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The Mau Mau Emergency as Part of the British Army's Post-War Counter-Insurgency ExperienceHuw Bennett a

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To cite this Article Bennett, Huw(2007) 'The Mau Mau Emergency as Part of the British Army's Post-War Counter-Insurgency Experience', Defense & Security Analysis, 23: 2, 143 — 163To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/14751790701424705URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14751790701424705

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INTRODUCTION

This article1 aims to re-evaluate the orthodox understanding of the British Army’s post-war counter-insurgency experience. This will be achieved by analysing the four keycomponents to the Army’s counter-insurgency (COIN) doctrine in this period found inthe secondary literature and then investigating the extent to which these conceptsapplied in the specific example of the Kenya Emergency, 1952–60. The article ispresented in two main sections: the first section outlines the main elements of thedoctrine as represented in the secondary literature, namely: the legal underpinnings ofall operations, the related concept of minimum force, command and control dimen-sions, and the winning of popular support, commonly known as “hearts and minds”.These factors operated holistically to produce British Army’s enviable reputation forrestrained and civilized conduct.

The second section questions the validity of these assertions. On a general level, it isargued that the orthodox understanding is based on a number of methodological flaws,relating to both sources and interpretation. Furthermore, the specifics of the orthodoxyrequire revisiting. On the legal dimension of British COIN, the framework commonlyadopted actually created a permissive environment for atrocities, replicating faults ininternational law. The significance of the minimum force concept has been vastly over-stated, and did not apply in insurrections or in the colonies. Civil oversight provedineffective in practice, and the much-vaunted regimental system could present as manyproblems as solutions in ensuring a disciplined soldiery. Finally, the article argues thatthe hearts and minds efforts pursued by the British Army have been seen in a far toorosy perspective, and that measures such as villagization were usually unpleasant. Infact, civilian support was gained as often through applying exemplary force, in the formof collective punishment, atrocity and torture, as it was through social reforms.Newsinger observed in 1992 that atrocities in Kenya were marginalized and excused bythe government as isolated and unofficial.2 This article argues that atrocities in Kenya

Defense & Security Analysis Vol. 23, No. 2, pp. 143–163, June 2007

ISSN 1475-1798 print; 1475-1801 online/07/020143-21 © 2007 Taylor & Francis 143DOI: 10.1080/14751790701424705

The Mau Mau Emergency as Part of the British Army’s Post-War Counter-Insurgency Experience

Huw BennettDepartment of International Politics, University of Wales, Penglais, Aberystwyth, CeredigionSY23 3FE, UK

23-2 master 14/5/07 5:33 PM Page 143Downloaded By: [Kings College London] At: 12:27 11 March 2010

stemmed from policy, not individual disciplinary failings, policies with a long historyand similar to those pursued in other COIN campaigns in the same period and since.

THE ORTHODOX VIEW OF BRITISH COUNTER-INSURGENCY

The legal context

Most studies (though Townshend’s 1986 book above all) discuss the ways in which thegovernment introduced legal measures to deal with insurgencies.3 However, the generalimpression from these studies is that a government-legislated policy is automaticallylegitimate. Consequently, little attention is paid to the experiences of those at thereceiving end of government policies, whether violence or the supposedly benign“hearts and minds” policies. The assumption remains in large part that laws werecreated for the good of the people and that they served this function, with limiteddetailed empirical analysis of what happened in practice. Clearly, the idea about a legalframework was well in place before the post-war period, though Thompson’s 1966formulation in his second of five principles, that “the government must function inaccordance with law”, is noticeably influential in the secondary literature, for examplein Bulloch, Jeffery, Kitson, Mockaitis, Nagl and Pimlott.4

The legalist framework originated in the English common law tradition whichallowed the executive the right to restore the peace with no more force than absolutelynecessary.5 According to Mockaitis, the concept, at first limited to civil unrest inBritain, evolved to incorporate all forms of unrest, from riots to full-scale revolution.6

The common law obliged every citizen, including soldiers who were technically nothingless than citizens in uniform, to assist the civil power in enforcing law and order whenrequired.7 During civil disturbances, it was a commander’s duty to open fire if he couldnot otherwise stop the violence before him. In doing nothing the commander wouldfind that he “. . . certainly will be wrong”, and, by extension, he legally had to useenough force to be effective.8 During insurrections, the duty to stop violence withviolence applied most strongly, which meant troops had to “. . . be prepared to live andfight hard”.9

Thornton moves beyond Townshend and Mockaitis’s emphasis on the common lawin arguing that the concept derived from the national culture. In his view two sourceswere paramount: pragmatism and “Victorian values”.10 These values were translated“via a quartet of socializing media: the ideal of empire, the class and public schoolsystems, and popular culture”.11 Furthermore, the British national character empha-sizes free will and individuality, leading to pragmatism within organizations. Ratherthan developing a complicated counter-insurgency doctrine, the Army extolled indi-vidual decision-making with minimum force as a simple guideline to be followed in allsituations.12 Therefore, when countering revolt, the aim was always to contain ratherthan extirpate resistance through minimal rather than exemplary force.13 From longexperience, the Army learnt that exemplary, excessive force provoked the populationand was thus counter-productive to the main objective of restoring the peace.14

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Minimum force

Virtually all writers on the Army since 1945 identify minimum force as a key charac-teristic of British counter-insurgency.15 Indeed, McInnes thinks the principle lies“. . . at the heart of the British style in counter-insurgency warfare”.16 The principle wasclearly understood and taught throughout the Army, which stressed the practicalimperatives for fighting with restraint. For example, although reprisals were sometimeseffective in the short term, in the long run they were unsound, producing hate, fear andmistrust. The Staff College course declared reprisals “. . . patently unjust anduncivilised”.17 Instead of employing maximum firepower in a bid to kill as many peopleas possible, taking prisoners provided a large pool from which to gather intelligence,helpful for defeating elusive opponents.18 When suspects were interrogated, the needfor trustworthy intelligence ruled out torture, which was thought to provide unreliableinformation.19 “Respect . . . is necessary: respect is achieved by law and order appliedfairly and promptly”; keeping to this policy meant that the “. . . inhabitants willgradually drift apart from guerrillas”.20 The Staff College course recognized the diffi-culty in assessing the degree of force to use: “Generally speaking, success in battledepends upon the use of overwhelming force at the correct time and place. For internalsecurity operations the reverse applies, since the most important single principle is thatof minimum force.”21

This position is also reflected in a key 1949 booklet Imperial Policing and Duties in Aidof the Civil Power: “There is . . . one principle that must be observed in all types of actiontaken by the troops: no more force shall be applied than the situation demands.”22 Atthe Staff College the principle was often repeated; for example, in 1947: “To enforcelaw and order no one is allowed to use more force than is necessary.”23 Of course, thisshould be no problem for the British soldier, whose “friendly attitude” made inevitablehis “instinctive kindness and decency”.24 A January 1949 article in the British ArmyReview encouraged “discipline and behaviour [that was] absolutely correct”, “fairplay”, not doing “any avoidable damage”, and “the minimum force necessary toachieve your object” during internal security operations.25 Another article a year lateremphasized the importance of restraint in low-intensity operations.26

In one view, reprisals against a community for acts committed by its inhabitants whocould not be identified were sometimes justified, given the proviso of proportionalitycombined with an absolute prohibition on killing people. Rather, incarceration, finesand the seizure or destruction of property were options at the commander’s disposal.Nonetheless, they remained measures only to be resorted to in extreme circumstances,expert legal opinion deeming them generally illegal.27 In riots the use of firepower wasthe last resort, for example, in self-defense. When used, a specified number of singleshots were directed at individual ringleaders and intended to wound instead of kill.28

The Staff Course enjoined “rigid discipline” when conducting searches, with“civility”.29

There is solid evidence that the concept was clearly laid down, taught at the StaffCollege and discussed in the professional journals. Furthermore, an added incentivecame from the official position not only recommending minimum force, but activelycriminalizing excessive force:

THE MAU MAU EMERGENCY • 145


. . . a soldier is guilty of an offence if he uses that excess, even under the directionof the civil authority, provided he has no such excuse as that he is bound in theparticular circumstances of the case to take the facts, as distinguished from thelaw, from the civil authority.30

In his prominent study, Mockaitis is keen to confirm the expanding role of minimumforce in British counter-insurgency doctrine. Initially, the Manual of Military Law dis-tinguished between riots, where the concept applied, and insurrections, where it didnot, but the distinction became increasingly blurred.31 Moreman concurs by pointingout how “colonial warfare” transformed into “imperial policing” after the First WorldWar.32 Raghaven places the change in the revised 1929 Manual.33 However, inMockaitis’s view a more substantial change arose in the 1934 publication Notes onImperial Policing.

