Henry Morton Stanley probably belonged to the 1990s rather than the Victorian era. As a journalist and explorer, he had the self-belief, drive, and thirst for publicity more easily recognised in a modern celebrity. His childhood in a Welsh orphanage and subsequent emigration to the United States tell us a great deal about his personality, but we are not here to physco-analyse the man, merely to briefly summarise his adventures and how we can translate some of them into adventures of the table-top variety.

We will be focussing on the 1874-77 trip (that's right three years!) across Africa. Stanley first rose to prominence after his 1871 discovery of Livingstone at Ujiji. The expedition that gave rise to one of the most well worn quotes in history started in the mind of New York Herald editor, James Gordon Bennet. Bennet asked Stanley, a reporter who had earlier covered the Ashanti and Abyssinian wars, to attend the opening of the Suez Canal, visit other places in the east and then, as an afterthought, find Livingstone. This adventure is recounted in Stanley's How I Found Livingstone. This trip is not the subject of this piece, but it did highlight Stanley's modus operandi for later expeditions i.e. meticulously planned and well equipped.

His last famous trip is his 1887-89 Emin Pasha relief expedition. Emin, the Khedive's Governor of Equatoria, was believed to be lost or being attacked by Mahidists. This, the last and most controversial of Stanley's great trips in Africa, is recounted in In Darkest Africa.

Sandwiched between these were years of work in the Belgian Free State over the period 1979-84 (see Pakenham's The Great Scramble for an excellent account of this deception practiced by Leopold of Belgium) and an epic trip across Africa over 1874-77. This is the trip that we will be studying further.

Brief Background

The objective of the expedition was threefold:

• to circumnavigate Lake Victoria and establish whether it was a lake (and thereby verify Speke's opinion);
• circumnavigate Lake Tanganyika; and
• travel the course of Livingstone's Lualaba River to determine if it joined the Congo and then follow its course.

What Stanley actually accomplished is still hard to believe. He basically explored East/Central Africa's Great Lakes in one half of the trip and then followed the course of the Congo to the Atlantic in the other half. The crossing of the continent took 999 days in all.

As stated above, Stanley took great pains to thoroughly plan his African expeditions. The party at the outset consisted of:

• three other Europeans: the Pocock brothers and Fred Barker who were all skilled boatmen (none of whom survived);
• there were 356 people in total, including 224 porters and 46 women and children;
• there were around 70 effective fighting men, armed with Sniders plus the four Europeans;
• six riding asses, a couple of which survived until 75% of the trip was complete;
• a 48 foot boat named the Lady Alice, which had been made in England. It was carried by 20 men and crewed by 11 ; and
• eight tonnes of stores were needed (remember they had to pay for food for three years, plus ammunition and goods for hongo or tribute).

Some ideas for scenarios, plus other tidbits, can be gleaned from volumes one and two of Through the Dark Continent, which you can get from Barnes and Noble for US$11.95 each.

The Fight with the Wanyaturu - January 24, 1875

After the theft of some milk by some of Stanley's men and the subsequent murder of one and wounding of another in retribution, a tribe known as the Wanyaturu attacked Stanley's force. It is worth noting that the expedition had already lost 20 dead and 89 deserters by this time, only two months into the trip. There were still around 70 effective fighting men available. Stanley was lodged in a small village and after seeing the approach of a large force, dispatched a couple of men to try to parley with the offended locals. He thought this had worked when another group attacked.

The Wanyaturu had advanced to 30 yards of the village, but Stanley had kept his men well in hand. After the first volley of arrows, Stanley's men rushed outside and the Wanyaturu retreated. Meanwhile Frank Pocock and 60 men were engaged with axes in building a stockade and marksmen's nests. The ground surrounding the village for 200 yards was cleared.

The next day the Wanyaturu re-appeared in greater strength. Stanley, aware that they could not stay in the area for long with their food supplies dwindling, decided to take the offensive against groups of Wanyaturu advancing against their position.

What happened next is curious. Stanley, after driving their opponents away, decided to split his force. Four detachments of ten were instructed to proceed in skirmishing order in different directions through the hostile country, and to drive the inhabitants out wherever they find them lodged to a distance of five miles east and north. The groups were to converge on a rocky outcrop.

