Rorke’s Drift
Was it a victory for the Henry Martini, or was it the bayonet with ‘…a bit o’ guts behind it’?
I would lean towards the Martini-Henry, although the bayonet, good tactics and improvised fortifications were an important part.
And possibly the arrival of Lord Chelmsford’s column the next morning (although IIRC Chelmsford’s force was almost out of ammunition - the Zulus didn’t know that).
Rorke’s Drift
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rorkes_drift
Battle of Isandlwana
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Isandlwana
The Martini Henry didn’t tip the balance at Isandlwana though.
The poor layout of the defences led to the defenders being to thinnly spread. After a while in the heat of battle the rifles began to fail. Spent rounds would not eject from the rifle, and others would likely have discharged (cooked off) in the barrel.
When a mans rifle failled so, a weak point was opened in the line, and the Zulus would get through.
At Rourkes Drift, there was more overlapping of fire. Also the fabled 3 ranks of fire, allowed the defenders to unleash horrific amounts of firepower over a sustained period. Without the rifles overheating.
More importantly the Zulu force, despite numbering in their thousands, were exhausted, hungry and low on rations and far from their home areas. Likewise they ended up with a good few hundred casuatlies to care for. They could only loiter for so long before heading home.
IIRC at Isandlwana there were issues concerning the way the troops were deployed to meet the Zulu onslaught, ammo distribution (lack of adaquate tools for opening ammo crates), the cartridge itself (tendency to deform due to the way the early version brass cartridge was manufactered) and problems extracting the empty cases from the breech, as well as complaints concerning the Martini-Henry’s bayonet. British firepower began to slacken as a result of inadaquate resupply of ammo. IIRC, in hindsight the British would form infantry into squares when fighting the Zulu, as they would against cavalry. This was a practice used later in the Sudan against the Dervishes.
With the Martini-Henry the British stood a chance, provided the right tactics were employed and using their superior firepower to keep the numerically superior Zulu at bay. Once the Zulu closed in with overwhelming numbers the advantage swung in the Zulus’ favor.
Without the Martini-Henry and relying on the bayonet alone, IMHO the British would have been toast.
[EDITED TO ADD MORE INFORMATION AND SOURCES: 12/05/2007]
Martini-Henry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martini-Henry
During the Martini-Henry period in service, the British army were involved in a large number of colonial wars, most notably the Anglo-Zulu War in 1879. The rifle was used by the company of the 2nd Battalion, 24th Regiment of Foot present at Rorke’s Drift. During the battle, approximately 150 British soldiers successfully defended themselves against several thousand Zulus. The weapon was not completely phased out until 1904.
The weapon is partly blamed for the defeat of British troops at Isandlwana prior to Rorke’s Drift (in addition to poor tactics and numerical inferiority) - while the Martini-Henry was state of the art, in the African climate the action tended to overheat and foul after heavy use. It would eventually become difficult to move the breech block and reload the rifle. After investigating the matter, the British Army Ordnance Department determined the fragile construction of the rolled brass cartridge and fouling due to the black powder propellant were the main causes of this problem. To correct this, the cartridge was switched from weak rolled brass to stronger drawn brass, and a longer loading lever was incorporated to apply greater torque to operate the mechanism when fouled. These later variants were highly reliable in battle.
Martini-Henry - More:
http://www.martinihenry.com/
http://www.antiquestopic.com/martini-henry-rifle-1881/
Anglo-Zulu War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Zulu_War
http://www.kwazulu.co.uk/
http://www.kwazulu.co.uk/home.html
http://rapidttp.com/milhist/vol044sb.html
Battle of Isandlwana
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Isandlwana
Debate persists as to how and why the British lost the battle.
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.
Rorke’s Drift
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rorke’s_Drift
Siege of Eshowe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Eshowe
Battle of Intombe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Intombe
Battle of Hlobane
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hlobane
Battle of Gingindlovu
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gingindlovu
Battle of Kambula
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kambula
Battle of Ulundi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ulundi
Interesting coments, fellas. It was reported by the dfenders of Rorke’s Drift (‘Jim’s place’ to the Zulus) that the Zulus were more concerned about the bayonet than the rifle. There was much contest between bayonet and assegai on the barricades, and it was generally the bayonet which prevailed.