At this point, the War Office stipulated that when fighting rebels away from civilianareas the principle did not come into effect, but when dealing with a riot or other situ-ations where the innocent were not clearly separable from the guilty, minimum forceapplied.34 Arguably complete consolidation between riots and insurrections occurredin 1949 with the publication of Imperial Policing and Duties in Aid of the Civil Power.35

The impetus for this evolving extension came from changing attitudes in Britaintowards violence, evidenced in the public reactions to the Boer War, the Irish War ofIndependence and the Amritsar massacre.36 As a result, the Army on the whole avoidedretaliatory measures and the indiscriminate use of force.37

Command and control

The Army, according to most accounts, conducted itself in a restrained mannerbecause its major operational concept in counter-insurgencies, minimum force,derived from a civilian source. In connection with this is the close working relationshipseen between the military and civilian organizations during operations. McInnes,Jeffery and Kitson accord civilian control a prime position in their analyses, andconsider it highly effective.38 Pimlott and Joes concur in asserting political, andtherefore police, primacy.39 Command by committee was the normal system; theopposite approach, where Templer reigned as “Supremo” in Malaya, was an exception.The command system was normally imperfect when a campaign started and requiredmodification. For example, in Kenya there was a lack of central direction until GeneralErskine took over.40 Townshend not only agrees that police primacy occurred, butfurther implicitly assumes that the separation of powers, based on pluralism, is asafeguard in COIN as it is in peaceful domestic politics.41 This argument is lent credi-bility considering CIGS-elect Montgomery’s support in 1946 for hard-line repressionin Palestine, which was opposed by the Cabinet.42 Mockaitis argues that Britishcivil–military co-operation arose from the basic appreciation that insurgencies werefundamentally political in nature, and could not be solved by military means alone.43

The fact that police reform has been a priority in all British counter-insurgencyshows it is not always perfect.44 Even when things went wrong with minimum force, thecivil–military relationship ensured that justice would be done. Enforcement came

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through the ordinary courts, which could scrutinize the legality of the use of force afterthe event.45 This legal situation was taught at the Staff College, where it was alsostressed that self-discipline and the soldier’s “high code” safeguarded him from prose-cution.46 Raghaven argues that mechanisms such as supervision by the civil power andfear of punishment ensured that the abstract concept became a practical reality.47

The other much-vaunted command and control system in British COIN was theArmy’s ability to conduct decentralized operations thanks to the regimental system.The system is variously credited with independence, creativity and flexibility.48 Theorganizational structure is connected to a military culture notoriously averse to theoryand models.49 The orthodox view holds that, in contrast with armies restricted by com-plicated doctrinal formulations, British soldiers freely reacted to circumstances withimprovised solutions. In these so-called “Subalterns wars” the low-level commanderreally did exercise a great deal of autonomy, and could invent tactics in a flexible andinnovative manner.

Hearts and minds

The final component in orthodox accounts of British counter-insurgency was theattempt to take the population’s support away from the enemy. Responsibility forcarrying out the so-called “winning hearts and minds” approach, coined by GeneralTempler, largely fell upon the civil administration. There is therefore a limited discussionof it in the British COIN literature.50 This is especially true where propaganda isconcerned, where only the excellent survey by Carruthers covers the entire period.51 Nev-ertheless, the original theorists agreed with Templer. Thompson stressed the importanceof countering subversion by information policies, while Kitson argued “. . . it is in men’sminds that wars of subversion have to be fought and decided”.52 In the next generation,Charters argues that the concept of winning hearts and minds underlay all post-Malayaoperations, and was most significant in providing intelligence.53

The other method for winning the population’s support consisted of a myriad ofpossible social measures, including “villagization”, improved welfare services and foodcontrol. Kitson considers such social measures vital in persuading the population tosupport the government, without which the counter-insurgency effort will fail.54 Thesuccess of these measures is due to the recognition that the uprising may well stem fromlegitimate grievances.55 Pimlott provides a rosy view of hearts and minds, which he alsoconsiders a British priority. Key measures include propaganda, protection of civiliansby resettlement in secure villages, and removing the social causes, again partly throughthe wonderful new villages.56 McInnes similarly takes a benign view, arguing that theresettled squatters in Malaya benefited from the policy, where he cites improved healthprovision to support his case.57 Nagl affirms the widely held view that villagization wasintrinsic to success.58 On Kenya, Kitson thinks that the administration pushed throughmany progressive measures.59 Page argues that the villages had social and agriculturalbenefits as well as improving security.60 Throup views villagization as a success,although the early decision to detain so many people without evidence was a mistake.61

Even the generally critical Maloba sees the villages as beneficial; although they startedas a punitive measure, the villages did help win people over.62 Villagization can also be



seen as successful in proving that the government would win and providing physicalprotection.63

This section has analysed the four central components of British counter-insurgencydoctrine in the post-war period as presented in the academic literature. Operationswere conducted within a framework originating in the English common law tradition.This resulted in both an operational doctrine requiring the minimum use of forcenecessary, and the basis for civilian oversight and close co-operation with the Armyduring counter-insurgencies. The other major characteristic of the command andcontrol structure, decentralized command through the regimental system, producedinnovative and flexible decision-making at all levels. Finally, the hearts and mindsapproach played a significant role, whether in the form of propaganda, improved socialwelfare conditions, or political reforms. This often resulted in increasingly effectiveintelligence-gathering capabilities as the population moved to help the government.Ultimately, these factors combined to achieve a successful and restrained way incounter-insurgency.

REVISITING BRITISH COIN: QUESTIONING THE MINIMALIST CONSENSUS

Before analysing the specific problems with the four elements of the orthodox under-standing of British COIN, it should be noted that some methodological flawscompromise their overall validity. First, the literature exhibits a triumphalist tendency,based on a perception of national success in comparison with other countries, such asFrance in Algeria and the United States in Vietnam. This national pride impedes thecritical spirit; for example, John Pimlott proudly notes the British Army’s “enviable rep-utation for success in the notoriously difficult art of counter-insurgency”.64 A similartrend is the assertion that the British forces were not as bad as the enemy. As Chartersputs it, minimum force “. . . was respected more in the breach than in the observance,particularly by those whom the British were fighting”.65

This tendency to blame the other side is also blatant in the Kenya literature, andwhile the Mau Mau did indeed commit horrific acts, this is used to detract fromexcesses by the security forces. For example, Majdalany argues that while the securityforces may sometimes have been “less disciplined” than strictly desirable, Mau Mauactions were “the usual demented hacking, severing, and mutilation”.66 Theseelements in the secondary literature resemble the government’s delegitimizing propa-ganda during the Emergency, and should thus be treated with caution.67

Second, numerous writers glorify the great British victory in Malaya to the pointwhere the characteristics seen in that campaign are over-generalized onto all the others;and ideals, or “principles” as Mockaitis calls them, are mistaken for actual empiricalreality. For example, Kitson, Thompson and Mockaitis’s emphatic insistence that thesecurity forces act within the law should be taken as an ideal worth aspiring to ratherthan something that historically always (or even mostly) took place.68 Exacerbating theproclivity for theoretical models of counter-insurgency rather than detailed empiricalanalyses is the general archival paucity of most of the literature, partly resulting fromofficial secrecy.

