Lieutenant General Peter Walls, who has died aged 83, may go down in history as one of the most successful of counter-insurgency commanders. Yet even he could not prevail in an unwinnable war against nationalists determined to overturn minority white rule and transform Rhodesia into Zimbabwe.
Born in what was then the self-governing British colony of Southern Rhodesia, Walls went to Britain in his teens during the second world war and entered the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst at the very end of hostilities. He then joined the Black Watch regiment and saw service in Somalia before resigning and returning home.
Walls was commissioned into the Northern Rhodesia Regiment, and in 1951, when he was just 24, he was promoted to captain and appointed second in command of a new unit of scouts raised for the British campaign against Chinese-backed communists in Malaya, an emergency that led to a unique defeat for the anti-colonialist forces.
As the unit was largely made up of Rhodesians, the British decided that it should also be led by a Rhodesian, and Walls was promoted to major. The unit was renamed C (Rhodesia) Squadron, SAS. His two years in Malaya, for which he was made MBE (military) in 1953, was invaluable experience for his later role fighting guerrillas.
The squadron was disbanded in 1953. Walls embarked on a series of staff appointments before being sent to the British army's staff college at Camberley, Surrey. In 1964, as a lieutenant colonel, he was given command of the 1st battalion, Rhodesian Light Infantry.
A year later, white resistance to the idea of black rule hardened and Ian Smith, who had ousted Winston Field as prime minister of Rhodesia in April 1964, made his unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) at the 11th minute of the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1965 – a bombastic parody of the 1918 armistice and the American declaration of independence. The British publicly threw away a major bargaining chip by declaring that there would be no armed intervention, not least because Harold Wilson's Labour government feared a revolt.
Walls now knew that he would not have to fight British troops as a senior officer in the army of a pariah state unrecognised outside the white redoubt in southern Africa. He was committed to the UDI. Promoted to brigadier, he next served as commander, 2 brigade. From there he became chief of staff to the army commander as a major-general, and was appointed army commander in 1972.
Walls and his men faced a divided enemy – Robert Mugabe's Zanla (Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army), mainly from the majority Shona tribe, and Joshua Nkomo's more effective Zipra (Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army) guerrillas, mainly Ndebele. Rhodesian troops staged raid after raid on guerrilla bases beyond Rhodesia's borders. In 1975 Mozambique and Angola gained independence from Portugal, and pressure mounted on South Africa, the sine qua non of Smith's survival. The white redoubt was crumbling.
As the struggle came to a head in 1977, Walls was made commander of combined operations, controlling 45,000 men, not only in the army but also the air force and the police. Man for man, they were far superior in training, discipline and equipment to their foes, but their numbers were unsustainable, given a white minority totalling barely 200,000. More than 20,000 guerrillas were killed.
Smith tried to create a power-sharing government, led by Bishop Abel Muzorewa, in "Zimbabwe-Rhodesia" in June 1979, but nobody recognised it. The new British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, called a constitutional conference in London at the end of the year. After 14 weeks a deal was done and a free election was held in March 1980, won by Mugabe.
To general amazement, Walls stayed on to integrate the victorious guerrillas into a new Zimbabwean army. But Mugabe, fearing assassination, soon accused him of treachery. The following dialogue was recorded as early as 17 March 1980. Mugabe: "Why are your men trying to kill me?" Walls: "If they were my men you would be dead." In less than six months Walls retired to the Eastern Cape province of South Africa.
His wife, Eunice, three daughters and a son survive him.
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