At Isandlwana, Pulleine formed his troops according to the written recommendations of Chelmsford - when defending against an attacking Zulu force - a copy of which was found on Pulleine’s corpse. Chelmsford, as proven by Pulleine, got it totally wrong. The best defense against Zulus, was the Laager.
Chelmsford’s instructions made a point that any Zulu attack would threaten ‘one or both flanks, as well as the front.’
‘British infantry in the Front Line, deployed or extended, with one or both flank companies thrown back.’ The guns should be slightly forward of the centre of the front line and an infantry reserve well behind. Supporting the British infantry, but in echelon to the rear and ‘well clear of each flank’, should be the Native Contingent.
Finally, Mounted Infantry were to be placed to the rear of each flank, ‘ready to move around the flanks, and rear, of the enemy’.
This suggested formation is very similar to the one Pulleine adopted. His flanks were left hanging in the air, and he took companies from the front line to reinforce Durnford and others, piece meal, thus depleting his force. The front line was over extended, and once the flanks had been turned, that was that. The whole situation at Isanlwana, from the Brtish point of view, is probably best described by the American term FUBAR!
But one shouldn’t take it away from the ZULUS!
Thanks for the interesting information 32Bravo 
Wikipedia shows 600-700 Zulu dead at Rorke’s Drift. Do you know of any figures that show the percentage killed by rifle versus bayonet?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rorke's_Drift
Zulu (scene from 1964 movie depicting battle at Rorke’s Drift)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWuaSww3JnA
Zulu Final Battle Scene (from 1964 movie depicting battle at Rorke’s Drift)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrZbUS0MaY4
Men of Harlech march
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2Gxd9zhsag
Men of Harlech - Charlotte Church with Welsh Male Choir
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hz9_ELpil9w
The film Zulu, isn’t that factually accurate, there have been many changes to make it more watchable.
WRT to ammo and tools to open the ammo boxes. There was no shortage of ammo to the front line troops, nor was there a problem with opening the boxes.
The 24th was quite an experienced unit. On a recent hunt many brass screws were found that had been bent in the middle. It appears that whilst on the ranges, or similar the screw would be unscrewed the lid slid off and the foil ripped open.
The Rifle and bayonet of the British would have offered a fair advantage over the Zulus, whose weapons were shorter. Zulus still had weight of numbers and a fair degree of extra strength to fight with.
I’ve been busy most of this evening, but wanted to post this before turning in for the night. I plan to post more in the coming days from the following and other sources.
Rorke’s Drift 1879, Ian Knight, Osprey Publishing Ltd, ISBN I 84176 100 1, 1996, p 67, 69
The Fighting After Dark
…Chard’s men were also exhausted, and in addition to the seriously wounded, most of them had suffered cuts and knocks, or had burned their fingers on the barrels of their rifles, which had grown almost red hot with the constant firing. Many had badly bruised shoulders from the heavy recoil of their rifles; when it became too painful to fire from the right shoulder, they had swapped arms, until their left shoulders also became bruised. Finally they had simply rested their rifles on the barricade, held them at arms length, and fired away, hoping to discourage the Zulus by the volume of their fire rather than the accuracy. Loss of blood, adrenalin, and the sheer emotional ordeal of the struggle had left the men desperately thirsty…
…the last shots were fired at 4:00am on 23 January, shortly before dawn.
The Morning After
…The yard was littered with discarded and torn uniforms, battered helmets, shields and spears, and carpeted with cartridge cases and the brown paper packages with which they had been supplied. Chard’s men had started the battle with a full company reserve supply of ammunition, around 20,000 rounds; as Chard admitted, by the morning they had only one box and a half - 900 rounds left.
The post resembled an abattoir, with corpses piled up in grotesque positions all around the barricades. In front of the hospital, where the Zulus had charged back and forth across the veranda several times, the bodies were piled up on one another three deep in some places, their limbs grotesquely twisted around one another, dead hands reachng out imploringly from the tangle. Below the ledge and against the barricade they were also heaped up…Chard noted some of the curious wounds - one man’s head split in half as if with an axe, and another with just a small mark where a bullet had struck him between the eyes, but with the back of his head blown away. A number of corpses were found in a similar position, crouched foward with their knees drawn up, their chins almost resting on their knees; no doubt something in the velocity of the Martini-Henry bullet had caused them to double up in this way.
Missed a bit in my last post.
