Kigeri Rwabugiri, king of Rwanda from 1865 to 1895, transformed Rwandan kingship. As the last independent king of Rwanda before European intrusion, people remember him in monumental terms. Within the royal domains, he reconfigured internal power relations by appointing delegates to positions of power dependent on him alone, thus confronting the entrenched power of the aristocratic lineages of the court. But Rwabugiri was most renowned for his foreign military expeditions: his reign was marked by almost continuous campaigns directed against virtually every neighboring society. Military success became one of the most assured pathways to court status and power in Rwandan politics. The booty from such expeditions provided resources in the hands of the king with which he rewarded his political favorites; under Rwabugiri internal politics was closely linked to external warfare. This chapter presents an overview of Rwabugiri’s military campaigns: it establishes the chronology of these expeditions and examines the evolution of Rwabugiri’s military objectives, organization, and strategies. This overview of his military career also sets the broader context of his wars, providing historical perspective on the series of campaigns waged against the people of Ijwi Island over a twenty-five-year period.

King KIGERI RWABUGIRI dominated the history of Rwanda in the late nineteenth century. Renowned as the quintessential military monarch of Rwandan history, Rwabugiri embarked on military expeditions virtually every year of his long reign (1865–95). The effect of this within Rwanda was momentous, for through his army commands he sought to circumvent the intricate politics of the dominant factions at the court, and by his constant movement he introduced the court and its power into many regions of Rwanda. However, these expeditions were no less significant in their effects on neighboring societies, particularly those contiguous to Lake Kivu. In both political and military terms, Rwabugiri’s armies refashioned the Lake Kivu Rift Valley in the late nineteenth century; any history of the region has to take account of Rwabugiri—and his strategies, his tactics, and his objectives.

The Rift Valley societies were the areas of his most enduring and most intense attention: his first and his final campaigns were directed there, and he returned to attack the various kingdoms of the western Rift Valley consistently during the intervening years of his long reign. Yet these Kivu expeditions were but a portion of his broader military career. Continuous military expeditions were his mark; accompanying his armies, Rwabugiri traveled through every region of Rwanda and attacked all the neighboring countries except Karagwe to the east, across the Kagera River. (Karagwe had a special status in Rwandan myth as the place claimed from which Ruganzu, another royal hero, returned to establish the Nyiginya dynasty).

Such mobility was to have enormous repercussions internally, within Rwanda, as well as externally, on the societies attacked.Army structures were the principal framework of his political formation as well as of his military success, and army expeditions were to have a dramatic impact on the internal population of Rwanda as well as on those attacked; for the consolidation of army organizations, and the demand for a wide range of material support for these armies, brought about a dramatic shift in the internal character of political power in the kingdom. Powers formerly retained by local authorities became increasingly concentrated in the hands of the king and his court (as indeed was happening in other states of the Interlacustrine area during the same period).The expeditions, therefore, were significant not only for their expansionist goals or external ramifications; through recruitment, through demands for food, through the requisition of materials and labor for constructing and provisioning the royal court, and through the reconfiguration of local social hierarchies, many common people were drawn into the vortex of Rwabugiri’s constant military preoccupations. While Rwandans at the central court benefited from the campaigns abroad, the growth of the glory of the court had its internal costs. Outside the country his expeditions affected the politics of the states, and certainly the lives of the people attacked. Yet in these regions the effects were not enduring; indeed, one could argue that the internal ramifications were greater than the external effects.

Given the importance of the military activities for his reign as a whole, an analysis of these campaigns serves as a valuable foundation for understanding this period of Rwandan history. Such an analysis suggests a distinct evolution to Rwabugiri’s military objectives and strategies over the thirty years of his reign; his involvement in the area of Lake Kivu provides a microcosm of these larger trends.

Although at present no detailed analysis exists on the entirety of his reign and the military activities for which he was so well known, there are numerous references to aspects of his career in a variety of sources. Among these, the collection of dynastic poems (ibisigo) by Abbé Alexis Kagame is particularly useful.But references abound in many other secondary sources—often including that of Europeans to arrive in the next generation.Together these sources lend themselves to an assessment of the relative sequence of his expeditions and the broader trends of the military components of his reign as a whole.

