The Battle Honour SOUTH AFRICA 1835,’46-47 is emblazoned on the Regimental Colours of The Royal Irish Regiment. There are in fact two distinctions represented; the first for actions during the Sixth Xhosa War in 1835 and the second for actions during the Seventh Xhosa War during the period 1846-7. The Xhosa Wars, also called the ‘Cape Frontier Wars’ or ‘Kaffir Wars’, was a series of nine wars between 1779 and 1879, fought between the Xhosa people and the European settlers in what is today the Eastern Cape (province) of South Africa. However, it was not until 1 September 1882 that permission was given to The Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers to bear the distinction on its Colours and appointments.
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SOUTH AFRICA 1835

In the early part of 1835, there had been a general rising of the Xhosa peoples against the European settlers in southern Africa. This had followed a retaliatory raid to curb Xhosa cattle raiding that had resulted in the killing of a high ranking Xhosa chief. The settlers had retreated to the shelter of Grahamstown in the east of Cape Colony across the great Fish River. At that time, the garrison of the Cape Colony had been reduced to what proved to be an inadequate level with only three weak battalions of line infantry, (the 72nd (Seaforths), the 75th (Gordons), and the 98th (North Staffords)), one company of artillery, and the Cape Mounted Rifles. The 98th had been left to garrison Cape Town and the Governor moved the 72nd to Grahamstown, which was being held by a force from the 75th. A laager was constructed round Port Elizabeth, where the inhabitants formed into battalions of irregulars, and placed under the command of regular officers. A similar arrangement was adopted at Grahamstown.

The 27th (Inniskillings), commanded by Lieutenant Colonel John Hare, departed Cork, Ireland in May 1835 for the Cape of Good Hope and arrived at Cape Town on 18 August 1835. From there it proceeded to Algoa Bay and the nearest port to Grahamstown in the east of Cape Colony. When it arrived in Grahamstown, the Inniskillings organized four companies into detachments to man blockhouses along the frontier on the Fish River, while maintaining a reserve in Grahamstown. As the situation was comparatively quiet, Battalion Headquarters, accompanied by the grenadier and light companies, returned to Cape Town. It would be 12 April 1837 before the companies were able to rejoin the Battalion in Cape Town where, on 24 May 1837, the Inniskillings were presented with new Colours.
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SOUTH AFRICA 1846-47

The Seventh Xhosa War in the Eastern Province began in March 1846 and was referred to as the ‘War of the Axe’. It followed a retaliatory raid against the Xhosa clan who had attacked the escort to a prisoner on his way to trial in Grahamstown for the theft of an axe. The incident illustrated the struggle by the Colony to impose British common law on the Xhosa chieftains and have them submit to colonial dominance and governance, especially as colonial officials in the ‘Axe’ incident had refused an Xhosa invitation to parley. The District Lieutenant Governor, Colonel John Hare, the former commanding officer of the Inniskillings, had been having difficulties with the clan’s raiding and cattle rustling and especially with its belligerent clan chief Sandile. The Xhosa viewed the punishment (for the latter activity) of dispossession as attacking their nation’s pride and prowess and also saw their traditional religions and customs being eroded by settler missionaries. Realizing that another war was imminent, Hare had requested reinforcements from Cape Town. He also launched a 1,500 strong expedition, including the 27th (Inniskillings), against Sandile whose harassing yet evasive warriors defeated the force and captured much of its transport and supplies. An emboldened Sandile then launched rampaging attacks into the Eastern Province against the local settlers.

By June 1846, the reinforcements arriving into the Colony boosted the available Infantry strength to some 2,000 in addition to mounted cavalry and rifles, artillery and engineers. Included was the 27th (Inniskillings) with a total strength of 416, and a detachment of 20 men held in Cape Town. The total force available grew to some 14,000 and by August, Hare resumed his campaign during what was an exceptional period of drought. He crossed the Fish River and proceeded some 40 miles north east to envelop Sandile in the Amathole Mountains. Sandile evaded battle and his forces slipped away. Although the expedition failed to bring Sandile to submission it did contribute to a territorial extension of the Eastern Province as far east as the Krei River. Several months after Lieutenant Colonel Johnston and Major Charlton Smith (of the Inniskillings) undertook a dangerous mission to Sandile’s kraal to advise him that the British had annexed this territory, he signed a treaty.

However, the treaty lasted only until March 1847 and another expeditionary force was launched in August. Although it failed to bring the Xhosa to battle it again advanced the border eastwards and dominated a new territory, at that time known as ‘Kaffraria’. An Inniskilling officer, Captain Maclean, found himself administering a district with the powers of civil commissioner and resident magistrate, living in Fort Wellington, a newly-established post on the Tschlumna River.

Life for the Inniskilling soldiers throughout these years was captured in a description of the men in a camp near Block Drift, on the Chunie River, in November 1846.

‘His grim visage, now shadowed by moustache and beard, weather-beaten by rain and wind, by sun and dew, had assumed the appearance and apparently the consistence of old and well-seasoned oak. The once bright scarlet of Britain’s blood-red garb was sadly sobered down to a dark and dingy maroon, whilst the nether garments, well patched and strapped with leather, bore evidence to the hard service they had undergone, and showed but few signs of the material of which they had been originally fashioned.‘