In battle to open ammo boxes, the box was held in a vertical position and then the butt of rifle brought down on to it. Hard.
This slid the lid off the box, bending the brass screw in the process. hence on the scavenger hunt they found lots of bent brass screws.
Battle of Isandlwana
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Isandlwana
1,400 British and 2,500 African auxiliaries versus 22,000 Zulu.
…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 disbelief that they were in any danger, did not fortify the camp. In addition, it was believed that 1,000 British infantry, armed with Martini-Henry rifles, superior weapons to the Zulus’ primitive muskets, could meet any attack and overwhelm it through sheer firepower. However, the lack of defensive preparations, in hindsight, proved to be a major factor in the camp’s defeat by the Zulu impis (regiments) which attacked on 22 January and was a costly lesson to learn. 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 Battle of Isandlwana
http://www.britishbattles.com/zulu-war/isandlwana.htm
…The danger to the British line was presented by the Zulu “horns” which raced to find the end of the British flank and envelope it.
On the British right the companies of the 24th and the NNI were unable to prevent this envelopment. In addition the Zulus were able to infiltrate between the companies of British foot and the irregulars commanded by Durnford.
It is said that a major problem for the British was lack of ammunition and failings in the system of re-supply. It seems that this was not so for the 24th. [b]However Durnford’s men on the extreme right flank did run out of ammunition and were forced to mount up and ride back into the camp, thereby leaving the British flank open.
The Zulu chiefs took this opportunity to encourage the warriors of the “chest”, until now pinned down by the 24th’s fire, to renew their attack. This they did causing the British troops to fall back on the encampment.
A Zulu regiment rushed between the withdrawing British centre and the camp and the “horns” broke in on each flank The British line quickly collapsed.
As the line broke up, groups formed and fought the Zulus until their ammunition gave out and they were overwhelmed. A section of Natal Carbineers commanded by Durnford is identified as giving a heavy fire until their ammunition was spent. They fought on with pistols and knives until they were all struck down.[/b]
The “horns” of the Zulu attack did not quite close around the British camp, some soldiers managing to make their way towards Rorke’s Drift. But the Zulus cut the road and the escaping soldiers from the 24th were forced into the hills where they were hunted down and killed. Only mounted men managed to make it to the river by the more direct route to the south west.
A group of some 60 soldiers of the 24th Foot under Lieutenant Anstey, were cornered on the banks of a tributary of the Tugela and wiped out.
The last survivor in the main battle, a soldier of the 24th, escaped to a cave on the hillside where he continued fighting until his ammunition gave out and he was shot down.
The final act of the drama was played out along the banks of the Tugela River. Numbers of men were caught there by the Zulus. It is thought that natives living in Natal came down to the river and on the urgings of the Zulus killed British soldiers attempting to escape.
Casualties:
52 British officers and 806 non-commissioned ranks were killed. Around 60 Europeans survived the battle. 471 Africans died fighting for the British. Zulu casualties have to be estimated and are set at around 2,000 dead either on the field or from wounds. The Zulus captured 1,000 rifles with the whole of the column’s reserve ammunition supply.
[b]I go back to my original statement concerning Rorke’s Drift:
I would lean towards the Martini-Henry, although the bayonet, good tactics and improvised fortifications were an important part.[/b]
And possibly the arrival of Lord Chelmsford’s column the next morning (although IIRC Chelmsford’s force was almost out of ammunition - the Zulus didn’t know that).
At Isandlwana, without adequate defensive preparations (as were made at Rorke’s Drift) and choosing not to bring in the troops to a closer formation with the rocky Isandlwana feature securing the rear, the British force was eventually flanked by the Zulu after Durnford’s men on the extreme right flank ran out of ammunition. Soon after, the British line collapsed. The groups that fought on were overwhelmed once their ammunition gave out. In open country, whatever advantage the British bayonet had over the Zulu assegai was cancelled by the fact that the Zulu outnumbered the British by more than 5 to 1.
Sorry for not responding sooner, am a little busy at the mo.
I haven’t seen any stats regarding rifle-to-bayonet kills, George. I think your comment regarding the Brits being toast without the rifle is more than accurate, simply because of the Zulu numbers. Isandlwana proves that. A tighter British formation affording all around defnce would probably have taken care of the Zulu encirclememnt as it had on other occassions, but Chelmsford’s arrogance and failure to appreciate Zulu tactics scuppered the column.