A Typology of the Military Campaigns of Rwabugiri

His campaigns began early in his long reign. Nonetheless, it was only in later years that these campaigns appear to have sought the annexation of the conquered territories. Earlier attacks seem motivated more by more limited goals than by outright conquest. While expeditions to Gisaka, Kinyaga, and the western regions of current Rwanda suggest that the incorporation of Kinyarwanda-speaking people within a single political entity seems to have driven the sovereign in the early years, in other cases, Rwabugiri apparently attempted no administrative incorporation in the first two decades of his rule (to about 1885). For example, the attacks against Ijwi, Buhunde, and Buhavu seem to have been motivated more by personal vengeance against the kings of these countries than by any definitive political incorporation of the populations to Rwanda. While Ijwi Island was eventually brought under Rwandan administration, this occurred only several years after the initial conquest of the island, through the actions of Nkundiye, who betrayed his father, the king Kabego. With the original conquest of the island (about 1880), Rwabugiri was content to rule through Nkundiye himself rather than placing his own chiefs on the island. It was only after Nkundiye directly challenged Rwabugiri’s authority that Rwabugiri placed his own chiefs on the island.Overall, many of these multiple expeditions had as their primary objective the extraction of booty and the weakening of the states neighboring Rwanda—as an expression of Rwanda’s power and the accumulation of cattle and other goods.

The first two expeditions of Rwabugiri were directed against Mpororo, just northeast of Rwanda (in a campaign referred to as Mirambo), and against Ijwi Island, in Lake Kivu, west of Rwanda (about 1870).Although the chronology of these attacks is not given in the sources, they could only have succeeded in this order, because the commander of the expedition of Mirambo was dismissed during the expedition against Ijwi. The Rwandan sources tell us nothing more on the results of the battles in Mpororo, although the subsequent dismissal of the Rwandan leader would suggest it was not successful. On the results of the Ijwi campaign the Rwandan sources are misleading; either they gratuitously assert a Rwandan victory, or they confuse the results of this first expedition against the island with the results of the second expedition, ten years later and launched from a different site, with vastly different resources and benefiting from local internal dissension within the Ijwi royal family. Here is a case where the local sources from Ijwi Island are explicit; in their detail, they raise serious doubts about the Rwandan assertions.We can only conclude that these attacks were unsuccessful, or else that the objectives and scale of these undertakings were insignificant.

Another expedition was directed against Burundi.Although difficult to date with precision, we know that it occurred early in his reign, before the death of the queen mother, who organized it,and perhaps also before the expedition to Bumpaka. A separate source situates it after the expeditions toward Mirambo and Ijwi.The goals and details of this raid are nowhere explained, and although “significant booty” is mentioned, the sources give the impression that this was only a minor raid, probably undertaken by a single regiment of a single army and directed by a nephew of the queen mother. However, Kagame notes that this campaign included the loss of a “Libérateur-offensif” (a common Rwandan idiom noting the death of an important warrior, whose sacrifice was considered necessary to ensure the victory), a detail that might just as wellindicate a defeat of the Rwandan forces (especially because “victory” here seems to have been minimal in scope).

The first of Rwabugiri’s campaigns to cover any great distance and to bring significant results for Rwanda was directed against Bumpaka (or Bunyampaka),to the east of Lake Edward.This large expedition, often noted in the sources,returned with considerable booty: at least five“military herds”were formed with the cattle seized from this campaign alone.Because of its scope and its results— the first on this scale.

This significant undertaking was followed by another, smaller campaign directed toward the north: to Ndorwa,already “conquered” by Rwanda but often in revolt against the Nyiginya court. The sources on this campaign, however, are ambiguous: could this have been, perhaps, a supplementary reference to the expedition against Bumpaka, or perhaps a raid associated with this larger expedition? In fact, the only firm detail known to us on this campaign is that the army departed during the rains.

The expedition known as mu Lito, directed again against Burundi, took place quite early in the reign of Rwabugiri. Because its effect on Burundi seems to have been minimal, the decision to launch this campaign seems more likely to have resulted from factors internal to the politics of Rwanda than from any broader objective of conquest.It seems to have revolved around court intrigue over Nkoronko, the brother (by the same father and same mother) of Rwogera, the king who preceded Rwabugiri; therefore Nkoronko was the paternal uncle of Rwabugiri. He was accused of being implicated in the assassination of the queen mother,but his political position, and especially his popularity with his army, made him too powerful to allow Rwabugiri to attack him directly. Moreover, it was proscribed for a prince of the royal line to die a violent death on Rwandan territory. Therefore, it is entirely likely, suggest the sources, that the expedition of mu Lito was organized to draw Nkoronko to Burundi, far from the court, where he would die in foreign territory, either killed by enemy forces or assassinated by Rwandan troops. For Rwabugiri, Nkoronko’s demise in this fashion would have been an opportune ending, simultaneously eliminating a powerful political rival and avenging the death of his mother. This immediate goal of the campaign of mu Lito was not achieved, however, because Nkoronko, informed of the plot, separated his troops from the principal regiments of the Rwandan army and, surrounded by his own loyal regiment, returned to Rwanda without difficulty.

