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Battle of Isandlwana
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The Battle of Isandlwana was a battle in the Anglo-Zulu War in which a Zulu army defeated a mixed British and native force on 22 January 1879, attacking their camp by surprise beneath the mountain of Isandlwana, with a force of 25000 warriors. (Isandlwana is 10 miles east of the Mzinaythi ("Buffalo") River in Zululand, South Africa.) The British were commanded by Brevet Lieutenant Colonel Henry Pulleine and Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Durnford. It was, for the time, a major defeat a severe British military reversal at the hands of native forces. 850 Europeans and around 450 Africans in British service died, while the attackers reportedly suffered 1000 casualties. Only 50 European enlisted men and five officers escaped, in addition to several hundred Africans who fled the battlefield before the camp was surrounded.
OverviewThe British presented an ultimatum on December 11, 1878, to the Zulu king Cetshwayo.
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1879 Zulu troops massacre British troops at the Battle of Isandlwana. At Rorke's Drift, outnumbered British soldiers drive the attackers away after hours of fighting.
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Encyclopedia
The Battle of Isandlwana was a battle in the Anglo-Zulu War in which a Zulu army defeated a mixed British and native force on 22 January 1879, attacking their camp by surprise beneath the mountain of Isandlwana, with a force of 25000 warriors. (Isandlwana is 10 miles east of the Mzinaythi ("Buffalo") River in Zululand, South Africa.) The British were commanded by Brevet Lieutenant Colonel Henry Pulleine and Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Durnford. It was, for the time, a major defeat a severe British military reversal at the hands of native forces. 850 Europeans and around 450 Africans in British service died, while the attackers reportedly suffered 1000 casualties. Only 50 European enlisted men and five officers escaped, in addition to several hundred Africans who fled the battlefield before the camp was surrounded.
OverviewThe British presented an ultimatum on December 11, 1878, to the Zulu king Cetshwayo. Cetshwayo did not accept, which led the British to declare war. Lord Chelmsford, the Commander-in-Chief of British forces during the war, moved his troops from where they were stationed in Pietermaritzburg to a forward camp at Helpmekaar, past Greytown. On 9 January 1879 they moved to Rorke's Drift, and early on January 11 commenced crossing the Buffalo River into Zululand.
The British under Lord Chelmsford pitched camp at Isandlwana, but because of the size of the force (precluding a laager, or circling of the wagons), the hard ground and a lack of belief that they were in any danger, did not follow standing orders to entrench. In addition, Chelmsford believed that 1,000 British infantry, armed with Martini-Henry rifles, superior weapons to the Zulus who were mostly armed with spears and cowhide shields and a few Brown Bess muskets, could meet and overwhelm any attack through sheer firepower. However, the lack of defensive preparations proved to be a major factor in the camp's defeat by the Zulu impis (regiments) which attacked on 22 January. It would have been possible to bring in the troops to a closer formation, with the rocky Isandlwana feature securing the rear and the overwhelming British firepower beating back the attacking force, even when this greatly outnumbered the defenders.
The backbone of the British force under Lord Chelmsford consisted of twelve regular infantry companies: six each of both the 1st and 2nd battalions, 24th (2nd Warwickshire) Regiment of Foot which were hardened and reliable troops; in addition, there were approximately 2,500 local African auxiliaries of the Natal Native Contingent, led by European officers but generally of poor quality; some irregular cavalry units, and a detachment of artillery consisting of two field guns and several Congreve rockets. Adding on wagon drivers, camp followers and servants, there were more than 4,000 men. Indeed, with a force of this size, it was the logistical arrangements of managing the supply chain and the huge number of wagons and oxen to support any forward advance which occupied Chelmsford's thoughts, rather than any fear that the camp might be attacked.