At Rorke’s Drift, I believe it to have been the combination of fire-power and the use of the bayonet that saved the day.
The Zulus tended to use three weapons, being the throwing spear ( I have the name somewhere); the stabbig spear -Assegai (which was short handeled with a two foot blade, and the Knobkerry, a club consisting of a four feet shaft with a wooden ball on the end - very effect for cracking skulls. The Zulu witch doctors ahd given them a potion to keep bullets at bay, but not bayonets, hence the Zulu respect for the bayonet.
http://www.trocadero.com/faganarms/items/298468/en1store.html
http://www.oriental-arms.com/photos.php?id=1681
As mentioned above their are a lot of inaccuracies in the film, but it still makes for compelling viewing.
By the way. I haven’t had time to read all of the above, as yet, but it was Comissary Dalton that planned the defence of Rorke’s Drift and put fire into the bellies of Bromhead and Chard - not portrayed in the film.
George, regarding Zulu dead.
The figures I have, and none are absolutely certain, is that about 350 were killed in the battle for Rorke’s Drift.
Somewhere around 500 wounded were left in the surrounding area, and they were finished off with the bayonet. War crimes??? The Zulus asked and gave no quarter. The soldiers were a bit peed as they had witnessed the mutilation of some of the sick escaping from the burning hospital. It was Zulu belief that when a body swells after death, it was it’s spirit trying to escape that caused the swelling. If they didn’t allow it to escape then the spirit would later haunt them. So, in order to free the spirit, they disembowelled the dead. Of course, the Brits were not aware of this, for the most part, and thought it mere savagery.
Another number of casualties, again about 500, were recovered by the Zulus, but most of these died of their wounds later. The Zulus thought the bullets were poisoned, but, in effect, they didn’t possess the medical skills to deal with gunshot wounds. Generally, an Assegai wound was clean and could be treated by them, but bullet wounds were a different kettle of fish, particularly those of the calibre of the Martini Henry.
Many thanks 32Bravo for the casualty figures and very interesting supplemental information. Fascinating subject
I would like to post more from books that I have and other Internet sources.
Here is an interesting website concerning myths of the Anglo-Zulu War:
Myths of the Anglo-Zulu War
http://www.kwazulu.co.uk/fact-fiction.html
Covers myths regarding the following topics:
The Welshmen at Rorke’s Drift
Saving the Colours at Isandlwana
Zulus using British rifles at Rorke’s Drift
The Zulu Salute at Rorke’s Drift
The Ammunition Boxes at Isandlwana - BTW many thanks 1000ydstare for pointing this out earlier in this thread
The disastrous British defeat at Isandlwana is often attributed to a failure of ammunition on the part of the unit most involved in the defence - the 24th Regiment. This is variously ascribed to the unwillingness of Quartermasters to issue rounds without due paperwork, to the difficulties of opening the ammunition boxes themselves - which were supposedly bound tight with copper bands - and even to a lack of screwdrivers with which to do so.
In fact, any careful analysis of the evidence doesn’t support any of these claims. While it is true that some of the Colonial units - those under the independent command of Col. Durnford - did run out of ammunition and have difficulty replenishing their supplies, there is no evidence whatever to suggest that shortage of ammunition influenced in any way the tactical decisions of the officers of the 24th Regiment.
There were huge quantities of ammunition in the camp at Isandlwana - about 400,000 rounds in all. General Lord Chelmsford had taken the 2nd Battalion, 24th Regiment, out on reconnaissance, but left their reserve of ammunition in the camp, with orders that it be made ready to send to him if he requested it. The camp was guarded by the 1st Battalion, 24th, whose reserve supply was in the camp. The ammunition itself was stored in the Mark V ammunition box, which was a stout wooden thing, lined with tin, and held together with two copper bands. Obviously, such boxes were designed to take rough treatment on campaign - no point in them bursting open every time they were dropped - but access to the rounds was via a sliding wooden panel in the centre of the box. This was held in place by just one screw, and in an emergency it could be opened by the highly unorthadox method of giving the edge of the panel a hefty clout. This had the effect of splintering the wood around the screw.