From this point in the chronology of Rwabugiri’s campaigns, however, a new type of external attack emerged, as expeditions were increasingly directed against the small states situated to the west of Rwanda. The objectives of these attacks became more clearly defined and often sought the death of a ruler or of other members of the royal family. In these attacks, strategic considerations were no longer concerned exclusively with the internal politics of Rwanda; instead, attention shifted to focus dramatically on the lines of cleavage, actual or potential, within the royal families of the targeted states. During this period, Rwabugiri was personally involved in both the preparations for and the conduct of these expeditions.

The campaign against Butembo,northwest of Lake Kivu, illustrates these characteristics: it showed a broad conception, it was of relatively long duration, and its targeted region was situated far from Rwanda.In short, it represented a new (and larger) scale of organization from previous campaigns. Like that against Ijwi, this attack was motivated by questions concerning tribute and accusations of cattle theft (always a convenient pretext in this area); for these transgressions the expedition sought to punish the king and the royal family. The campaign was enormously destructive. But this devastation seems to have resultednot from planned policy but from logistical problems: the need to provide for a sizable army in a sparsely populated region distant from Rwanda. Furthermore, the permanent conquest and the incorporation of the country into Rwanda do not seem to have been the goals of this campaign, and its principal objective— that of disciplining a recalcitrant king—was not achieved in spite of the deaths of several members of the royal family, including one of the sons of the king.

The following year, some of the same characteristics were apparent in the second attack against Ijwi. Better prepared than the first attack, this campaign was carried out with a more experienced army, with more clearly defined strategies, and with more comprehensive objectives. Again, Rwabugiri personally over-saw the preparations, and he himself directed the attacks against Kabego, the king of Ijwi. The campaign was launched from a new royal enclosure, situated at Rubengera (near the present-day Kibuye); this royal establishment would become Rwabugiri’s principal capital in the west throughout the rest of his reign. As in Butembo, Rwabugiri took advantage of the divisions within the Ijwi royal family concerning disputes among competing parties as to who would succeed the already aged king, Kabego. But this second attack on Ijwi also represented a larger strategic reorientation of Rwabugiri’s campaigns because it initiated an entire series of wars directed against the areas west of Lake Kivu. Over the next decade these included, in addition to the expedition against Kabego on Ijwi, an attack against Nkundiye, Kabego’s son, and other campaigns against the king of Buhavu at Mpinga (Kalehe) on the western mainland, against Irhambi (Katana) on the lakeshore south of Mpinga, and against other Shi states southwest of the lake.

Nkundiye was the son of Kabego, the king of Ijwi killed by Rwabugiri during the second attack against the island. After the failure of his first attack, Rwabugiri had formed an alliance with Nkundiye; because his father was already aged, Nkundiye sought Rwabugiri’s support to succeed to power at the expense of Kabego’s other sons. And so, on the death of Kabego, Rwabugiri named Nkundiye as chief of Ijwi under Rwabugiri’s suzerainty; Nkundiye, in return, assisted Rwabugiri in his wars against Bushi, southwest of the lake. After the expedition of Kanywilili in Bushi, where Nkundiye was shown to be one of the most courageous among Rwabugiri’s warriors, the other Rwandan chiefs, jealous of Nkundiye (according to the Bahavu on Ijwi), accused him of having betrayed Rwabugiri. But it also appears that, with his new military standing and seeking his own independence from Rwabugiri, Nkundiye refused his obligation to pay court to the Rwandan king. And therefore, five years after his second attack Rwabugiri returned to discipline his former ally; his troops killed Nkundiye on an island near Mpinga. Rwabugiri replaced him on Ijwi with Rwandan chiefsloyal to him alone and thus submitted Ijwi to direct Rwandan occupation for the first time.

But several years passed between the death of Kabego and the death of Nkundiye, and in the intervening years Rwabugiri’s military passions did not diminish. Although we lack a precise chronology for the following attack against the Havu kingdom of Mpinga on the mainland just west of Ijwi, this would seem to have been associated either with the death of Kabego or with the death of Nkundiye, several years later. (Some local testimonies on the mainland suggest that the king of Mpinga had been killed even before the death of Kabego, but these historical events are not clear from the data available at the moment.)