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The dominance of the minimalist school’s interpretation is not surprising given theinept argumentation and flimsy evidential base from which attacks have been launched.This pedigree originated during the Emergency itself, as found in books by Blakesleeand Evans, for example. Dr Virginia Blakeslee, a missionary in Kikuyuland, included inher 1956 book an account of a massacre on Mununga Ridge where the local HomeGuard and some King’s African Riflemen killed all the men in the area. Without men-tioning the exact date, the unit involved or individual names, the account’s credibility ismortally weakened.69 Peter Evans, a human rights lawyer in today’s terms, wrote a bookon government excesses; but other than open court cases, he limited the informationgiven in order to protect witnesses from reprisals.70

Recent critical commentators have performed no better. Although Curtis shouldbe applauded for challenging the assumption that British foreign policy is basicallybenevolent, his conspiracy theory-style exaggerations and all-round sensationalismundermine his book’s impact.71 Unfortunately, a major revisionist publication on theKenya Emergency’s detention system similarly goes down the hyperbolic path,assigning genocidal intent in the government’s policy without producing any evidencefor a systematic plan to eliminate the entire Kikuyu tribe.72 Indeed, evidence is a majordefect in most critical analyses.

Newsinger’s work is a case in point, repeatedly making unsupported statements anditerating a view obviously based on an ideological opposition to imperialism itself. Theassertion that the Kenya Emergency was “a revolt against oppression and exploitation”is a seriously one-sided view in what was in reality a highly complex civil war involvingmultiple factions.73 The ideologically induced myopia leads to other misinterpreta-tions, such as: “The beatings and the torture, the summary executions and the judicialmassacre were only possible because the victims were black. This conclusion isinescapable.”74 It is also mono-causal, completely ignoring not only other equally sig-nificant causal mechanisms but the fact that many of the perpetrators were also black.But then again, such people were probably merely “collaborationist” in Newsinger’squestionable logic.75

Turning to the empirical weaknesses, a preliminary observation is that his work isbased entirely upon the secondary literature. This leads to trouble; for example, whenciting Edgerton’s inconsistent and sometimes poorly referenced work.76 One claimmade without evidence is that the “shooting of suspects . . . soon became common-place”.77 In another case, the major assertion that beatings, torture, mutilation andmurdering prisoners were everyday occurrences relies upon a single memoir publishednine years after the Emergency ended.78 This is all utterly self-defeating for Newsinger,as seen in Mockaitis’s response to his 1992 article on the lack of minimum force inKenya, where he presents the devastating criticism that there is no detailed, corrobo-rated empirical evidence supporting these sensational claims.79

With the release of important new information through the Freedom of InformationAct, covering events such as the Chuka massacre and the McLean Inquiry into Armymisconduct, this empirical shortfall can be somewhat rectified.80 The remainder ofthis article will therefore reinterpret the four main components of British counter-insurgency in Kenya.



The legal framework as an enabler of atrocities

On the legal dimension, although most studies mention that a framework existed, theydo not systematically investigate how it worked in practice. This is partly because of thedominance of the rationalist–instrumentalist approach within strategic studies whichassumes that law and ethics are irrelevant when explaining the behavior of armedforces. At the highest level, asserting that the British operated within the law is in itselfrather meaningless. After all, the Nazis persecuted the Jews within a complex legalstructure based on the 1934 Nuremberg laws.81 The British Emergency Regulationswere passed without democratic approval and were in several instances undoubtedlydraconian and contrary to international legal requirements then in place. For example,the Governor’s Detention Orders, essentially giving the Governor the right to detainpersons without trial, for an unlimited period and without the right to appeal, hardlyconstitutes an admirable law. The regulations generally suspended any incompatiblelaws, including basic liberties such as habeas corpus, so the impression that minimumforce worked within a cosy liberal framework is certainly disingenuous.82

Carruthers has even described the rule of law under Emergency legislation in Kenyaas “sham legalism”, and in this respect Kenya was no different from the many otheremergencies that Britain engaged in.83 In common with some other governments afterthe Second World War, the British deliberately adopted an interpretation of inter-national law aimed at preserving sovereignty to the maximum extent possible. Changessuch as the duty to refuse illegal orders established by the Nuremberg Tribunal, and theattempted extension of the laws of war to internal conflicts through Geneva ConventionCommon Article 3, were purposefully marginalized. As a result, the government couldintroduce extremely draconian measures to combat insurgencies and still claim theywere legal and, therefore, just.

The limits of minimum force

Entirely rejecting the centrality of law in determining how soldiers behaved towardsnon-combatants is impossible if historical accuracy is a paramount concern. However,it is imperative to argue for a more nuanced and qualified understanding, especiallywith reference to minimum force. In the Kenya context, the Prohibited Areas policyraises some problems. Mockaitis incorrectly argues that here “the rules of conventionalengagement” applied.84 If the conventional rules, i.e. the laws of war, applied, then thesecurity forces would have taken prisoners in the Prohibited Areas. Although there areinstances where this happened, the official policy was not to do so – and to kill anyonein them on sight; clearly against the laws of war.

In the Special Areas, troops were authorized to shoot and kill anyone who refused anorder to halt. Arguably, a truly minimum force policy would have instructed troops totry and capture those fleeing first, and to fire only as a last resort. These two examplesillustrate the more general point that just because a policy avoids advocating genocidedoes not automatically make it a minimum force policy. Indeed, those on the receivingend might well question how minimum an impact the conflict had on their lives.

A related question – perhaps an unanswerable one – is how many exceptions must

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one gather before jettisoning McInnes’ argument that minimum force prevailed mostof the time? Even if it did, apart from Thornton’s study into the philosophical originsand Townshend’s into the legal dimension, there is little sense in the literature of howthis principle came to operate in practice, largely because it is understood in doctrinalrather than cultural terms. The focus on minimum force as a long-term principle hassomewhat distracted attention from how soldiers viewed the use of force against certainenemies in particular conflicts. Ideologically, official propaganda imaginings de-humanized the Mau Mau enemy in a way inconsistent with minimum force, leadingsoldiers to consider the population as a whole “a brutal race anyway”.85

The case made by Mockaitis for the ubiquity of the concept, further supported hereby the Staff College syllabi, cannot be entirely refuted. However, he does exaggerate theextent to which minimum force applied in all situations. Official thinking stillsupported much greater latitude in the use of force in dealing with insurrections thanriots, and this matters because insurgencies were insurrections and not riots. Forexample, even by 1958 the Manual of Military Law stated that “The existence of anarmed insurrection would justify the use of any degree of force necessary effectually tomeet and cope with the insurrection.”86 Both official doctrine and actual practiceallowed a far greater degree of force to be used in the colonies than in the UnitedKingdom. For example, the key 1949 publication noted how “The degree of forcenecessary and the methods of applying it will obviously differ very greatly as betweenthe United Kingdom and places overseas.”87 As Mockaitis himself admits, in contra-diction of his own argument, two standard textbooks taught at Sandhurst and the StaffCollege advocated harsh early action to nip trouble in the bud, in contrast to theminimum force concept.88

In addition, the Colonial Office admitted that the concept clashed with Britishpractices in the colonies:

. . . a number of Colonies (notably in Africa) have on their Statute Book collectivepunishment Ordinances which provide that this form of punishment may be usedto deal with offences such as cattle stealing and the like . . . There are, however,the more difficult cases of the present disturbances in Malaya, and (to quote themost obvious example) the use of punitive bombing in the Aden Protectorate . . .what might be described as “collective punishment” has been used [in Malaya] –e.g., the burning of villages, and so on – and may well be used again.89

This last remark proved prescient, as the destruction of traditional dwellings accompa-nied by the forced movement of the population into villages was a major governmentpolicy in Kenya. The 1949 pamphlet recognized that collective punishment contra-vened minimum force and also the Hague Convention, but regarded the consequenthardships as “inevitable” and “a necessity”.90 Another weakness with the conceptreflected the problem with military necessity in international law. The concept wasalways limited by the question of who decided exactly what the term meant: the militarycommander present at the time. As only a soldier was in a position to know the powerof his weapons and the commander was present at the critical moment, he alone coulddecide upon the degree of force to be used.91 In this sense, what minimum force meant


was uncertain, and therefore arbitrary. This was partially inevitable as the circum-stances of each particular case obviously varied.92 But this qualification has notpreviously been sufficiently acknowledged.

As a result, deviations from minimum force patently happened, as several authorsacknowledge, but their frequency and significance is diminished in several ways. First,atrocities are mentioned briefly in passing without explanation or elaboration.93 This isrelated to the tactic of downplaying the frequency of atrocities. For example, in 1960Kitson asserted that security force personnel only very rarely took the law into their ownhands, further softening this concessionary statement with vague, euphemistic refer-ences, such as “these practices”, rather than using words such as torture, beatings ormurder.94 Mockaitis states that “Examination of the campaigns between 1919 and1960 reveals that relatively few cases of documented abuse occurred.”95 The precisewording here is telling. What exactly is the alleged British restraint relative to? Also,Mockaitis undermines his own argument later on with the admission that many“sensitive” government files were still closed when he conducted his research, so thelack of evidence in 1990 does not automatically equate with a lack of atrocities 40 yearsearlier.96 Mockaitis and Newsinger reach a rare agreement, however, in delineatingthe Kenya Emergency’s exceptional brutality compared with other post-war counter-insurgencies.97

The notion that atrocities were infrequent needs modification for two reasons: thefirst reason relates to how military discipline is interpreted. As Major Clemas, with the23rd King’s African Rifles noted, there was: “. . . a distinction between the formal andthe real . . . it was necessary to ignore three out of four infringements of discipline andthen jump on the fourth”.98 Most analyses base their conclusions on the number ofcourt martials held, but if Clemas’ observation were to apply to the whole Army, thefrequency of atrocities has been underestimated. The second reason relates toevidence. There is now evidence of official recognition that in the first eight months atleast, and probably for some time afterwards, widespread shootings, torture andbeatings took place.

After this time, General Erskine took command and instigated a disciplinary clamp-down. Clayton’s influential argument that the troops obeyed and atrocities stoppedimmediately is not supported by any evidence, but merely an assumption that orderswould be followed.99 Another aspect here is whether or not there was any atrocitypolicy. Although Elkins almost certainly overstates the case for a genocide having takenplace, the Army participated in the early indiscriminate shootings, when the LancashireFusiliers were in-theater in addition to several KAR battalions and the locally raisedforces. Army co-operation with ruthless vigilante groups, the Home Guard, KenyaPolice Reserve – not to mention the Kenya Regiment – shows how complacent it wasabout protecting non-combatants. Furthermore, the at least 430 persons “shot whilsttrying to escape” up to 24th April 1953 surely constitutes a pattern incompatible withthe “no policy” assertion.100 Simply because the archives do not contain a policystatement saying “Shoot all civilians” hardly means that government forces did notsystematically target them.

What seems increasingly likely is that at the beginning, indiscriminate shootingswere perpetrated deliberately in a manner directly denied by Townshend – as

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exemplary violence, aimed at intimidating the Kikuyu population from which the MauMau insurgency arose. Murder, torture and beatings were deployed not only togenerally dissuade Kikuyu civilians from joining or passively supporting the Mau Mau,but also to encourage population movement into the Reserves (today called ethniccleansing).101 For example, one estimation puts the number of people forcibly evictedor leaving voluntarily from November 1952 to April 1953 at between 70,000 to100,000 from the Rift Valley and Central Provinces.102 The policy was reversed in mid-1953 when it became clear that the brutality with which the movements were achievedand the resultant horrific over-crowding in the Reserves actually aided Mau Maurecruitment.103

In the disciplinary sphere, the Army’s complacency over prosecuting rape casesshows how thin is the line between actively encouraging mistreatment by policy, andallowing mistreatment to happen unofficially by doing nothing to prevent it. TheArmy’s McLean Court of Inquiry into allegations of misconduct, held in December1953, considered rape “. . . not the sort of thing we are concerned with”.104 The officerresponsible for Army prosecutions considered rape a crime in the same category astheft.105 Furthermore, in a letter to the Secretary of State for War in December 1953,General Erskine hoped that an independent inquiry investigating everything from thebeginning of the Emergency would not happen as “. . . the revelation would be shatter-ing”. The letter continued: “There is no doubt that in the early days, i.e. from Oct 1952until last June there was a great deal of indiscriminate shooting by Army and Police. Iam quite certain prisoners were beaten to extract information.”106 This constitutes thefirst official admission that the security forces, including the Army, participated inwidespread murder and torture for an eight-month period during the KenyaEmergency. As there were plans in place beforehand and the military conducted oper-ations during this period, it cannot be argued that any crimes committed by the Armywere one-offs. There is not enough direct evidence to prove a policy of war crimes, butgiven the clear awareness of how certain settlers were evicting people – namely by intim-idation and murder – it is probable that the Army were involved as an informal policy.

Command and control as a problem as well as a solution

The orthodox conception of command and control also requires some modification. Inrelation to civil–military relations, the assumption here is that civil supremacy acts torestrain the use of force and make for a benevolent policy. In Kenya, the police were farfrom innocent of atrocities and more centralized control may have prevented themcommitting more. Indeed, in several other cases, such as Palestine and Malaya, thepolice dominated the security apparatus during the conflicts’ early stages – also theperiod when most atrocities seem to have taken place. In Kenya, where the settlerpopulation exercised considerable influence over the civil administration and police(especially through joining the Kenya Police Reserve), the Army struggled to controlthose elements who should in theory have been restraining the Army. As a matter ofcounterfactual speculation, General Erskine may well have found his disciplinarywrestling match far easier if he had enjoyed the same dictatorial powers as those vestedin Templer in Malaya. In addition, although advocates have stressed how soldiers



remained answerable to the civil courts, in practice commanders and soldiers werenever called to account after putting down insurrections.107

The 1947 Staff College course taught its students that so long as commandersbelieved their action to be right, they should not fear an enquiry into their conduct.108

In order to protect soldiers who had used force, it was usual for the government to passan Act of Indemnity. This was “. . . a statute intended to make transactions legal whichwere illegal when they took place, and to free the individuals concerned from legalliability”.109 Therefore the idea that the military were subject to rigorous civilianoversight and dreaded prosecution is quite misleading.

The emphasis placed upon the regimental system in explaining success and restraintis in contradiction with the existence of other elements in the orthodoxy. If the Armywere so informal in its modus operandi then legalism, civil–military co-operation andpursuing political measures would never have emerged as distinctive patterns. Whilethe argument that the Army disavowed an exhaustive codified doctrine in this period isgenerally valid, long-established traditions within the organizational culture replaceddoctrine functionally. Doctrine is a system of principles that sets parameters for accept-able action; and as for the Army, the traditions taught formally through variousinstitutions and through informal transmission from one generation to the next,soldiers possessed a coherent view of how to respond to insurgency. In this sense, then,the significance of the regimental system is exaggerated in the literature, becauseknowledge could still be passed on informally.