Once he had established the sprawling camp at Isandlwana, Chelmsford sent out two battalions of the Natal Native Contingent to scout ahead. They skirmished with elements of a Zulu force which Chelmsford believed to be the vanguard of the main enemy army. He divided his own force and with about 2,500 men including half of the British infantry set out to find the Zulus to bring them to battle, aiming to defeat them decisively, such was the confidence in British military training and firepower.
He left five companies (around 7080 fighting men in each) of the 1st battalion and one stronger company (around 150 men) of the 2nd battalion 24th (2nd Warwickshire) Regiment of Foot (later the South Wales Borderers) behind to guard the camp, under the command of Brevet Lieutenant Colonel Henry Pulleine. Pulleine's strict orders were to defend the camp and wait for further instructions to support the General as and when necessary. In addition, Pulleine had around 500 men of the Natal Native Contingent and approximately 200 mounted men, drawn from local irregulars. He also had two artillery pieces, with around 70 men of the Royal Artillery. In total, some 1,300 men and 2 guns to defend the camp. This force was, in theory, more than sufficient, provided it was deployed correctly in a tight, defensive formation, close to the ammunition stores and with its flanks guarded. Indeed, even without a laager or breastworks being formed, the Isandlwana mountain itself provided a natural barrier to protect the rear whilst the British force could be deployed in a semi-circle around it. However, the failure to secure the position and the Zulus' exploitation of the foe's weakness was to prove catastrophic for the camp's defenders.
Pulleine, left in command, was an administrator and had no experience of front-line command on a campaign. Nevertheless, he commanded a strong force, particularly in respect of the six regular infantry companies, which were experienced at colonial combat. Reports at 7am from the mounted vedettes (cavalry scouts) some 7 miles from camp suggested that bodies of Zulus, numbering around 4,000 men, could be seen. Further reports arrived into Pulleine's camp during the early morning, each reporting movements both large and small of Zulus. There was speculation in the camp whether these troops were intending to march against Chelmsford's rear or towards the camp itself.
Around 10:30am, Colonel Anthony Durnford arrived from Rorke's Drift with 5 troops of the Natal Native horse and a rocket battery. This put the issue of command to the fore because Durnford was senior and by tradition would have assumed command (Pulleine's rank was Brevet Lieutenant Colonel, in other words he was still being paid as a Major). However, he did not seem to over-rule Pulleine's dispositions and after lunch he quickly decided to take to the offensive and take the battle to the Zulu force. He may have thought Chelmsford's rear was at risk, or he may have simply wanted to gain some personal glory for himself when the opportunity presented itself (previously he had been kept in reserve at Rorke's Drift). He asked for a company of the 24th, but Pulleine was reluctant to agree since his orders had been specifically to defend the camp. It is probable that Durnford expected to face around 500 Zulus with his several hundred men and did not realise that, in fact, the main Zulu army of 25,000 warriors was close by.
The battle
The Zulu Army was commanded by inDunas (Princes) Ntshingwayo kaMahole Khozalo and Mavumengwana kaNdlela Ntuli. The inDuna Dabulamanzi kaMpande, half brother of Cetshwayo, commanded the Undi Corps, the powerful right Horn of the impi (Morris, Washing of the Spears).
While Chelmsford was in the field seeking them, the entire Zulu army had outmanoeuvred him, moving behind his force with the intention of attacking the British camp. They were discovered at around 11am by men of Lt. Raw's troop of scouts who chased a number of Zulus into a valley, only then seeing around 25,000 men of the main enemy force sitting in total quiet. There has been debate as to whether the 22nd January was the intended date of the attack (a partial eclipse of the sun was due that day which was a bad omen). However, having been discovered and with the camp too good a target to miss, the Zulu force leapt to the offensive. Raw's men began a fighting retreat back to the camp and a messenger was sent to warn Pulleine of the situation.
