About That Hill

The last stand at Isandlwana
Charles Edwin Fripp

In a comment over at Shaun's place, on one of his many excellent posts, I made a reference to a place in Africa...

Here's what that hill looked like in Shaun's video -

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It shows up in the first couple of seconds of the video and it immediately made me think of this -

Isandlwana Hill, South Africa
(Source)

I know, bit of a stretch as the left side of Isandlwana Hill is much higher than what Shaun now calls "Isandalwana Ridge" on his ranch -

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(I hope you didn't try playing that "video" above, it's actually a screen shot of part of the post where Shaun made the reference noted above. I also won't dog him regarding the spelling of "Isandalwana," the name of the hill is the English equivalent of the Zulu word for the place. I've seen it spelled a couple of different ways in official accounts of the battle, which we'll get to, shortly.)

Anyhoo, way back in January of 1879 the British Empire invaded the lands of the Zulu. The reasons for this were nefarious and even suspect at the time. Seems that the High Commissioner for Southern Africa, one Sir Henry Bartle Frere, thought it would be just peachy for the Empire to take over the independent South African Republic and the Kingdom of Zululand in order to bring enlightenment and solid British administration to these "benighted" lands. Benighted as they weren't under British rule I suppose.

Note that the South African Republic was also known as the Transvaal Republic, to its white inhabitants, the Boers, it was the Zuid Afrikaansche Republiek. That may look like Dutch but it's actually Afrikaans. Related to the Dutch language but with some differences which escape me. I once watched a show on Dutch TV and was amazed that what sounded Dutch to me had subtitles in Dutch running at the bottom of the screen. Some of the words sounded weird but close. A Dutch friend of mine knew the show and told me the show was in Afrikaans. Odd that.

Anyhoo, where were we? Ah yes, Sir Henry covets the lands of the Zulu and the Boers. No doubt thinking that the black Zulu would be easy pickings as opposed to the white Boers, they sent an ultimatum to the Zulu king, Cetshwayo. As I recall the ultimatum would have essentially required the Zulu king to give up his authority over his people and not call up his army without the permission of the British. (They did go after the Boers later. In the first Boer War, the Brits lost. Though they did win the second and managed to screw the locals. You can read more about that here.)

Not a surprise that Cetshwayo pretty much told Sir Henry to "Piss off."

So off into Zululand went Lord Chelmsford and his 15,000 men, of whom approximately 2,500 were African auxiliaries of the Natal Native Contingent (NNC). Most of them were poorly trained in European tactics (but pretty damned good at traditional African methods of war), poorly equipped, and poorly led. Most of the Europeans tended to look down upon the NNC.

The scene in the film Zulu, in which the following exchange between Michael Caine's character, Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead commanding company B of the 2nd Battalion of the 24th Foot, and Gert van den Bergh's character, Lieutenant Gert Adendorff of the 1st Battalion, 3rd NNC upon hearing of the destruction of the British force at Isandlwana is illustrative of European attitudes towards native troops -

Lt. Bromhead: The entire column? It's damned impossible! Eight hundred men?

Lt. Adendorff: Twelve hundred men. There were four hundred native levies, also.

Lt. Bromhead: Damn the levies, man, more cowardly blacks!

Lt. Adendorff: What the hell do you mean, "cowardly blacks"? They died on your side, didn't they? And who the hell do you think is coming to wipe out your little command? The Grenadier Guards?

Great scene. (Bromhead and Adendorff were both real people, both survived Rorke's Drift.)

At any rate, Lord Chelmsford's biggest concern seems to have been that the Zulus wouldn't stand and fight but slip behind his force into Natal to terrorize the populace. So he divided his forces in order to force the Zulus to come to battle. I'd let that sink in for a moment, divided his forces in the face of a numerically superior force. Sure they were armed with mostly shields and spears and a few older firearms, surely no match for a European army. It's worth noting that the Zulu were a warrior culture, a very tough and hard fighting warrior culture. I've written of them before, not a group you'd want to underestimate, which is precisely what Chelmsford did.

A pretty good account of the Battle of Isandlwana can be found here, suffice to say the Brits almost literally stumbled over the main Zulu force. They fired upon them, the Zulu took umbrage and attacked and destroyed the force Chelmsford left behind to "guard" the camp.

The battle went well for the British until the ammunition began to run low. Not even insane courage can force the human body to fling itself against a wall of Martini-Henry rifles over and over again. Lord knows, the Zulu tried. Then the firing slowed and in some cases ceased, when that happened the redcoats and their native allies went down under the enraged Zulus and their assegai (spears).

Thirteen hundred plus men. Lost.

British casualties at Isandlwana were over 1,300 killed - 52 officers, 727 British regulars, 343 from the Natal Native Contingent, 133 European Colonial troops, and 2 artillery pieces captured. The Zulu lost at least 1,000 killed (perhaps as many as 2,500) with roughly 2,000 wounded.

Of the approximately 20,000 Zulu at Isandlwana, some 3,000 to 5,000 (the Zulu reserve) were not engaged in the battle. They moved on to hit Rorke's Drift, a small outpost near the Buffalo River and where Chelmsford's forces had crossed into Zululand. There some 150 soldiers (mostly British with a few auxiliaries and a civilian or three) awaited the coming of the Zulu.

So you'd think that after destroying the force at Isandlwana the small contingent at Rorke's Drift had no chance, no chance at all.

And you'd be wrong.

Chelmsford's camp, under the command of Brevet Lieutenant Colonel Henry Pulleine, 1st of the 24th Foot, had made no preparations for defense and had their lines too far forward for mutual support. Worthy of note is that this violated Chelmsford's own instructions for fortifying the camp at each stop. Chelmsford himself decided not to fortify the camp as it would take too long and that it wasn't necessary - he severely underestimated his enemy. Apparently the officers at Rorke's Drift paid attention to their orders and when word came of the disaster at Isandlwana, they immediately began fortifying their post with whatever was available.

At Rorke's Drift, in very hard fighting, 150 men withstood and drove off a Zulu force which outnumbered them by at least 20 to 1, perhaps more. The defenders lost 17 killed and 15 wounded, the attackers at least 351 killed and roughly 500 wounded, most of whom were put to death after the battle.* A good account of the Battle of Rorke's Drift can be found here.

 I've read this a few times as well. A good history of the Zulu.

Where the fighting occurred.
Google Maps

Let's just say that the campaign in Zululand in 1879 left quite an impression on me. So when I see something that reminds me of something in history, even just a little, I mention it. Even if it was just a little hill in western Nebraska which reminded me of a much bigger hill in South Africa.

And yeah, I hear this in my mind...

* Some sources indicate that the relief column which came up to Rorke's Drift after the battle killed most of the Zulu wounded, even burying some of them alive. The actual defenders were too damned tired to engage in that slaughter apparently. The Zulu custom of disemboweling a dead (or nearly dead) enemy (to release the spirit from the body) probably contributed to the killing of the Zulu wounded.