Some years after his victory against Kabego, Rwabugiri sent an expedition to Gikore (near present-day Kabale, in Uganda).Unfortunately, the sources note only the existence and approximate chronology of this expedition; the existing sources provide no other details on it. Following the attack on Gikore, but before the attack against Nkundiye (the third attack against Ijwi), Rwabugiri launched the first of numerous campaigns directed against the Shi states to the southwest of Lake Kivu; these wars in Bushi were to absorb much of Rwabugiri’s energy and attention over the last decades of his life. While the results of these wars might be similar to those of earlier attacks to the west of the lake, the intensity of the attacks against the Shi, the scale of human resources mobilized, as well as the strategies employed and objectives adopted (such as those shown by the near permanent occupation of the countries conquered by the Rwandan armies) distinguished these campaigns from the preceding attacks directed against the royal families of the other states of the west.

For Bushi, the struggle was not limited to the royal families, however; these states had their own internal political preoccupations, as the kings of the two most important Shi states had died only shortly after the first attacks. At the same time, the size and complexity of these Shi states (as well as their considerable distance from central Rwanda) allowed them to mount vigorous resistance to the Rwandan intruders. The combination of Rwabugiri’s persistent ambitions in the area with Shi intransigence led to a long series of major campaigns. All these factors suggest that the objective of these final wars of Rwabugiri was outright conquest. Nonetheless, these campaigns were the least successful of all of Rwabugiri’s wars: in Bushi, Rwabugiri suffered defeat after defeat, his “victories” were few and ephemeral and they were costly. These expeditions imposed much greater challenges than earlier campaigns, for the internal structures of Shi politics, so fluid at this particular moment, required the continual occupation of the country: it was not possible simply to kill the king and claim conquest of the state. That was why the Rwandan tactics relied so intensely on espionage and required a much more complicated involvement in the internal politics of the Shi states.

Yet despite their magnitude, Rwabugiri’s wars in Bushi are not portrayed with any clarity in the Rwandan sources. We await Kagame’s promised publication of a poem described as a summary of the expeditions undertaken in Kivu, and of another cited as “a valuable testimony on the wars in Bunyabungo.”But we also await the results of current research in Bushi, because the events associated with these wars are intimately intertwined with the internal politics of these individual states.

Among this series of campaigns, the first two major battles in Bushi found in the sources were disastrous defeats for the Rwandans. The first expedition, shortly after that of Gikore, led to the battle known as ku Buntubuzindu, near the residence of Byaterana, the king of Buhaya, the largest of the Shi states.Among the numerous losses on both sides, this battle saw the death of Rwanyonga, one of Rwabugiri’s most celebrated warriors, as well as many young Rwandan warriors: “le roi [Rwabugiri] fut consterné.”This heavy setback was followed with a second, still more serious for Rwabugiri.Taking place in southern Bushi, in a place called Buzimu ye Bunge (near Nyangezi, south of Bukavu), this battle of Kanywilili saw the near total destruction of his most valued regiments, as well as the loss of several of his most trusted and bravest leaders, including Nyamushanja and Nyirimigabo. This latter, who died at Kanywilili with many other important members of his army, was more than a simple soldier; he was also closely involved with many of the activities of the Rwandan court. Even influential in the events that brought Rwabugiri to power, he was among the most favored of the court.As for Nyamushanja, he belonged to one of the most well-known families during Rwabugiri’s reign, one that was allied by marriage to the royal family many times over.He had been named head of his army, after his half-brother, in early battles, was accused of embezzling the booty due the court and retaining the provisions for himself.However, Nyamushanja was also one of the only important warriors of his army to perish in the battle of Kanywilili; as a result, Rwabugiri considered that Nyamushanja’s soldiers had abandoned him, leaving him and Nyirimigabo’s regiment isolated.Rwabugiri grieved their loss deeply, and he fined every member of that army a cow.

After the battle of Kanywilili, the series of Shi campaigns was interrupted by Rwabugiri’s attack against Nkundiye on Ijwi, perhaps associated with the loss at Kanywilili (and the accusations against him by Rwandan court actors), perhapsalso tied to the broader attacks on Mpinga and Irhambi, although at this stage the chronology of these battles is not well established.Following this episode, Rwabugiri increasingly turned his attention to the Shi states. Toward 1890 he initiated a long expedition during which occurred the Rwandan victory of ku Kidogoro, at the time of a massive famine in Bushi.(This expedition might have also included a victory over a group of slavers coming from the west and armed with guns; few other details on this expedition, however, exist in the published Rwandan sources.)

