The Rhodesian Army was born on 29 October, 1889, when Queen Victoria
authorised the British South
Africa Company to raise a police force for the
territories that were intended to come under its control north of the
Limpopo river. The "British South Africa Police" (to accompany the Pioneer
Column) was initially created almost entirely from
the Bechuanaland Border Police. By 1892, a couple of years after the occupation of
Mashonaland, the number of men in the force had decreased and a number of volunteer forces
took over. With the outbreak of
the Matabele War in 1893 the total number of volunteers for police
service rose to about 1000 men in a number of new units - the Salisbury
Horse, Victoria Rangers and Raaf's Rangers. The most memorable event was the last stand of the 34 men of the
Shangani Patrol. In December 1893 the volunteer regiments were disbanded,
and a
new force named the Rhodesia Horse was formed; another force was raised specifically
for the policing of
Matabeleland. Many of the police accompanied Dr. Jameson on the
Transvaal raid in 1895, to help the Englishmen who were rebelling against the
Boer government. The failure of the raid, and capture of Jameson and his men,
left the new colony effectively undefended, and led
indirectly to the Mashona and Matabele Rebellions in 1896. The fighting
lasted until 1898, with British troops arriving from Natal and the Cape
to help the colonists. The police forces were
amalgamated into what would become the British South Africa Police
(BSAP). In 1898. with the rapid increase in the white
population, a purely
military force was created - the
Southern Rhodesia Volunteers (SRV), divided into an
Eastern Division, based in Salisbury, and a Western Division, based in
Bulawayo. With the Boer War, the SRV took part in the relief of
Mafeking, where a division of the BSAP were among the defenders -
Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts, was the leader of the defence. A new
unit, the Rhodesia Regiment, was also formed at this time, mainly for
the defence of Rhodesia, but this unit was also sent to serve in the
Boer War. The original Rhodesia Regiment had been disbanded shortly after
the siege of Mafeking, but in 1914 the unit was revived to form two
regiments to fight alongside the Commonwealth troops in South West
Africa (now Namibia) and East Africa; later in France during the First World War.
The Rhodesia Native Regiment was was formed at the same time.
In 1920 the Southern Rhodesia Volunteers were disbanded (although a few rifle companies were retained in each of the main towns
of Rhodesia). The Defence Act of 1927 finally created a Permanent Force and a
Territorial Force for the colony, but only in 1939 were the police finally separated
from the military, and conscription for the latter introduced. The
Second World War saw the rapid expansion of the
Rhodesian armed forces, with the addition of a number of full-time
units, including the 1st Battalion RAR, an artillery unit, an armoured
car unit, and training schools in Gwelo (Gweru) and Umtali (Mutare).
As the British Empire disintegrated following the end of the Second
World War, a volunteer group called the Rhodesia Squadron Malayan
Scouts was raised in 1951, to support the Commonwealth troops in Malaya
(effectively forming the first overseas SAS regiment),
and Rhodesia supplied troops for service in the
Suez Canal zone in 1952.
In September 1956, bus fares in responded by boycotting the United Transport Company's
buses and succeeded in preventing the price change. On September 12,
1957 members of the Youth League and the defunct ANC formed the Southern
Rhodesia African National Congress, led by Joshua Nkomo. The
The prefix "Rhodesia and
Nyasaland" was attached to each corps with Federation; units of the RAR were sent to Malaya to replace
the Northern Rhodesia Regiment serving there in 1955. With Federation's dissolution
on December 31 1963, the army again underwent
a large-scale reorganization. Guerrillas began to infiltrated
Rhodesia from neighbouring Zambia in early 1966, but the start of the bush war is generally considered to have
been the Centenary District farm attack, 21
December 1972. "Operation
Hurricane" started in 1973, and in 1974 guerrilla numbers inside the country
were estimated to have been reduced to less than 100. with the independence of Mozambique
(June 25 1975), and the eventual opening of a second front in the
bush war. This coincided with the creation and expansion of a number of
specialist units; the Selous Scouts, named after Rhodesia's most famous
big game hunter; the Grey's Scouts, who reintroduced cavalry into
the Rhodesian army, the intention being to follow the enemy into otherwise inaccessible areas with greater
speed than infantry. The 1974 ceasefire failed to create a political solution to the
war, seeming only to gave the guerrillas time to
regroup and resupply, .
In 1976, Operations "Thrasher" and "Repulse"
started, attempting to contain the ever-increasing influx of guerrillas. At
the same time rivalry between the two main guerrilla factions increased
and resulted in open fighting in the training camps in Tanzania, with
over 600 deaths. The Soviets increased their influence and began to take
a more active role in the training and control of the ZIPRA guerrillas.
New tactics were developed on both sides.
Perhaps too late, the Rhodesians decided to take the war to the
enemy, and cross-border operations, which had started in 1976 with a
raid on a major base in Mozambique in which the Rhodesians had killed
over 1200 guerrillas and captured huge amounts of weapons, were stepped
up. Attacks on large guerrilla camps such as Chimoio and Tembue resulted
in thousands of guerrilla deaths and the capture of supplies sorely
needed by the Rhodesians. In 1979 as the war increased even more in
intensity, the Rhodesian army was able to take delivery of eight T54/55
heavy tanks which the South Africans had confiscated from a Libyan
freighter when it mistakenly docked at Durban while en route to
Tanzania.