When the battle first began, one of the Staff Officers collected a number of men not engaged in the fighting, and set about ferrying ammunition out to the firing line - this was the standard procedure at the time. One rather over-enthusiastic young officer attempted to requisition the 2/24th’s supply, but was sent away with a flea in his ear by the quartermaster, who was quite rightly mindful of his responsibilities to Lord Chelmsford. At that stage, the camp was not in serious danger, and in fact fresh supplies were organised from the 1/24th’s reserve. Later, when things started going badly, the 2/24th’s supplies were also broached, so that when - at the climax of the battle - the 24th companies abandoned their forward positions and fell back on the tents, they were still firing heavily. The reports of survivors - including half a dozen Zulu eye-witnesses - were unanimous on this point.
Once the Zulus penetrated the British line and over-ran the camp, however, there was no possibility of anyone renewing their supplies. The various groups of 24th - and others - therefore stood back to back and fired off what ammunition they had, after which the Zulu closed in. And therein lies the origin of all those reports which refer to the 24th being ‘overwhelmed when their ammunition was expended’.
Of course, it is far easier to believe that a modern, Western, industrialised army could be defeated through some folly of its own, rather than that it could be out-generalled by a part-time civilian army armed primarily with spears - an army, moreover, of men with black skins.
But such a view is based on false assumptions of racial and technological superiority, and a misunderstanding of the tactical realities. It is a view, moreover, which denies the tactical skill, discipline, and sheer raw courage of the Zulu people. It is time to stop seeking excuses for the British defeat at Isandlwana, and to start instead to think of it as a Zulu victory.
Zulu Tactics.
You may know this already George, but others might find it interesting.
King Shaka was the founder of the ama-Zulu (heavenly people) nation and it was he, in the main that developed Zulu fighting methods.
The Zulu were a regiment/clan in the army of the Bantu chief Dingiswayo, and Shaka was the regiment’s commander.
Bantu tribes fought each other by throwing spears at each other. When one side had exhausted their supply, they picked up those that had been thrown at them and threw them back, not many battle casualties.
Shaka, had his regiment break the shafts of their spears and use them for stabbing instead of throwing. When the enemy exhausted their spears, the Zulus, who had sheltered behind their shields, then ran forward and waded-in, stabbing with their shortened Assegais. This transformed the battle to one of anihilation.
The Assegai is a Bantu term for a spear of any kind. The Zulu name for the stabbing Assegai, was the iklwa, which represents the sucking sound the blade creates when being withdrawn from its victim. I would suppose that Assegai, which is a somewhat powerful name to the European ear and tongue, was that favoured by the Euopeans when describing the iklwa.
In his first battle, fought by Shaka to avenge the murder of his chief Dingiswayo, whom he loved as a father, he had in the region of four thousand Zulus whom he formed in a circle around a small hill or knoll. The opposition fielded about twenty thousand. Shaka defeated them using the above mentioned tactics. When the enemy withdrew, he pursued them the following day. His main Impi loped after them at a jog-trot pace (I forget the Zulu term for this, but the translation meant ‘Eating up the earth’), while he sent companies of sprinters in relays after them to wear them down until, eventually the main Zulu Impi caught them. He also sent warriors to infiltrate the enemy camp when they were settling down for the night. These warriors would then rise in the middle of the night and begin stabbing their neighbours. The enemy would panic and begin killing each other while the Zulus melted away.
The only natives to defeat the Zulu, were the Matabele (Moles – a name awarded to them by Shaka as a battle honour). They were a renegade Zulu clan which fled north and founded Matabeleland (Rhodesia/Zimbabwe and Northern Rhodesia/Zambia). Being renegades they used the same tactics as the Zulus. It just so happened that their commander was a better general than the pursuing Zulu commanders.
The film Zulu Dawn, released in 1979, portrays the events of Isndlwana quite well. It does, perhaps, put a little too much emphasis on the ammunition situation, but one can see that once the British flanks had been turned, as they were, and by the way the companies were spread out, that it would have been no time at all for the Zulus to overwhelm the camp, as they did.
Yes, I’ve seen the movie several times. And I have it on DVD, along with Zulu (1964) and the television mini-series Shaka Zulu starring Henry Cele (South African actor and former soccer star) as the Zulu chief Shaka. Very interesting movies, even though they may not have been completely accurate.