The Zulu attack then developed in the traditional horns and chest of the buffalo, with the aim of encircling the British position. From Pulleine's vantage point in the camp, at first only the right horn and then the chest (centre) of the attack seemed to be developing. Pulleine, therefore, rather than bringing in his troops into a tight defensive position, near the ammunition and with the Isandlwana feature protecting his rear, instead sent out first one, then all of his six companies of the 24th Foot into an extended firing line, with the aim of meeting the Zulu attack head on and checking it with firepower. Durnford's men, upon meeting elements of the Zulu centre, had retreated to a donga (dried out watercourse) on the British right flank where they, too, determined to make a stand. The native troops were kept in reserve, although many of them started to leave the battlefield at this point hence the relatively low casualty figures in their ranks. Pulleine only made one slight change to the original disposition after about twenty minutes of firing, which was to bring in the companies in the firing line slightly closer to the camp, but still too far away and apart to be regarded as a tight defensive unit.
For some time, the disciplined British volleys pinned down the Zulu centre, inflicting heavy casualties and causing the advance to stall. Indeed, morale remained high within the British line. The Martini-Henri rifle was a powerful weapon and the men were experienced. However, unknown to Pulleine, the Zulu force was moving to outflank the position and envelop it.
Durnford's men who had been fighting longest began to retreat and their rate of fire diminished. Durnford's retreat, and the general threat of the Zulu encirclement, left the rear, right and left flanks totally exposed, which caused Pulleine to order a withdrawal back to the camp. This was performed, by and large, with discipline and the men of the 24th (with the exception of G Company, 2nd/24th, which was left totally exposed by Durnford's retreat and slaughtered relatively quickly) fought a fighting retreat into the camp and made a number of protracted if desperate last stands. Evidence of this is that many of the bodies (today marked by cairns) were found in several large groups around the camp including one stand of around 150 men. However anecdotal evidence is extensive that during the withdrawals the British fire slackened and the Zulu were quick to recognize and exploit the opportunity by penetrating the gaps in large numbers.
The presence of large numbers of bodies grouped together suggests the resistance was more protracted than originally thought. What is clear is that the slaughter was immense and the area around the camp and back to Natal along the Fugitive's Drift was turned into a "charnel-house". The fighting was hand-to-hand and no quarter given. The British fought back-to-back (see Charles Edwin Fripp's painting in the National Army Museum) with bayonet and rifle butt when their ammunition had finally been expended. In the end, they fought with pocket knives and fists. The Zulus certainly had respect for their British foe, in particular the bayonet.
Reasons for the British defeatDebate persists as to how and why the British lost the battle. Well-equipped and well-trained British soldiers could fire 10 rounds a minute. Even assuming a poor strike rate, 1,000 men should in theory have been able to inflict 25,000 casualties in a few minutes against an enemy only equipped with spears and clubs, but the ferocity of the attack meant that all the rounds required could not be fired in time.
- The initial view, reported by Horace Smith-Dorrien, was that the British had difficulty unpacking their ammunition boxes fast enough and that the quarter-masters were reluctant to distribute ammunition to units other than their own. The lack of ammunition caused a lull in the defence and a subsequent rout. (In subsequent engagements with the Zulu, the ammunition boxes were unscrewed in advance for rapid distribution.)
- Donald Morris in The Washing of the Spears argues that the men, fighting too far from the camp, ran out of ammunition, starting first with Durnford's men who were holding the right flank and who had been in action longer, which precipitated a slowdown in the rate of fire against the Zulus. This argument suggests that the ammunition was too far from the firing line and that the seventy rounds each man took to the firing line was not sufficient.
- Shortage of ammunition and difficulty in unscrewing the boxes have been said to be unlikely as the units were experienced troops who had seen action before. It has been demonstrated that it was easy to open the ammunition boxes with the butt of a rifle and amount of ammunition used is evidenced by the number of ring-pulls for the inner metal lids that have been found at the site.
- Another factor was that the Martini-Henry rifles were prone to jamming because of the heat generated by repeated firing. The gunpowder residues in barrels also critically reduced the precision tolerances of the weapon after about 25 rounds. Bayonets were the only tool that the soldiers had to extricate the jammed rounds.
