“Some dates for the battles are pertinent. Colonel Dodds, who had refu to answer letters from Behanzin proposing negotiation (Le Herisse, 1911: 345), led his expeditionary force out of Porto Novo on 11 September 1892. On the 20th occurred the first engagement with a Dahomey force at Dogba; then from the 27th to the 29th, the first crossing of the river Oueme and a battle for Poguessa (Kphoghessa, in Le Herisse, 1911; Kpokisa in Maupoil, 1943; Pokissa in Cornevin, 1962) and, here, the first encounter with amazons, of whom more than thirty died on 2 October (Schelameur, 1898:104). On 12 October, battle at Oumbouemedi and, on the 13th, Dahomian camp at Akpa attacked, fighting continuing until the 20th, when 'a bayonet charge by the Hausa riflemen ejected them from the village of Akpa' (Cornevin, 1962: 354); then, on the 26th, the French entered Kotok- pa after repeated counter-attacks by Dahomians, including amazons, met again by bayonets. On 2 November, after a fierce battle for Ouakan, Dodds camped under the walls of the palace. The next day the Dahomians coun- ter-attacked and regained the palace. On the 4th Behanzin led the remnants of the royal army, the elephant hunters, the amazons, prisoners taken out the evening before from the cells of Abomey, in a last great battle. His forces were dislodged by the bayonet from the palace of Djokoue and the expeditionary force encamped at the outskirts of Kana. This is probably that 'most bitter fight against the amazons' in the words of Mercier, above, and these the amazons raised by Behanzin” (Morton-Williams 113-114)