Here are some critiques from the website Myths of the Anglo-Zulu War:
http://www.kwazulu.co.uk/fact-fiction.html
ZULU (1964)
http://www.kwazulu.co.uk/anglo-zulu-war-zulu.htmlZULU remains the best-known film to be made about an aspect of Zulu history. Although popularly associated with Michael Caine these days, the film was in fact a very personal project for the film’s main star, Stanley Baker. A character actor from the South Wales valleys, Baker (later Sir Stanley) had a considerable reputation at the time for hard-bitten tough-guy supporting roles but was keen to establish himself in a more creative capacity on the other side of the camera. He was attracted to the story of the battle of Rorke’s Drift by his perception that the British regiment involved, the 24th Foot, was predominantly Welsh in character. He worked closely on the project with American director Cy Endfield (who had been living in Britain since 1952 having been blacklisted for alleged Communist sympathies in the US during the Mcarthy era). The film was inspired by an article on the battle written for Lilliput magazine in 1958 by the Scottish historian John Prebble (under a pseudonym). The film was shot in South Africa and at Twickenham studios, England, in 1963. It was not shot on the location of the real battle of Rorke’s Drift; the site was considered cinematically uninteresting, and opposition was anticipated from the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Sweden, who still owned the site. Instead, the locations – both the Rorke’s Drift mission and King Cetshwayo’s royal homestead at oNdini – were built within the confines of the Royal Natal National Park, in the shadow of the spectacular Amphitheatre in the Kahlamba (Drakensberg) mountains, the source of the Thukela river. The mountains provided a stunning visual backdrop and helped establish the film’s South African identity in the minds of overseas audiences since the British Royal Family had enjoyed a much-publicised stay in the park in 1947.
The filming was carried out under the careful eye of the apartheid Nationalist Government who specified that the British actors and white extras should not fraternise with the Zulus who worked on the film. The Government provided troops from the South African Army to play British soldiers while Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi – then emerging as a Zulu nationalist politician – was instrumental in securing the services of the Zulu extras. Prince Buthelezi (recently a Minister of the Interior in the new South African Government and leader of the Inkatha Freedom Party) accepted a small cameo role as King Cetshwayo, of whom he is a descendant.
The film is arguably one of the best-ever British action films and is greatly served by an intelligent script (by Endfield and Prebble) which concentrates on tensions within the small British garrison as it awaits the Zulu attack. Ideologically it betrays a world-weary anti-Imperialisms symptomatic of the 1960s rather than the 1870s, a factor which has ensured its popularity into recent times. No historical context for the battle of Rorke’s Drift is offered beyond a marvellously atmospheric opening sequence, depicting the devastated field at Isandlwana; instead, it concentrates on the predicament of individual soldiers, pawns in a war not of their making. ‘Why is it us?’ asks a nervous young soldier as the Zulus draw near; ‘Because we’re ‘ere’, replies the Sergeant. ‘Nobody else; just us.’ The grandeur of Imperial folly, represented by Michael Caine’s aristocratic Lieutenant Bromhead (‘My grandfather – he was the johnnie who knelt beside Wolfe at Quebec’) is deflated by Baker’s gritty realism as the pragmatic Lieutenant Chard (‘Hold our ground? Who thought that one up? Somebody’s son and heir, got a commission before he could shave?’). When, at the end of the film, Baker’s fellow Welshman, Richard Burton, intones the names of the Victoria Cross winners he does so mournfully as the camera lingers over images of wounded soldiers and burial details.
The film is wonderfully spectacular, making unparalleled use of the landscape and of the rich colours of the sky, the veld and the uniforms. The battle is superbly paced, each Zulu attack giving way to another of greater ferocity, and expertly choreographed (only the relative lack of blood jars with modern audiences, more used to the graphic imagery of Saving Private Ryan). Most remarkable is the treatment of the Zulu people themselves. The film offers no Zulu perspective on events but instead invests the Zulu warriors with a sense of menace which hearkens directly back to the awe they created in British minds in 1879. They rise up out of the long grass or appear in long lines over the hills as if they are an extension of a hostile and inexpressibly alien African landscape which threatens to swallow up the British interlopers.