A related question is whether the system was necessarily a good thing, as is ordinar-ily assumed. There is reason to think not; for example, it proved detrimental to all-armsco-operation.110 In Kenya the perils inherent in decentralized command made them-selves abundantly obvious as General Erskine gradually discovered how his orders, forexample banning soldiers from chopping hands off corpses, were often ignored.111 Asalready mentioned, both Malaya and Kenya saw a period of trial and error at thebeginning of each insurgency, including atrocities which were widespread in Kenya andpossibly elsewhere – although the other conflicts require extensive research into theseaspects. Nagl and Mockaitis blame these on failures in command and control.112 Thiswould logically include the very regimental system that they and others later credit withsuch success.

By far the most convincing damage-limitation approach in the secondary literatureshifts the blame away from the Army by pointing the finger at other elements in thecommand system. It is plausible because denying that atrocities took place – ormarginalizing them as exceptions less malign than the enemy’s misdemeanors – simplycannot resist empirical scrutiny, especially regarding Kenya. In this school theargument goes that atrocities were committed – but seldom by the Army. Thesecondary literature on Kenya is littered with references to atrocities carried out by theAfrican militia Home Guard,113 the rapidly-expanded Police (especially the KenyaPolice Reserve),114 and the territorial Kenya Regiment.115 Mockaitis succinctly sums upthis popular view that “most of the excesses seem to have been committed by unitshastily recruited from the local population, white and African, or by inadequatelytrained police recruits thrown into a difficult situation”.116

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In common with distinctions between official and unofficial policies, attempts toplace the blame on other security forces have gone too far. There is certainly value indifferentiating between the divergent social origins, cultural attributes, organizationalstructures and role taskings embodied in the various units. However, an obsession withnarrow typologies only distorts the way in which the security forces, and the conflictitself, should be holistically understood. The orthodoxy as it stands adequately explainsuniqueness, difference and discontinuity. In the interests of a balanced perspective, thisarticle addresses the spheres of connections, similarities and continuities between theArmy and the local forces shouldered with the blame for most atrocities during theEmergency. Fortunately the logical reasoning for adopting such a stance is stronglysupported by the empirical evidence.

Without even considering the moral situation, under British law the soldiers inKenya were simultaneously citizens obliged to prevent felonies if they noticed anytaking place. Indeed, some soldiers did intervene and halt atrocities in the offing. In hisorder issued on 23 June 1953 and repeated on 30 November, General Erskine declaredthis duty.117 Furthermore, we know that British Army units committed atrocities: espe-cially various platoons in the King’s African Rifles. There is an unspoken categorizationat work placing these units into the local forces box, which is inappropriate. AlthoughAfrican Askaris formed the vast majority of the KAR, they were not all raised in Kenya;for example, the 4th KAR came from Uganda, and the 6th KAR and 26th KAR fromTanganyika. Even in the Kenyan battalions, many would have come from areas notaffected by the Emergency.118 Modelled on the British Army battalion, the trainingstaff, permanent senior NCOs and officers were all seconded from the Army. For dis-ciplinary, logistical and operational purposes they fell directly within the British Armychain of command throughout the entire Emergency period. Thus, concluding thatatrocities committed by its members were the work of “local forces” is disingenuous.

Despite their obviously closer affiliation with Kenya than the British and KAR bat-talions, the genuinely local units also bore some similarities. The Kenya Regiment,despite being a territorial unit composed of settlers, was constructed in the Army’simage, trained by NCOs from the Brigade of Guards, and headed by seconded officers.Though depending upon the Kenya Government for logistical support, it still cameunder the regular chain of command for discipline and operations. In addition, theRegiment’s men were increasingly seconded to work with British and KAR battalionsas guides and trackers, and platoon commanders with the KAR.119 While deploring theunit’s reputation for brutality, the Army relied upon its unparalleled local knowledgeand thus perhaps gave its members more leeway than would have otherwise been thecase. The notorious Home Guard were deployed in many joint operations with theArmy, a number of Kenya Regiment men commanded them, and some Britishregiments trained them. The last apparently locally raised force, the Kenya PoliceReserve, included many former policemen from Palestine, Malaya and even Britain. Aswith the Home Guard, the Army went on numerous joint operations with the KPR andliaised with them closely in the intelligence field.120

Even if most atrocities were the work of other security forces, the point stands that inconsidering the campaign’s functionality, the Army was closely associated with theseforces. At the lowest level, not all units performed their legal duty to restrain the local



forces. Up at the high command level, the Army not only failed to control the othersecurity forces but actively benefited from their (mis)behavior. For example, the HomeGuard played a major part in Erskine’s campaign plan, and actually continued itsexpansion in the midst of plausible atrocity allegations being made against it. Thewhole contention that the Army committed no atrocities is in any case flawed, given theKAR’s position and increasing new evidence coming to light which indicates that theBritish battalions may simply have been more adept at concealment and denial.121

Hearts and minds, or the punitive use of force?

There are some qualifications in the secondary literature to the generally optimisticview of winning hearts and minds. Mockaitis admits that many squatters in Malayawere initially physically forced to relocate, the amenities took years to install and severalhundred aborigines died in the process.122 Stubbs points out how the initial responsewas so coercive as to increase popular support for the Malayan Communist Party. Inother words, there was no attempt to win the population over until Templer tookcommand.123 Popplewell also points out the lack of any propaganda campaign inPalestine.124 Early villagization in Kenya suffered from similar problems to Malaya, forexample, with deaths from starvation and disease in the unsanitary settlements. ButMockaitis considers it nonetheless worthwhile because it defeated Mau Mau, and thatis what really matters.125

The hearts and minds elements, however, should always be seen alongside theilliberal collective punishment policy. Mockaitis provides an unconvincing excuse forthe policy:

Suspension of civil liberties is one of the thorniest problems of counterinsurgency,and . . . can only be justified by a successful end to the emergency. In the case ofMalaya . . . the Chinese squatters had not enjoyed such liberties in the first placeand . . . they were subject to “intimidation and fear” at the hands of the Commu-nists.

This returns us to the logic of blaming the enemy for one’s own atrocity behavior.126

Mockaitis argues that the British applied collective punishment because theythought colonial peoples too uncivilized to understand notions of individual responsi-bility. Practised in most campaigns, collective punishment consistently failed toproduce positive results.127 In Kenya, Governor Baring repeatedly used collective pun-ishments such as fines, relocation, or property confiscation, despite opposition inBritain and evidence in Kenya and Malaya that it was counter-productive.128 Anotherelement of collective punishment in Kenya, at least in the early stages, were the massevictions of Kikuyu from areas where an incident had occurred. This soon proved ahighly counter-productive course.129 On the whole, collective punishment, by its verynature thoroughly indiscriminate, stands in contradiction to the minimum forceprinciple.

