HISTORY ON SCREEN
The assault on Abeokuta was going to fail. The soldiers of Dahomey, a powerful kingdom in west Africa, were trained, disciplined and courageous, so threw themselves across the deep ditches and up the high walls without hesitation - only to be cut down by the gun placements and numerous defenders waiting at the top. The city, capital of Dahomey’s rivals the Egbas, was too big and too well fortified. Much as it had been 13 years earlier at the first attempted siege, defeat was a matter of time on that day in 1864.
If this was to be their doom, however, one Dahomey soldier would meet it on their own terms with a gesture of contemptuous defiance. Having sealed the wall, they stopped on the ramparts in a spot the defenders could not reach, sat down facing away from the enemy, and began smoking a pipe.
Such fearlessness came as no surprise to the Egbas, for the soldier belonged to a regiment especially revered among their enemies and the Europeans who made the journey to west Africa. It was made up entirely of women, relentlessly trained and furious
