The military of the Asante Empire first came into formation around the 17th century AD in response to subjugation by the Denkyira Kingdom. It served as the main armed forces of the empire until it was dissolved when the Asante became a British crown colony in 1901.’The Location of Administrative Capitals in Ashanti, Ghana, 1896-1911’ by R. B. Bening in The International Journal of African Historical Studies, Vol. 12, No. 2 (1979) pg. 210 In 1701, King Osei Kofi Tutu I won Asante independence from Denkyira at the Battle of Feyiase and carried out an expansionist policy.History of the Ashanti Empire.
The Asante army prior to the 18th century used predominantly bows with poisoned arrows, swords, spears and javelins. King Osei Tutu I instituted reforms in the army such as the adoption of military tactics used by other Akan kingdoms. Through trade with Europeans at the coast, the Asante acquired firearms and artillery. By the 19th century, the army was primarily equipped with muskets and rifles. Transportation across water bodies was achieved through the use of canoes. The army was also accompanied by carpenters and blacksmiths. Cavalry was not adopted alongside the Asante infantry. In order to mobilize personnel for the army, volunteers and contingents from tributaries were supplemented with a core of professional soldiers. The Asante developed various tactics such as encirclement and pincer movement.
History The Asante originally centered on clans which were headed by a paramount chief or Amanhene. The clans did not have a standing and organized army that operated on a centralized chain of command. The Asante clans became tributaries of another Akan state, Denkyira who exerted influence over much of the region. In the mid-17th century the Oyoko, an Asante clan led by Chief Nana Oti Akenten, is believed to have been the first to have achieved military unification among the clans.
War of Independence In the 1670s the head of the Oyoko clan and successor to Nana Akenten, Osei Kofi Tutu I, began another rapid consolidation of Akan clans. He sought cooperation via diplomacy and warfare.Kevin Shillington, History of Africa, New York: St. Martin's, 1995 (1989), p. 194. Osei Tutu I and his chief advisor, Okomfo Anokye led a coalition of Asante city-states against Denkyira. The coalition defeated Denkyira at the Battle of Feyiase in 1701 which marked the rise of the Asante state.
Reforms under Osei Tutu I Osei Tutu centralized the loose confederation of Akan states in order to organize and professionalize the military. He also expanded the powers of the Judiciary system within the Centralized government. Eventually, the loose confederation of small city-states unified as a kingdom and grew into an empire. Newly conquered areas had the option to either join the Asante Empire or become tributary states.Gilbert, Erik Africa in World History: From Prehistory to the Present 2004
Osei Tutu placed strong emphasis on the military organization of the Akan Union states prior to the war with Denkyira. He adopted the military organization of Asante allies, Akwamu, and honed the Union army into an effective fighting unit. Osei Tutu improved the battle strategy of the union army through the introduction of the pincer formation whereby soldiers attacked from the left, right and rear. This formation was later adopted by several other kingdoms in the Gold Coast. The Asante military declined in 1901 after the empire was defeated by the British following the War of the Golden Stool.
Organization
The Asantehene was the commander-in-chief of the Asante military. A war-tax was paid by all Asante citizens over the age of 18 to cover the expenses of warfare. The army of the Asante Empire was organized into 6 parts. Each had various sub divisions. The organization of the Asante army was based on local Akan military systems such as the organization of the Akwamu army. The six parts of the Asante army were:
Scouts () Advance guard () Main body () Personal bodyguard () Rear-guard () Two wings-left () and right (). Each wing having two formations: right and right-half (), left and left-half ()
In battle, the army used advanced guard, main body, rear guard and right and left wings on the move. This organization enabled the Asante generals to maneuver their forces with flexibility. Reconnaissance and pursuit operations were carried out by the scouts. The scouts were made up of professional hunters who used their skill of marksmanship to snipe at advancing enemy forces in response to detection by the enemy. This was executed often from a perch high in trees. In order to draw the enemy's force and compel them to reveal their positions in the jungle foliage, the scouts carried long wooden sticks with hooks on the end which they used to shake trees as if someone were in them. Scouts were precluded from an involvement in prolonged fighting. After exchanging a few shots with the enemy, they withdrew through the next wave of troops which was the advanced guards. The advanced guard could also serve as initial storm troops or bait troops to get the enemy to reveal their position and strength. The or personal guards protected the king or high ranking nobles on the battlefield. The rear guard however, might function for pursuit or as a reserve echelon. The two wings aided in the tactics of the Asante during battle through the encirclement of the opposing force or striking at the rear.Charles Rathbone Low, A Memoir of Lieutenant-General Sir Garnet J. Wolseley, R. Bentley: 1878, pp. 57–176
Individualized acts of daring were encouraged, such as rushing out into the open to behead dead or wounded enemies. A tally of these trophies was presented to the commanding general after the end of the engagement. Soldiers who tried to flee from battle were kept in check by sword-bearers who whipped them with heavy swords. Asante soldiers had to memorize the following saying: "If I go forward, I die; if I flee, I die. Better to go forward and die in the mouth of battle."