Regarding social reforms, Percox argues that the intention was to end the Emergencyand then put the development plans into practice afterwards.130 As Percox says, “What

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mattered most was winning – not ‘hearts and minds’”. The Kikuyu only got the stick,while the carrot went to other tribes to buy their non-involvement.131 He argues thatwhile villages introduced some social improvements, their primary purpose was tomake it easier to implement the law – including collective punishments.132 But collec-tive punishment was essentially an Administration policy rather than an Army one.133

Heather argues that hearts and minds was not really implemented in Kenya and did notwork. The government decided that the population could not be won over, and adoptedinstead a punitive approach, with “punitive villages”. It was coercion rather than per-suasion that beat Mau Mau.134 Anderson contributes significantly to the “fear ratherthan persuasion” thesis by arguing that through collective punishment, detentionwithout trial, seizure of property and vastly extending the death penalty, the Emergencyareas effectively became a draconian police state.135

Clearly the COIN literature presents an overly benign view of villagization. As Elkinsamply demonstrates, around 800 Emergency villages were in reality more akin toprison facilities than the ideal habitations the Administration portrayed them as.136

Villagization represented a fundamental reconstruction of Kikuyu society, traditionallybased in dispersed hamlets rather than enclosed, densely populated villages.137

Although successful in isolating insurgents from their supply base, the policy wasconducted with considerably more brutality than in Malaya.138 Some people’s hutswere burned down to instil urgency into the moving, though on what scale thishappened and how deeply the Army was involved remains under-explored.139

Arguably, a substantial explanation for the encouragement of negative enemy stereo-types and mistreatment of non-combatants, or at least indifference towards it, wererelated to the half-hearted attitude within the Army towards its vaunted “winninghearts and minds” strategy. The major political concessions came after militarysuccess, not in tandem with military measures during the conflict, as is supposed tohappen in British counter-insurgencies.140 Popplewell similarly argues that rather thanhearts and minds, the decisions to grant independence were the real reason for successin UK COIN.141 Paget recognized in 1967 that the government won the population’ssupport without offering any political solution. While support for the insurgents isexplained by reference to the “intimidation policy”, it is assumed that people automat-ically reverted to supporting the government when Mau Mau lost the militaryascendancy.142 From the evidence now available, this argument seems implausible andit increasingly appears that as the Mau Mau won support through intimidation, so thegovernment won it back.

The new literature on Kenya presents a strong case for jettisoning the orthodox per-suasion thesis and instead emphasizing how government forces employed fear andintimidation through a range of official and pseudo-policies, from mass evictionsencouraged by murders to forced incarceration in punitive villages. Townshend’s viewmentioned above that the British eschewed exemplary force is now seriously open toquestion, and more research is needed on Army involvement in assisting with largelyadministration-run policies.



CONCLUSION

This article has analysed the four central components of British Army counter-insurgency in the context of its operations in Kenya from 1952 to 1960. First, althoughoperations were conducted within a legal framework deriving from the common lawtradition, the extent of the powers granted to the government under emergency regula-tions seriously compromised the law’s integrity. The regulations resulted in a “shamlegalism” whereby basic rights and international law were easily sidelined. Second,there is no doubt that the related minimum force concept was important in the BritishArmy and widely understood.

In Kenya, however, policies such as Prohibited Areas, collective punishment and“nipping trouble in the bud” plainly contradicted the concept. This is because theconcept was in fact more arbitrary and subjectively interpreted than normally allowedfor. The doctrine allowed for a greater degree of force in the colonies and almost anydegree of force during insurrections. Minimum force did not prevail as often as isclaimed; intimidation of the population, summary executions, torture and unrestrainedviolence were prevalent for at least eight months.

Third, the close relationship with the civil power sometimes encouraged indiscrimi-nate violence rather than restraining the military. This was especially the case in Kenya,where an angry settler population agitated for draconian policies, and organizedvigilante groups. Even official organizations, such as the Kenya Police Reserve, engagedin widespread abuses of the civilian population. The civil authorities failed to rein in thesecurity forces and the justice system was seriously compromised, as Anderson hasrecently shown.143 The regimental system sometimes impeded co-operation anddisrupted General Erskine’s efforts to tighten discipline after June 1953. In relation tothe other security forces, the orthodox view has not acknowledged the similarities withforces such as the KPR, Kenya Regiment and Home Guard, and the very close co-operation in place during many operations. The atrocities conducted by non-Armyforces should be seen as part of the overall campaign which played a critical function inits outcome. For example, the Army often worked from intelligence gathered by theHome Guard using torture.

Finally, in Kenya the population were persuaded to support the government by acombination of increasing military success and violent coercion, rather than by winninghearts and minds. Villagization was largely punitive, painful in practice and a major re-configuration of society against the will of its people. In sum, this article has challengedthe COIN orthodoxy on a number of grounds and calls for a similar questioning of con-ventional understandings in relation to other post-war British counter-insurgencies.

NOTES1 This article was first written for the “Britons at War: New Perspectives” conference held at

the University of Northampton, 21–22 April 2006. Many thanks to Professor I. F. W.Beckett for organizing this conference and to the participants for their helpful remarks. Mythanks also go to Professors Colin McInnes and Martin Alexander for their comments onearlier versions of this article.

158 • HUW BENNETT


2 John Newsinger, “Minimum Force, British Counter-Insurgency and the Mau MauRebellion”, Small Wars and Insurgencies, Vol. 3, No. 1, 1992, p. 50.

3 Charles Townshend, Britain’s Civil Wars: Counterinsurgency in the Twentieth Century,London: Faber and Faber, 1986.

4 Robert Thompson, Defeating Communist Insurgency: Experiences from Malaya and Vietnam,London: Chatto and Windus, 1966, p. 52; G. Bulloch, “The Application of MilitaryDoctrine to Counter Insurgency (COIN) Operations – A British Perspective”, Small Warsand Insurgencies, Vol. 7 No. 2, 1996, p. 166; Keith Jeffery, “Intelligence and Counter-Insurgency Operations: Some Reflections on the British Experience”, Intelligence andNational Security, Vol. 2 No. 1, 1987, p. 119; Frank Kitson, Bunch of Five, London: Faberand Faber, 1987, p. xii; Thomas R. Mockaitis, British Counterinsurgency, 1919–60, NewYork: St. Martin’s Press, 1990, p. 186; John A. Nagl, Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malayaand Vietnam: Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife, London: Praeger, 2002, p. 63; John Pimlott,“The British Army: The Dhofar Campaign, 1970–1975”, in Ian F. W. Beckett and JohnPimlott (eds), Armed Forces and Modern Counter-Insurgency, London: Croom Helm, 1985,p. 20.

5 Townshend, op. cit., p. 19; Mockaitis, British Counterinsurgency, op. cit., p. 18.6 Mockaitis, op. cit., British Counterinsurgency, p. 13.7 Joint Services Command and Staff College Archive (hereafter JSCSC), Army Staff College

syllabus, 1947.8 Ibid.; this point is also made in Townshend, op. cit., p. 19.9 JSCSC, Army Staff College syllabus, 1945.

10 Rod Thornton, “Understanding the Cultural Bias of a Military Organization and its Effecton the Process of Change: A Comparative Analysis of the Reaction of the British and UnitedStates Armies to the Demands of Post-Cold War Peace Support Operations in the Period,1989–1999”, PhD Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2001, p. 128.

11 Ibid., pp. 74, 83, 89.12 Ibid., p. 75.13 Townshend, op. cit., p. 18.14 Thomas R. Mockaitis, “Low-Intensity Conflict: the British Experience”, Conflict Quarterly,

Vol. XIII No. 1, 1993, p. 10. See also Mockaitis, British Counterinsurgency, op. cit., pp. 17–62.15 David A. Charters, “From Palestine to Northern Ireland: British Adaptation to Low-

Intensity Operations”, in David Charters and Maurice Tugwell (eds), Armies inLow-Intensity Conflict: A Comparative Analysis, London: Brassey’s, 1989, p. 194; Pimlott,op. cit., p. 23; Anthony James Joes, Resisting Rebellion: The History and Politics of Counterinsur-gency, Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2004, p. 221; Jeffery, op. cit., p. 119;Richard Popplewell, “Lacking Intelligence: Some Reflections on Recent Approaches toBritish Counter-Insurgency, 1900–1960”, Intelligence and National Security, Vol. 10 No. 2,1995, p. 337.