Two further detachments of ten were then held in reserve and a further ten left in defense of the village.

The best way to describe the outcome of the decision is to quote Stanley verbatim:

"The left detachment under chief Farjalla Christie, were soon thrown into disordered, and were killed to a man except the messenger who brought us the news, imploring for the reserve, as the enemy were now concentrated on the second detachment. Manwa Sera was therefore despatched with fifteen men, and arrived at the scene only in time to save eight of the second detachment. The third plunged boldly on, but lost six of its number; the fourth, under chief Safeni behaved prudently and well, and as fast as each enclosed village was taken, set it on fire. But ten other men despatched to the scene retrieved what the third had lost, and strengthened Safeni."

The survivors returned around 4pm with much-needed grain, goats and oxen. 21 'soldiers' and one messenger were killed in the day's fighting, and three wounded. The Wanyaturu returned the next day, but were driven off by volley fire. The expedition was able to leave the day after.

What are we to make of this whole episode? Stanley himself did not wish to dwell on the matter of the causalities, spending as many words as I have above in describing their losses. 21 out of 70 fighting men lost in one day in a trip that lasted nearly three years (therefore without the possibility of replenishing fighting men) was surely a huge loss. The amount of time that Stanley spends in two volumes on incidents minor in comparison must leave one wondering about his desire to gloss over these losses a little.

It would appear to the writer that Stanley realised that he had made a huge error in splitting his force into such small groups. He says as much himself in describing the next day's fighting: "but upon the return of the Wangwana [his soldiers], instead of dividing them into detachments I instructed them to proceed in a compact body".

He could not have known the numbers of natives he was actually fighting and he appeared to leave command of the detachments to natives. Where were the four Europeans? Basically it was a disaster waiting to happen.

But what can we do with this small skirmish? The most obvious place to start is to use it as a participation game. It has the ideal structure for a PG:

• Several small groups of Wangwana with differing objectives (or more accurately, differing directions to move toward);
• A central figure (i.e. Stanley) who may be played by the umpire and may assist or confuse accordingly;
• The facts can be changed slightly to place the three British lads in charge of three groups: remember none of them were soldiers;
• Groups of natives can be placed at locations known only to the umpire to surprise the Wangwana detachments;
• The reserve Wangwana detachments can be activated by use of cards among other random events; and
• Give each detachment an objective (a village to seize or supplies to steal) with a points system determining the winner. These are only meant as a few suggestions, not a complete scenario. I am sure that someone else could do that better than me.

The above fight with the Wanyaturu was the main incident of interest in the first half of the trip. Other skirmishes took place whilst exploring the Great Lakes, especially in concert with the Bugandan king, Mtesa. The second half provided Stanley with considerably more opportunities to test his mettle. We will cover this section next time.

As an aside, I had intended to include an incident that Stanley reveals on p78-82 of Volume 2 of Through the Dark Continent. Stanley had pushed through to the Lualaba and met the famous Arab slaver Tippu Tib at Nyangwe. There, whilst discussing the route ahead, Stanley was introduced to a follower of Tippu's called Abed ibn Jumah. Now, Abed had been further along the Congo than any of the Arabs and he told Stanley an interesting tale.

Abed had been on a journey to the north in a party of over 300 Arabs and their askaris in search for ivory. They had been attacked by numerous tribes and had reached the land of the Wakuna. There they met, among the Wakuna, some 'dwarves' (Stanley persists in calling them dwarfs throughout his book!). After some initially friendly contact, relations soured (of course, Abed states that the pygmies started it) and the Arabs were in serious trouble.

The long and the short of this tale is a fascinating series of skirmishes between the pygmies and the Arabs. We won't go into detail here about it, as Chris Peers in Wargames Illustrated 135 (December) includes an excellent discussion on this topic. He quite rightly states that Darkest Africa does not come much darker than this pygmies versus Arab slavers and ivory-traders in a vast central African rainforest.

NEXT TIME STANLEY BATTLES CANNIBALS ALONG THE CONGO!