In 1978 the Rhodesian Air Force launched the daring "Green
Leader" attack on a ZIPRA camp outside Lusaka, the Rhodesian
fighters completely taking over Zambian air space for the duration of
the raid. In September the guerrillas again took the offensive by
shooting down a Rhodesian airliner with a SAM-7 missile. Eighteen
civilians who survived the crash were subsequently massacred at the
crash site by ZIPRA guerrillas, increasing calls for massive retaliation
by the Rhodesian security forces.
In 1979 another airliner was shot down and the Rhodesians
launched more raids on guerrilla bases, successfully avoiding
air-defence systems and the Soviet MiG-17s based in Mozambique. A raid
was made by the SAS and the Selous Scouts on the ZIPRA HQ in Lusaka,
where they narrowly missed being able to kill the ZIPRA leader, Nkomo.
Towards the end of 1979 talks had begun at Lancaster House in
England, with both sides seriously interested in stopping the war, but
Rhodesian cross-border raids continued in the meantime, hitting supply
lines, strategic bridges and railways in an effort to convince Zambia
and Mozambique to put pressure on the guerrilla leaders to end the war.
Rhodesian losses in men and aircraft were increasing, whereas the supply
of equipment and recruits to the guerrillas seemed endless.
By the end of 1979 therefore it was becoming obvious that the
Rhodesians would be unable to bring the war to a speedy end, despite the
fact that their troops were winning every battle and skirmish they
engaged in, and that the guerrillas had not yet "liberated"
any part of the country.
A political agreement was finally signed in December 1979, and
new elections took place. Commonwealth troops monitored the proceedings,
but for a while it seemed that the Rhodesian army, still in control,
might stage a coup to prevent a Marxist takeover, with troops and tanks
on standby at strategic points in the capital. When it became clear that
Mugabe had won a decisive victory at the polls, however, the military
reluctantly accepted that there was no point in resuming the war and a
new crisis was avoided.
The first year of independence saw the dissolution of the
Rhodesian security forces as the agreement to integrate the former
guerrillas into the regular army was implemented. Lack of discipline
among the guerrillas caused problems, but the major cause of friction
was the fact that the two main guerrilla groups distrusted each other
and formed their own rival "camps" in the army. When ZANU
introduced the "Fifth Brigade", a new unit trained by North
Koreans and loyal only to Mugabe, which gained a reputation for killing
civilians, the writing was on the wall for the army as the Rhodesians
had known it.
The Commander, Lt.Gen. Walls, was dismissed by Mugabe, and as
the traditional British style discipline broke down in the army, many
whites left the country. In the course of 1980 most of the front-line
units were disbanded or simply faded away. Disillusionment among the
troops was great and the departure of many men to find employment
elsewhere contributed to the lack of ceremonial disbandment of some of
the units.
The prime example of the fading away of a unit was the case of
the Selous Scouts. Because of their clandestine operations and since
many of their troops were ex-guerrillas who had been "turned",
it was not surprising that after the election an order was immediately
given for the Scouts to dispose of their regimental insignia and wear
other badges instead. Many Scouts elected to disappear over the border,
taking their weapons with them. The majority eventually enlisted in the
SADF in comparable elite units, such as the "Recces". There
was no parade and no public acknowledgment of their services to their
country. Their regimental standard was taken across the border and in
1990 was laid up at Phalaborwa in the unit chapel of the SADF's "5
Recce Regiment".
The RLI was officially disbanded on 25 July 1980 at a last
parade before a small crowd, with the troops marching past their War
Memorial - the "Trooper" statue (officially known as the Trooper
Statue, although everyone knew it as the "Troopie"). The Roll of Honour was read
out and the bagpipes played "The Last Post". The regimental
colour was marched past for the last time, and three days later the
Trooper statue was dismantled and spirited away to South Africa along
with the rest of the regimental memorabilia. (Click here
for details of the recent movement of the RLI
"Troopie" statue).
The Rhodesian SAS also held a simple flag-lowering ceremony, then smuggled
their 25-ton plinth across the border to South Africa for safekeeping.
The RAR, composed mainly of African troops, was the only unit
not disbanded in 1980. Because of the rivalry between the guerrilla
factions, it was fortunate for the new government that the
highly-disciplined troops of the RAR remained on hand. In November
full-scale fighting broke out between the rival guerrilla groups near
Bulawayo with over 500 casualties, and ironically it was the RAR - his
former enemy - that Mugabe sent in to quell the fighting among his own
former guerrillas. In February 1981 fighting again broke out, this time
involving over 10,000 ex-guerrillas. The RAR, which Mugabe had now
wanted disbanded, was again sent in to separate the combatants, which
they did very efficiently. By December, however, the situation in the
Zimbabwe military had deteriorated and many troopers left the RAR,
rendering it largely ineffective. On 31 December the order was given to
integrate the remainder of the RAR with other units and the last
remnants of the Rhodesian army faded away.
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