Richard Meinertzhagen with a Kori bustard in Nairobi (1915).
Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen, CBE, DSO (3 March 1878 – 17 June 1967) was a British soldier, intelligence officer and ornithologist. He had a decorated military career spanning Africa, where he was credited with murdering Koitalel arap Samoei the Nandi Orkoiyot and creating and executing the infamous Haversack Ruse.
To end the resistance, the British Col. Richard Meinertzhagen invited Koitalel to negotiate a truce. The peace meeting was to be held at 11:00AM on October 19, 1905. Suspecting that he would be killed as his father Kimnyole had feared, Samoei instructed the British Colonel to come with five companions to meet him at Ketbarak (present day Nandi Bears Club). Samoei was to come with five foretellers.
Contrary to the agreement, Meinhertzhagen marched from the fort at Kaptumo with 80 armed men, 75 of whom hid near the venue of the meeting. It is reported that when Koitalel stretched his hand to shake Meinhertzhagen’s, the British Colonel shot him at point blank range thus killing him and effectively ending the Nandi Resistance.
Lacking the desire to make a career in merchant banking, Meinertzhagen took examinations for a commission in the British Army, and after training at Aldershot was commissioned as a Second lieutenant in the Royal Fusiliers on 18 January 1899. He was sent to India to join a battalion of his regiment.[10] Other than routine regimental soldiering, he participated in big-game hunting, was promoted, sent on sick leave to England, and after recovery posted to the relocated battalion at Mandalay in Burma. He was promoted Lieutenant on 8 February 1900. He then started his “zealous campaign” for a transfer to Africa, and in April 1902 was seconded for service with the Foreign Office,[11] who attached him to the 3rd (East African) Battalion of the King’s African Rifles. The following month he finally arrived at Mombasa in British East Africa.
Meinertzhagen was assigned as a staff officer with the King’s African Rifles (KAR). Again he participated in big-game hunting, but “regarded himself as scientist-explorer first, and only incidentally as a soldier.” His maps, landscape and wildlife drawings proved him an artist of exceptional talent. In 1903 he was delegated to conduct a wild animal census in the Serengeti and Athi plains.
During Meinertzhagen’s assignment to Africa, frequent native “risings and rebellions” occurred. By 1903 KAR’s retaliatory ventures focused on confiscation of livestock, a highly effective form of punishment, and “the KAR had become accomplished cattle-rustlers.” One such punitive expedition was commanded by a Captain F.A. Dickinson of the 3rd KAR with participation by Meinertzhagen, where more than 11,000 stock were captured at the cost of 3 men killed and 33 wounded. The body count on the African side was estimated at 1,500 from the Kikuyu and Embu tribes
[ATTACH=full]113640[/ATTACH]
@Miss Finest Wine you might wanna see this