After ku Kidogoro, Rwabugiri launched several other attacks, on which, once again, we are ill-informed from the sources. There is reference to an expedition against Nkore (in the southwest of present-day Uganda) during which many cows were captured.And there is mention of another raid against Bushubi, a small state southeast of Rwanda. In this raid, Nsoro, the king of Bushubi and a former ally, was taken prisoner and later executed by Rwabugiri in Kinyaga (in the southwest of Rwanda). We have no information on the reasons for this raid, although the timing and location would appear to link it to Rwabugiri’s emerg-ing commercial strategies.

Once again Rwabugiri’s attention was drawn to Bushi, this time apparently by the desertion of a regiment from their military camp in Bushi; this was the famous ku Mira affair.As recounted in the Rwandan sources, the soldiers, lacking food, tired of the routines of a military occupation so vigorously resisted by the local population, and believing that Rwabugiri could not effectively discipline an entire army if they acted collectively—especially an army so large and so important—abandoned their camp and returned home. Those implicated in this incident were removed from their commands and lost all prerogatives.

The last expedition of Rwabugiri’s reign was that directed against Nkore.This campaign was memorable because it is noted that Rwandan troops fought against an Nkore force armed with guns at the battle of Shangi, near Butake. Yet Rwandan sources state that although this battle was an“important victory,”it resulted only in a large booty of cows. The nature of these sources implies that this was simply a successful raid, a distraction from the more prolonged and difficult incursions in Bushi, which were at best only partially successful.These sources note only that the enclosure of Rutaraka was assaulted by the Banyankore, but we do not know if this was a cause or effect of Rwabugiri’s campaigns in the area.A short time later, Rwabugiri returned to focus his attention once again on his campaigns to the west, against Bushi, where he died.

Other sources suggest that the campaign against Nkore was a major expedition, perhaps the most important and most ambitious of Rwabugiri’s entire reign.Such an interpretation of the war against Nkore would agree with the fundamental changes in Rwabugiri’s policies toward the countries attacked. Such changes in his general foreign policy, then, would have followed the same evolution as those already observed for the area west of Lake Kivu, and especially in Bushi.

Thus throughout his rule Rwabugiri was absorbed with multiple expeditions —of increasing size and ambition over the course of his reign. Many led to the acquisition of status and booty distributed within Rwanda, thus consolidating structures of power and hierarchy within the state. Some led to the conquest of other countries. And certainly the constant warfare also affected Rwandan internal organization: army organizations became a major preoccupation of the court, army positions were avidly sought as a pathway to power at the court, and the larger structures associated with army organization (food supply, portage, cattle herders, construction) became the sinews that extended the ties of the state to the people. In the end the penetration of army organization and the demands of constant military campaigns affected vast numbers of the population within Rwandajust as the effects of these campaigns affected many abroad.

Nonetheless, despite the destruction wrought on the neighboring countries, there were few true conquests to result, and few permanent political annexations. Burundi was unaffected. Nkore and other areas north of Rwanda were devastated but otherwise remained outside of Rwandan political influence. Bushubi to the east and Bushi to the west retained their independence, as did mainland Buhavu. After the death of Nkundiye, Rwandan military chiefs settled on the island for a decade. But that was all, and even that situation did not endure after Rwabugiri’s death in 1895. Militarily, then, Rwabugiri’s state appeared formidable, and within Rwanda the internal changes were significant. But in the end the militarism of Rwabugiri’s state was to turn inward; on his demise the internal factions at the court fought over positions and power. The lasting external effects were few and ephemeral, while the short-term internal effects were monumental. European power arrived at just this moment of intense competition at the court, set off by the militaristic legacy of its powerful ruler of the late nineteenth century, Rwabugiri

Post Views: 53
https://uk.amateka.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/umwami_musenyeri-714x1024.jpeghttps://uk.amateka.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/umwami_musenyeri-150x150.jpegBarataHistory of kingsSocial & cultureKigeri Rwabugiri, king of Rwanda from 1865 to 1895, transformed Rwandan kingship. As the last independent king of Rwanda before European intrusion, people remember him in monumental terms. Within the royal domains, he reconfigured internal power relations by appointing delegates to positions of power dependent on him alone, thus...AMATEKA