ABSTRACT
Thomas Mockaitis argues that it ‘would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of the principle of minimum force to British counter-insurgency’. He refers to what he describes as the two worst incidents in the post-war period, the Farran affair and the Batang Kali massacre, but notes that British counter-insurgency operations ‘have generally been conspicuous for the lack of such excesses’. This chapter focuses on two factors: with regard to the use of minimum force at the strategic, and at the tactical level. It argues that minimum force quite categorically was not a feature of the Kenyan Emergency. Indeed, the campaign can be seen more accurately as characterised by the unprecedented ferocity of the means that were used to defeat Mau Mau. Two things seem clear: first of all that the Kenyan campaign was characterised by widespread beatings, torture, mutilation and shootings and second that this demonstrates that the doctrine of minimum force was not in practice adhered to.
