In the late Nineteenth Century Bakonga was not a popular point of departure for explorers. "The horror of the place" said Burton, "is that is simply to hard to find". Bakonga`s problem was that it lay on a fold in the map and - thus anyone who tried to find it usually ended up in The Congo or somewhere equally fetid. Not that Bakonga was not-worth exploring; Captain Fitzjohn Darcy-Carruthers' expedition of 1867 was wiped out by enraged Katangani tribesmen whipped up by hashish peddling Zanzibaris. The good Captain survived and only partly deranged went on to write "Amid Spears and Bullets in Cannibal Country" which totally failed to create any interest in Britain. Meanwhile, the Franco-Prussian war had led to the end of the military career of Rudolf von Zobel, a minor Prussian aristocrat cashiered for accidently shooting Bismarck's nephew in the buttock. Rudolf, a crack pistol shot (when he wanted to be) and a charming gambler, took to the casinos of Monte Carlo and won a fortune at baccarat. Then, accompanied by his youngest brother's scottish governess, Charity McTavish, he headed for Africa to carve his way into history. He recruited a band of Askari on the Niger and disappered into Bakonga. His colleague was George "Colonel" Sanders, an ex Confederate officer; ideas of an African kingdom foundered as the pair and their askari became little more than mercenaries in various tribal feuds. By the 1880s, however, they had a string of trading posts in Brass, Upper Brass,Bakonga and the dangerously exposed Katanga. Wars with King Boko of Goom Bay and the ferocuois Katanganis were followed by running border wars with Zanzibaris intent on regaining the prestige of their Sultan. By the early 1900s Bakonga had pretty much taken shape and was in fact recognised by treaties with the Congo Free State, Bolivia and (for a while at least) the Boer Republics. This period of stability ended in 1914 with the arrival of a detachment of Kriegsmarine troops who took over the country in the name of the Kaiser. Rudolf's son, Cameron von Zobel led a bush war until a force of Royal Marines and French Dahomeian tirailleurs expelled the Germans. Thus post 1918, Bakonga was governed jointly by the British and French until Independance in 1965. The rest, as they say, is history ........or Gauntlet no.10. The White Man`s Options Once each quarter, you may try to do one thing with each of your trading posts: 1 Try to negotiate a treaty. You actually need to succeed at this before you can set up a post, move a whiteman into an area and roll below his PLUCK. if he makes a fail, he has to fight his way out. On a critical fail he simply does not get the chance ... 2 Seek out and attack slavers. Move a force to an area and roll against the current slavery rating for the area. If you roll less than the rating on 1 x d6, you find a slave train; if you defeat them, reduce the area/'s slavery rating by one. Once it it 0 it is eradicated. Attacks against slavers add 1 to your prestige but a war result on the next random events mean that those hashish crazed Zanzibari raid you in retaliation. 3 Indulge in trade with the natives; you may use brutal and blatantly unfair means which adds +1 to the roll; an initial result of 1, however, means that you have been found out by the liberal crusading press and lose 1x d6 prestige. The Trading Roll: 1 - Lose 1 prestige point (no profit in nut oil this year). 2,3 - No profit, no loss 4,5 - Gain 1 prestige point (Ivory brushes are de rigeur) 6 - Gain 2 prestige points (the natives unearth some gold and you pay them absolute beans for it). Prestige Points reflect your relative wealth as a trader and also your credibility as a force for the moral welfare of the benighted heathen. Of course you are in it for the moral welfare of the poor savage. Aren't you? Heroic Gentlemen One And All Each half year roll to see what desperate blaggards join your band of heroic crusaders. Or vice versa. 1 - A cashiered British Officer 2 - A disgraced Belgian Civil Servant 3 - A renegade Zanzibari ex slaver and 4 Ruga Ruga 4 - An ex British Oficer and 4 Swahili riflemen 5 - A French adventurer and 4 Senagaiii askari 6 - A detachment of 8 Royal Marines or Bluejackets and . . .an officer, solely for the purpose of an anti slavery mission There is a modifier of -1 if you were involved in ANY scandal last year. With men like these I could conquer, well there must be somewhere . . . Each of you likely volunteers has his own character. First roll for his PLUCK - 2 x AvD will be fine. Then roll 1 x D6 for his nature to be revealed: 1 Uh oh. Roll 1 x d6 : 1,2,3 - Spineless wretch. Will desert on a 4,5,6 - check each half year 2 Utter Rogue. Will always use underhand and brutal means when trading. Scandal ahoy. 3 Brutal to the natives. Not unfair just brutal; doubles the number of prestige points gained but has to roll 1,2,3,4 to avoid a rising in the aftermath. 4 Muscular Christian, never trade underhand, scrupulously fair. Always tries to find slavers in addition to any other task. A man of iron who never succumbs to fever. 5 Adored by the Askari. Has a bonus of +3 to pluck when leading Askari or native troops 6 'The Lion of the Savannah !' Not only a leader of Askari, but to them, as brave as a lion. Has a bonus of +2 in melee. Some of your recruits are more likely to he heroes or not, given their past. Disgraced or cashiered types have a -1 to this roll but the ex officer or adventurer have +1. Recruiting 1 point buys 4 musket armed askari 3 points buy 4 heavily armed askari 7 points buy you a european soldier (deserter, runaway legionaire) who is armed with a modern rifle Random Events Roll 1 x d6 per quarter to see what happens: 1,2 - No events 3,4,5 - 1 event 6 - 2 events Another 1 xd6: 1 - Treaty with a Native Kingdom. Select a kingdom at random and sign a one sided treaty with them. If you already have a traety with them, they sign over their lands. 2 - A British, French or German party appear at a kingdom. Roll each year to see what happens to them: 1, Murdered; 2, 3 they go home; 4,5 they sign a treaty; 6 they take over. 3 - Slavers. A band of slavers appear at random ; if you fight and destroy them you gain prestige in Europe. 4 - Fever. Any of your Europeans in a random area have to roll 4,5,6 to avoid succumbing to fever. 5 - Tribal War. A power struggle breaks out in a kingdom. Back the winning side and the winners will sign a treaty with you. 6 - War with the natives. A Native Kingdom attacks you or tension leads to bush war. if you win, you take over their land. If you have already conquered the area selected, treat a as revolt. Note. Each Kingdom has a couple of areas; once you take over a kingdom, you take all the areas. A Treaty enables you to set up a trading post (See trade over page). Once you have taken a Kingdom, you may try and exploit it, which means you need a post in one area of the kingdom; from which you may exploit the rest of the kingdom. Back to The Gauntlet No. 17 Table of Contents Back to The Gauntlet List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 1999 by Craig Martelle Publications This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com