The or special police functioned as special forces and bodyguards to the Asantehene. They served as a source of intelligence for suppressing rebellion.Davidson (1991), p. 240. Horses were introduced into the state around the 18th century. Horses were recorded to have survived in Kumasi in contrast to the forest zone in the south due to the presence of the tsetse fly. Robert B. Edgerton writes that although Asante high-ranking officers rode horses with the hauteur of European officers, a cavalry was not developed for the Asante military. Thornton adds that the Asante captured and rode horses after a campaign against states up north in the 18th century. This attempt at forming a cavalry was ineffective which Thornton puts up as; "...though they can be hardly an effective cavalry and reportedly all were killed in one engagement." Canoes were used for troop transport across rivers. In 1873, British captain Brackenbury recorded an account by an Assin of Asante forces crossing the River Pra in two ferries of boats with 30 men per boats and four trips an hour. He estimated 12,000 men had crossed the river.C. Henry Brackenburg (1874), p. 56. In a feature seldom seen among African armies, the Asante also deployed units of medical personnel behind the main forces, who were tasked with caring for the wounded and removing the dead. A full time medical corps was established as a branch of the Asante army by the late 19th century.
Mobilization, recruitment and logistics A small core of professional warriors was supplemented by peasant levies, volunteers and contingents from allied forces or tributary kingdoms. Grouped together under competent commanders such as Osei Tutu and Opoku Ware, such hosts began to expand the Asante empire in the 18th century on into the 19th, moving from deep inland to the edges of the Atlantic. One British source in 1820 estimated that the Asante could field into battle a potential 80,000 troops, and of these, 40,000 could in theory, be outfitted with muskets or blunder-busses.
Slaves marched behind the main body of the army, carrying supplies on their head. The army was also accompanied by carpenters responsible for building shelters, blacksmiths to repair weapons and sutlers to sell food and drink. Some wives followed their husbands to war where they cooked for them at camp and provided water during battle. For Thornton, the Great Roads played a role in Asante warfare. These roads allowed for the rapid deployment of the army and they negated the tactics of Asante's opponents who took advantage of the forest in their campaigns against the state.
Equipment
Arms Before the unification of the Asante clans as one kingdom and empire, the bow, shield and arrow were the weapon of choice. After the 1701 conquest of Denkyira, Osei Tutu I established trade contacts with European merchants at the coast through which he enabled the supply of firearms. The Asante became familiar with firearms in the 18th century. Majority of the Asante troops were armed with a variety of guns and this includes the standard European trade musket; Long Dane. Richards argues on Asante's success with long-barrelled muskets which he states to have brought a change in warfare around the hinterland of the Gold Coast in the 1740s. Around 1742, the Asante army defeated the Akyem with Dutch muskets whose barrels were 5–6 feet long in comparison with Akyem's short barrels 3–4 feel long. This victory led to the large demand for such kind of muskets in the region. Although most Asante firearms were imported, efforts were made to manufacture guns locally, with limited success. These efforts reportedly produced the humu gun, so called for its unusually large barrel. Due to difficulties in obtaining iron ore, the barrel was instead made from brass.
A handful of the Asante had modern breechloading British Snider–Enfield rifles. British reports from 1878 to 1881, estimated that the Asante had a total of 1000–5000 modern rifles. In addition, they employed 1000 well-worn French smoothbore muskets originally used in 1814 at the battle of Waterloo. However, Asante guns were obsolete compared to first rank European firearms. General Nkwanta, head of the Asante army's general council is reported to have done a detailed assessment of new breech-loading European firearms in 1872–73 and was alarmed by the obsolescence of Asante muskets in comparison to their European counterparts. Good quality powder was in short supply. Most of the gunmen did not use wadding to compact the powder down into the barrels but simply dumped in it while adding a variety of lead slugs, nails, bits of metal or even stones. This made an impressive pyrotechnic display but greatly limited the range of firearms.
Available guns as well as pouches for ammunition were carefully protected with leopard or leather skin covers. Soldiers carried thirty to forty gunpowder charges within reach, which was individually packed in small wooden boxes for quick loading. The buckskin belt worn by the soldiers provided alternate weapons such as several types of knives and machete.The British Critic, Quarterly Theological Review, and Ecclesiastical Record, Published 1834, Printed for C. & J. Rivington, and J. Mawman, p. 165-172. Can be found on Google Books.
Artillery Asante king, Kwaku Dua signed a military agreement which involved the yearly supply of Asante troops to the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army in exchange for Dutch artillery pieces. The Dutch suppliers provided the Asante king with immobile cannons on ships rather than field carriages. There existed in Kumasi, a Cannon-square that housed a trophy of Dutch Cannons. They were captured from Denkyira after Asante emerged victorious at the Battle of Feyiase.
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