- Another view, however, recently supported with evidence from the battlefield, such as Ian Knight and Lt. Colonel Snook's works (the latter having written How Can Man Die Better?) suggest that although Durnford's men probably did run out of ammunition, the majority of men in the firing line did not. The discovery of the British line so far out from the camp has led Ian Knight to conclude that the British were defending too large a perimeter. Instead of shoulder to shoulder, the troops were three to four metres apart. When the Martini-Henry rifles started jamming, large gaps appeared in the line allowing the enemy to get behind the British positions.
- The frenzy of the Zulus' attack shocked many of the British, both soldiers and civilians alike. All living things in the camp were attacked and slashed at, including animals and civilians as well as soldiers. The bodies of the dead were ripped open in what appeared barbaric mutilation but which was actually a ritual to free the spirit of the dead and to stop the body swelling up. Many of the bodies were stabbed several times in the "washing of the spears" where every warrior was compelled to have stabbed an enemy, even after death.
- In addition to the obvious courage exhibited by the Zulu warriors, there are several factors that contributed to the ferocity and effectiveness of the attack. The warriors were initially indoctrinated into the Zulu army, using methods not unlike those employed by modern armies for recruit training. They were isolated from their families and the surrounding communities in an attempt to resocialize them, to encourage and force them to adopt common attitudes and common modes of thinking. The army employed classic military indoctrination techniques, such as drill and war dances, in order to coalesce individuals into cohesive fighting units. In addition, some modern practitioners of traditional Zulu medicine report that, before battle, two substances were commonly issued to Zulu warriors, each in the form of a powder capable of being inhaled like snuff. One was a highly stimulating variety of cannabis, and the other a powdered hallucinogenic mushroom.
One of the survivors was Lieutenant Horace Smith-Dorrien, who would go on to command the British II Corps in Flanders more than 35 years later during the First World War. Two other officers, Lieutenants Teignmouth Melvill and Nevill Coghill, were killed after escaping across the Buffalo River 5 kilometers distant, back into Natal. Both were subsequently awarded posthumous Victoria Crosses for their attempt to save the regiment's colours. Because the medal was not at that time awarded posthumously, these awards were not made until 1907. It is however unclear why Lieutenant Melvill took the colours. A story which circulated after the battle among the 24th Regiment is that when all was lost, Pulleine ordered Melvill to save the colours to prevent the disgrace of them being captured by the enemy. However, Pulleine was likely dead by the time Melvill retrieved them and so it is also likely that no such order was given. Another possible reason was that he had intended to rally the remnants of the battalion using the colours, however, if this was so, he probably would have uncased the colours and ridden towards one of the points of resistance still holding out against the Zulus. A Victoria Cross was also awarded to another survivor, Private Samuel Wassall, for the rescue of a fellow soldier; he received it the following September.
Chelmsford, who was by now about 11 km away had two indications that the camp was being attacked, but due to the hilly terrain had a poor view of the theatre of action. Unable to see anything amiss he apparently discounted both reports. One of the standard orders for the British, when attacked in camp, was to loosen the guy ropes on the tents so that soldiers would not get tangled up in them. This was not done and the upright tents were visible in the field glasses of the young officers with Chelmsford. Chelmsford took this to be an indication that the camp was not under attack. Chelmsford returned on the night of January 22, and his troops were forced to bivouac amongst the battle dead in what was a terrible scene although the troops were raised before dawn to spare them the full horror of the scene. Nevertheless, many of the troops woke in the morning with the appearance of badly injured men, covered in the blood, entrails and brains of the dead. The troops also could hear the sounds of battle at Rorke's Drift and smoke could be seen rising from that direction.
