Isandlwana: Zulu Victory
by Epics: More Prisoners of Eternity.
It came as a terrible shock to the drawing rooms of Victorian Britain. A British army wiped out by spear-carrying natives. The first phase of an unprincipled land-grab had come to a catastrophic conclusion. It was a great Zulu victory, but it could not be tolerated.
The Battle of Isandlwana was the first time a European Army armed with modern weapons had been defeated by native tribesmen. In total 1,329 men were lost at Isandlwana: 858 British regulars and 471 native troops. The Zulu’s too had suffered grievously losing some 3,000 killed and an equivalent number wounded. The 60 or so men who survived the battle were all mounted volunteers and not under military discipline. No one wearing a red coat survived.
King Cetswayo
Isandlwana was a great victory for the Zulu’s, and it was a fitting tribute to the organisation, discipline and courage of its army. The gloss of victory was tarnished somewhat by the subsequent events at Rorkes Drift where 139 British troops repelled repeated attacks by more than 4,000 Zulu warriors. Cetswayo had specifically ordered that Rorkes Drift not be attacked but the Zulu’s blood was up.
Rorkes Drift had provided the British with a heroic victory with which to shield themselves from the full horror of the defeat at Isandlwana. Lord Chelmsford, who had been horrified by the sight of dead soldiers cut open and their entrails exposed (not realising that the Zulu’s were simply releasing the souls of the dead) was replaced as Commander of British forces in southern Africa by Sir Garnet Wolseley. Before Wolseley could arrive in South Africa, however, Chelmsford had retreated back into Natal to re-gather his strength for a further assault on the Zulu Kingdom. On 4 July, 1879, his freshly reinforced army brought its superior firepower to bear and captured the Zulu capital at Ulundi. Cetswayo was forced to flee but was finally cornered in the Ngome Forest on 24 August. He was then curtly informed by someone he had always considered a friend, the Secretary of State for Native Affairs, Sir Theophilus Shepstone, that he was now to be considered a prisoner of war and that his Kingdom was to be divided up into 13 separate entities to governed by the British via their native acolytes.
In 1882, Cetswayo was granted permission to travel to London to visit Queen Victoria and to plead the British Government for the return of his Kingdom. Despite Queen Victoria merely expressing her disappointment that he was not attired in native dress, he was successful. However, his Kingdom may have been restored but his power had not. Denied the right to reform his impis he was powerless against plots. The power struggle that now emerged soon developed into a full blown civil war. On 8 February, 1884, King Cetswayo Mpande, died, possibly poisoned. He was succeeded as King by his son, Dinizulu. But the power of the once mighty Zulu Kingdom had been forever broken.
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