murphy, Alan Lennox-Boyd, p. 203) that 3 March 1959, the date of both the massacre and the declaration of emergency in Nyasaland/Malawi, might be the ‘single fateful date which signalled the moral end of the British empire in Africa’. For that same ‘moral unease’, see Blundell, So Rough a Wind, p. 256.

24 There had been no riot; camp warders had beaten detainees for refusing to work. Fazan's careful phrasing, ‘not culpably party’, to describe government's initially false information that the deaths had been caused by polluted water, not by illegal beatings, has been refuted by Anderson, History, p. 327.

25 See Anderson, Histories, for the capital punishment of Mau Mau convicts. Fazan's estimate of up to 3,000 victims of Mau Mau murders is calmer than lurid estimates of up to 30,000 at the time – a figure quoted in military circles.

26 See the discussion of Chiefs Koinange and Waruhiu, above, Foreword, note 61.

27 Fazan was unquestionably correct in this opinion, as could not have been admitted in his 1961 History of the Loyalists; elite ‘loyalists’ went on to win the politics of independence, to the lasting advantage of their descendants. Many ‘loyalists’, however, (Branch, Defeating Mau Mau, pp. 126–30), were poor, powerless, and neglected.

28 This is as plausible summary of the differences in Kikuyu opinion as one can find.