16 Colin McInnes, Hot War, Cold War: The British Army’s Way in Warfare 1945–95, London:Brassey’s, 1996, p. 117.

17 JSCSC, Army Staff College syllabus, 1947.18 Charters, op. cit., p. 172.19 Mockaitis, British Counterinsurgency, op. cit., pp. 25–27, 54–57.20 JSCSC, Army Staff College syllabus, 1945.21 JSCSC, Army Staff College syllabus, 1948.22 Public Record Office (hereafter PRO), WO 279/391. Booklet Imperial Policing and Duties in

Aid of the Civil Power, War Office Code No. 8439, issued by the Army Council 13 June 1949,superseding Notes on Imperial Policing, 1934, and Duties in Aid of the Civil Power, 1937 (and1945 amendment), p. 5.

23 JSCSC, Army Staff College syllabus, 1947, and also for 1948.24 JSCSC, Army Staff College syllabus, 1945.



25 “Hints on Internal Security”, British Army Review, Vol. 1, 1949, pp. 54–61.26 C. J. Gittings, “The Bertrand Stewart Prize Essay, 1949”, Army Quarterly and Defence

Journal, 1950, pp. 161–177.27 D. A. L. Wade, “A Survey of the Trials of War Criminals”, Journal of the Royal United Services

Institute, Vol. XCVI No. 581, 1951, p. 67.28 JSCSC, Army Staff College syllabus, 1948.29 JSCSC, Army Staff College syllabus, 1947.30 War Office, Manual of Military Law, London: HMSO, 1929, p. 246. The 1958 edition

altered the wording of this paragraph only for clarification’s sake. War Office, Manual ofMilitary Law, Part II, London: HMSO, 1958, p. 1, Section V.

31 Mockaitis, British Counterinsurgency, op. cit., pp. 18, 24.32 T. R. Moreman, The Army in India and the Development of Frontier Warfare, 1849–1947,

Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1998, p. xvii.33 Srinath Raghaven, “Protecting the Raj: The Army in India and Internal Security,

c. 1919–39”, Small Wars and Insurgencies, Vol. 16 No. 3, 2005, p. 260.34 Mockaitis, British Counterinsurgency, op. cit., p. 24.35 Ibid., p. 25.36 Ibid., p. 18.37 Ibid., p. 27.38 McInnes, op. cit., pp. 117, 125; Jeffery, op. cit., p. 119; Kitson, op. cit., p. 300.39 Pimlott, op. cit., p. 21; Joes, op. cit., p. 222.40 Charters, op. cit., pp. 196–197.41 Townshend, op. cit., pp. 26–27.42 Tim Jones, “The British Army and Counter-Guerrilla Warfare in Transition, 1944–1952”,

Small Wars and Insurgencies, Vol. 7 No. 3, 1996, p. 270.43 Mockaitis, Low-Intensity Conflict, op. cit., p. 8.44 Popplewell, “Lacking Intelligence”, op. cit., pp. 341, 346.45 Townshend, op. cit., p. 19.46 JSCSC, Army Staff College syllabus, 1947.47 Raghaven, op. cit., pp. 259–260.48 Charters, op. cit., p. 178; Beckett and Pimlott, “Introduction”, op. cit., p. 6; Mockaitis,

“Low-Intensity Conflict”, op. cit., p. 11.49 Pimlott, The British Army, op. cit., p. 19; Townshend, op. cit., p. 19; Jeffery, op. cit., p. 118.50 Charters, op. cit., p. 223.51 Susan L. Carruthers, Winning Hearts and Minds: British Governments, the Media and Colonial

Counter-insurgency, 1944–1960, London: Leicester University Press, 1995.52 Mockaitis, British Counterinsurgency, op. cit., p. 186; Frank Kitson, Low Intensity Operations:

Subversion, Insurgency, Peace-keeping, Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1971, p. 31.53 Charters, op. cit., p. 195.54 Kitson, Low Intensity Operations, op. cit., p. 50.55 Joes, op. cit., p. 222.56 Pimlott, The British Army, op. cit., pp. 21–22.57 McInnes, op. cit., p. 123.58 Nagl, op. cit., p. 75.59 Kitson, Bunch of Five, op. cit., p. 58.60 Malcolm Page, A History of the King’s African Rifles and East African Forces, London: Leo

Cooper, 1998, p. 204.61 David Throup, “Crime, Politics and the Police in Colonial Kenya, 1939–63”, in David M.

Anderson and David Killingray (eds) Policing and Decolonisation: Politics, Nationalism and thePolice, 1917–65, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992, p. 148.

62 Wunyabari Maloba, Mau Mau and Kenya: An Analysis of a Peasant Revolt, Bloomington:Indiana University Press, 1993, pp. 17, 90.

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63 Randall W. Heather, “Intelligence and Counter-Insurgency in Kenya, 1952–56”, Intelligenceand National Security, Vol. 5 No. 3, 1990, p. 76.

64 Pimlott, The British Army, op. cit., p. 16.65 Charters, op. cit., p. 172.66 Fred Majdalany, State of Emergency: The Full Story of Mau Mau, Boston: Houghton Mifflin,

1963, p. 117.67 Bruce Berman, Control and Crisis in Colonial Kenya. The Dialectic of Domination, London:

James Currey, 1990, p. 353.68 Kitson, Low Intensity Operations, op. cit., p. 49; Thompson, op. cit., p. 52; Mockaitis, British

Counterinsurgency, op. cit., p. 13.69 H. Virginia Blakeslee, Beyond the Kikuyu Curtain, Chicago: Moody Press, 1956, p. 255.70 Peter Evans, Law and Disorder, or Scenes of Life in Kenya, London: Secker and Warburg,

1956.71 Mark Curtis, Web of Deceit. Britain’s Real Role in the World, London: Vintage, 2003.72 Caroline Elkins, Britain’s Gulag. The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya, London: Jonathan Cape,

2005, p. xiv.73 John Newsinger, “Revolt and Repression in Kenya: the ‘Mau Mau’ rebellion, 1952–1960”,

Science and Society, Vol. 45 No. 2, 1981, p. 159; David Anderson, Histories of the Hanged.Britain’s Dirty War in Kenya and the End of Empire, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2005,pp. 9–54 on the factions in the civil war.

74 John Newsinger, British Counterinsurgency: From Palestine to Northern Ireland, Basingstoke:Palgrave, 2002, p. 80.

75 John Newsinger, “English Atrocities”, New Left Review, 32, 2005, p. 156.76 Newsinger, British Counterinsurgency, op. cit., p. 78; for example, Edgerton claims “a calcu-

lated settler policy of brutality and murder” without offering supporting evidence, see,Robert Edgerton, Mau Mau: An African Crucible, London: Collier Macmillan, 1989, p. 142.

77 Newsinger, Revolt and Repression, op. cit., p. 171.78 Newsinger, British Counterinsurgency, op. cit., p. 77.79 Thomas R. Mockaitis, “Minimum Force, British Counter-Insurgency and the Mau Mau

Rebellion: A Reply”, Small Wars and Insurgencies, Vol. 3 No. 1, 1992, pp. 87–89.80 For an analysis of disciplinary breakdowns in Kenya see Huw Bennett, “The British Army

and Controlling Barbarisation During the Kenya Emergency”, in George Kassimeris (ed.),The Warrior’s Dishonour: Barbarity and Morality in Modern Warfare, London: Ashgate, 2006;David Anderson, Huw Bennett and Daniel Branch, “Covering up a Colonial Atrocity: theBritish Army and the Chuka Massacre, Kenya 1953”, History Workshop Journal, forthcom-ing 2007.