AftermathWhile Isandlwana was a Pyrrhic victory for the Zulus because of the heavy casualties suffered, it was an immediate catastrophe for the British. With the decisive defeat of Chelmsford's central column, the entire invasion of Zululand collapsed and had to be restaged. The victories of the Zulus did not end the war. As King Cetshwayo feared, the embarrassment of the defeat forced the policy makers in London, who to this point had not supported the war, to rally to the support of the pro-war contingent in the Natal government and commit whatever resources were needed to defeat the Zulu. The Zulus were poorly supplied with firearms and were not well trained with the few they had. Despite local numerical superiority, the Zulus did not have manpower resources to match the British in a series of battles.
The British government's reasoning was threefold. The first was jingoistic: no people like to be beaten by others, and national honour demanded that the enemy, victors in one battle, should lose the war. The second concerned the domestic political implications with ramifications at the next parliamentary elections. Third, there were considerations affecting the Empire: unless the British were seen to win a clear-cut victory against the Zulus, it would send a signal that the British Empire was not invulnerable and that the defeat of a British field army could alter policy. The British saw parallels between their own position and that of the Roman Empire after the Battle of Teutoburg Forest. Until then, one of the arguments against a war with the Zulu was that the costs could not be justified. If the Zulu victory at Isandlwana encouraged rebellion elsewhere in the Empire, then committing the resources necessary to defeat the Zulu would in the long term prove cheaper than suppressing other rebellions in other parts of the Empire.
Near the end of the battle, about 4000 Zulu warriors of the Undi impi, after cutting off the retreat of the survivors to the Buffalo River southwest of Isandlwana, crossed the river and attacked the fortified mission station at Rorke's Drift. It was defended by only 139 British soldiers, but the battle at Rorke's Drift turned out very differently from the Battle at Isandlwana. The British inflicted horrific casualties upon the attacking Zulu, and successfully beat them back. Eleven Victoria Crosses were awarded to defenders of Rorke's Drift, the most ever received by a regiment for a single action.
After Rorke's Drift, the British field army was reinforced and re-invaded Zululand, defeating the Zulus in a number of engagements, the last of which was the Battle of Ulundi and the capture of King Cetshwayo. The British encouraged the subkings of the Zulus to rule their subkingdoms without acknowledging a central Zulu power. By the time King Cetshwayo was allowed to return home, the British Empire no longer considered the Zulu kingdom a threat.
See also
Bibliography- Barthorp, M The Zulu War: Isandhlwana to Ulundi Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2002, ISBN 0-304-36270-0
- David, Saul Zulu, The Heroism and Tragedy of the Zulu War of 1879, 2005
- Furneaux, R The Zulu War: Isandhlwana & Rorke's Drift W&N (Great Battles of History Series), 1963
- Greaves, Adrian Rorke's Drift Cassell, 2003 ISBN 0-304-36641-2
- Greaves, Adrian Isandlwana Cassell & Co, 2001, ISBN 0-304-35700-6
- Knight, Ian & Castle, Ian Zulu War 1879, Twilight of a Warrior Nation; Osprey Campaign Series #14, Osprey Publishing 1992, 2002 ISBN 1-841-76511-2
- Lock, Ron & Quantrill, Peter Zulu Victory: The Epic of Isandlwana and the Cover-up Jonathan Ball Publishers, Johannesburg & Cape Town, 2002 ISBN 1-86842-214-3
- Snook, Mike How Can Man Die Better: The Secrets of Isandlwana Revealed Greenhill Books, 2006. ISBN 1-85367-656-X
Audio and video - "Impi", song written by South African music superstar Johnny Clegg and performed by his band Juluka on the album African Litany
- Rattray, David. Day of the Dead Moon. Audio series narrated by author regarding Anglo-Zulu War
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- 'Blood Mountain' - Produced and Directed by Michael Maloney Countrywide Productions - Narrated by Ian Knight, world renowned authority on the Zulu nation - 45 mins
External links-
- (thumbnail of Charles Edwin Fripps painting of the 24th Regiments last stand at Isandlwana)
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