81 Michael Burleigh, The Third Reich. A New History, London: Pan Books, 2001, pp. 294–298.82 A. W. Brian Simpson, Human Rights and the End of Empire. Britain and the Genesis of the

European Convention, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001, pp. 78, 84.83 Susan Carruthers, “Being Beastly to the Mau Mau”, Twentieth Century British History,

Vol. 16 No. 4, 2005, p. 494.84 Mockaitis, “A Reply”, op. cit., p. 88.85 PRO WO 32/21720: McLean Court of Inquiry proceedings, p. 315 (Lt.-Col. D. H. Nott,

4th KAR). On the government propaganda campaign see Carruthers, Winning Hearts andMinds, op. cit., pp. 128–193.

86 War Office, Manual Part II, 1958, Section V, p. 10.87 War Office, Imperial Policing and Duties in Aid of the Civil Power, op. cit., p. 5.88 Mockaitis, British Counterinsurgency, op. cit., p. 26.89 PRO LCO 2/4309. Letter from Trafford Smith, Colonial Office to C. G. Kemball, Foreign

Office, 25 June 1949.90 War Office, Imperial Policing and Duties in Aid of the Civil Power, op. cit., p. 35.91 JSCSC, Army Staff College syllabus, 1947. “Commander” denotes anyone in command of

other soldiers, potentially anyone from a Field Marshal to a Lance-Corporal.



92 JSCSC, Army Staff College syllabus, 1947.93 Nagl, Counterinsurgency Lessons, op. cit., p 68.94 Frank Kitson, Gangs and Counter-gangs, London: Barrie and Rockliff, 1960, p. 46.95 Mockaitis, British Counterinsurgency, op. cit., p. 37.96 Ibid., p. 43.97 Ibid., p. 44; Newsinger, British Counterinsurgency, op. cit., p. 1; Newsinger, English Atrocities,

op. cit., p. 158.98 Anthony Clayton and David Killingray, Khaki and Blue: Military and Police in British Colonial

Africa, Athens, OH: Ohio University Center for International Studies, 1989, p. 239–242.99 Anthony Clayton, Counter-Insurgency in Kenya. A Study of Military Operations Against Mau

Mau, Nairobi: Transafrica Publishers, 1976, p. 40.100 According to a statement made by Colonial Secretary Oliver Lyttelton to the Commons. See

Edgerton, Mau Mau: An African Crucible, op. cit., p. 159.101 Edgerton, Mau Mau: An African Crucible, op. cit., p. 76; Frank Furedi, The Mau Mau War in

Perspective, London: James Currey, 1989, pp. 116, 119.102 David A. Percox, “British Counter-Insurgency in Kenya, 1952–56: Extension of Internal

Security Policy or Prelude to Decolonisation?”, Small Wars and Insurgencies, Vol. 9 No. 3,1998, p. 69.

103 Furedi, Mau Mau War in Perspective, op. cit., p. 8; Berman, Control and Crisis, op. cit., p. 349.104 PRO WO 32/21720: McLean Court of Inquiry Proceedings, p. 316.105 PRO WO 32/21720: McLean Court of Inquiry Proceedings, p. 350 (Major C. J. Dawson,

DAPM).106 PRO WO 32/15834: Letter from Erskine to Secretary of State for War, 10 December 1953.107 Simpson, op. cit., p. 61.108 JSCSC, Army Staff College syllabus, 1947.109 JSCSC, Army Staff College syllabus, 1949.110 David French, Military Identities. The Regimental System, the British Army, and the British

people, c. 1870–2000, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, p. 3.111 See Bennett, “British Army and Controlling Barbarisation”, op. cit.112 Nagl, Counterinsurgency Lessons, op. cit., p. 68; Mockaitis, “Low-Intensity Conflict”, op. cit.,

p. 14.113 For example, Berman, Control and Crisis, op. cit., p. 358; Anderson, Histories of the Hanged,

op. cit., p. 255; Heather, Intelligence and Counter-Insurgency, op. cit., p. 79; Elkins, Britain’sGulag, op. cit., p. 244.

114 For example, Berman, Control and Crisis, op. cit., p. 357; Edgerton, Mau Mau, op. cit., p. 155;Clayton, Counter-Insurgency in Kenya, op. cit., p. 45.

115 For example, Edgerton, Mau Mau, op. cit., pp. 155–156; Elkins, Britain’s Gulag, op. cit.,p. 253; Evans, op. cit., p. 205.

116 Mockaitis, British Counterinsurgency, op. cit., p. 50; Maloba, Mau Mau and Kenya, op. cit.,p. 93; Charles Douglas-Home, Evelyn Baring: The Last Proconsul, London: Collins, 1978,p. 250; Clayton, Counter-Insurgency in Kenya, op. cit., p. 37; McInnes, Hot War, Cold War,op. cit., p. 133.

117 PRO WO 32/21721: Exhibit 5, “Message to be Distributed to all Officers of the Army, Policeand the Security Forces”, GHQ Nairobi, 23 June 1953; PRO WO 32/21721: Exhibit 6:“Message to be Distributed to all Members of the Army, Police and the Security Forces”,GHQ, 30 November 1953

118 See the excellent social history of the KAR by Timothy H. Parsons, The African Rank-and-file. Social Implications of Colonial Military Service in the King’s African Rifles, 1902–1964,Oxford: James Currey, 1999.

119 On the Kenya Regiment see Len Weaver, “The Kenya Regiment”, in Malcolm Page (ed.),A History of the King’s African Rifles and East African Forces, London: Leo Cooper 1998,pp. 239–249; Guy Campbell, The Charging Buffalo. A History of the Kenya Regiment, London:Leo Cooper, 1986.

162 • HUW BENNETT


120 Heather, Intelligence and Counter-Insurgency, op. cit., pp. 67–68; Clayton, Counter-Insurgencyin Kenya, op. cit., p. 45.

121 See Anderson, Bennett and Branch, “Covering up a Colonial Atrocity”, op. cit.122 Mockaitis, British Counterinsurgency, op. cit., pp. 115–119.123 Richard Stubbs, Hearts and Minds in Guerrilla Warfare: The Malayan Emergency 1948–1960,

Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989; Kumar Ramakrishna, Emergency Propaganda: TheWinning of Malayan Hearts and Minds 1948–1958, Richmond: Curzon Press, 2002.

124 Popplewell, “Lacking Intelligence”, op. cit., p. 347.125 Mockaitis, British Counterinsurgency, op. cit., p. 130.126 Ibid., p. 122.127 Mockaitis, “Low-Intensity Conflict”, op. cit., p. 13.128 Percox, “British COIN in Kenya”, op. cit., p. 64.129 Ibid., p. 69.130 Ibid., p. 64.131 Ibid., p. 83, emphasis in the original.132 Ibid., p. 85.133 Anderson, Histories of the Hanged, op. cit., p. 46.134 Randall W. Heather, “Of Men and Plans: the Kenya Campaign as Part of the British Coun-

terinsurgency Experience”, Conflict Quarterly, Vol. XIII No. 1, 1993, p. 21.135 Anderson, Histories of the Hanged, op. cit., p. 5.136 Elkins, Britain’s Gulag, op. cit., especially pp. 244–253.137 Bruce Berman and John Lonsdale, Unhappy Valley: Conflict in Kenya and Africa. Book Two:

Violence and Ethnicity, London: James Currey, 1992, p. 254.138 Newsinger, “Minimum Force”, op. cit., p. 49.139 Percox, “British COIN”, op. cit., p. 85; Clayton, “Counter-Insurgency in Kenya”, op. cit.,

p. 13.140 Ibid., p. 65.141 Popplewell, “Lacking Intelligence”, op. cit., p. 351.142 Julian Paget, Counter-insurgency Campaigning, London: Faber and Faber, 1967, p. 111.143 Anderson, Histories of the Hanged, op. cit., p. 7.



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