The film does, of course, take huge liberties with historical fact. The real battle was more chaotic and less structured and, moreover, largely took part in the dark – which has obvious cinematic limitations! The class conflict which frames Chard and Bromhead’s relationship is a product of the 1960s, and, indeed, almost all of the historical characters have been greatly altered for the film. Colour Sergeant Bourne – a career-best performance from Nigel Green – was in fact only 23 at the time of the battle; Private Hook, the ‘insubordinate barrack-room lawyer’, was a model soldier and a tea-totaller. The Reverend Witt (played against type by Jack Hawkins) had sent his daughter away before the battle; she was in fact only a child at the time and, even had he wanted to, he could not have visited oNdini and returned before the battle as it is sixty miles from Rorke’s Drift. The enduring impression that Rorke’s Drift was defended entirely by Welshman remains a legacy of the film; in fact there were only a handful present. Nobody sang ‘Men of Harlech’, nor did the withdrawing Zulus salute their victorious enemies.None of which, actually, detract from a superb piece of cinema. Zulu may follow in the tradition of popular British mythology about Rorke’s Drift, recasting and reinventing it for new generations, but in its way it captures an essential human truth about the story and has ensured that an event which might otherwise have disappeared into obscurity continues to be vividly remembered today.
If you are interested in the making of the film Zulu, we recommend Sheldon Hall’s book, Zulu; With Some Guts Behind It, available from
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(CONTINUED FROM ABOVE)
ZULU DAWN (1979)
http://www.kwazulu.co.uk/anglo-zulu-war-zulu-dawn.htmlZulu Dawn was filmed in South Africa in 1978 – hoping to capitalise on the reputation of the earlier Zulu, and on press interest in the forthcoming centenary of the Anglo-Zulu War – and tells the story of the battle of Isandlwana. It begins with a cursory run-through of the events leading up to the British invasion – 10 minutes of Sir John Mills looking smug and conspiratorial as Sir H Bartle Frere, in charge of British imperial policy in South Africa. Then comes Lieutenant General Lord Chelmsford’s advance to the fatal field of Isandlwana.
There is no doubt it is an uneven film, partly as a result of problems which beset the production. On the plus side, it is visually stunning, and was filmed close to the real locations. Siphezi mountain, near the modern village of Babanango, stood in for Isandlwana hill, since the producers were not allowed to film on the real battlesite and the presence of monuments, in the days before CGI, would in any case have been difficult to mask. The camera relishes the spectacle of lines of red-coated soldiers crossing rivers on ferries hauled by sweating Africans, or marching in great columns through the tawny veld. Indeed, the landscape is rather more aridly splendid than it should be, since the real events took place in the Zululand summer when the grass is a lush green. Film makers do not love the Zululand summer, however; it rains a lot and the light is a little too unreliable. The crossing of the Mzinyathi River by Chelmsford’s column, is suitably epic, but in fact, the actual morning of the invasion was cloaked in dense mist that limited visibility to a few yards – there was clearly not much cinematic mileage in that. The sequence was filmed at the real Rorke's Drift, but the column deploys from the Zulu bank into Natal, a reversal that somehow sums up the wasted opportunities of the film as a whole. A host of well-known British actors appear in little more than cameo roles, most of them reduced to the level of historical stereotypes. Peter O'Toole plays Lord Chelmsford with an edge of icy arrogance; whatever his military failings, however, the real Chelmsford was noted for his impeccable manners. Burt Lancaster, brought in to secure American finance, struggles manfully with a spurious Oirish accent as Colonel Durnford, ‘the man-who-knows-but-no-one-will-listen-to’. Denholm Elliott plays Colonel Pulleine, Nigel Davenport Hamilton Browne, Bob Hoskins Col. Sgt. Williams, Dai Bradley Pte Williams, Phil Daniels Boy Pullen – the list is seemingly endless, but their talents are largely wasted with no character depth to get their teeth into. Whereas the narrative of Zulu is driven by the internal conflicts within the British garrison, there is a large hole in Zulu Dawn where the dramatic wellspring should be, and it is not filled by the mere hint of a romance between Durnford and Francis Colenso (who was known, incidentally, as Nel, not Fanny!), or by the woefully under-employed sparks between Durnford and Chelmsford. Moreover, the British army in 1879, it seems, was populated by breezy young officers ('What an adventure we are on, what a spree!' declares Christopher Cazanove’s Lt Coghill, as the advance begins), by officious quartermasters who need chits to issue ammunition even at the height of battle (a deliciously over-the-top Peter Vaughan), and by cor-blimey other ranks who drink gin and play brag. There is a serious attempt to get most of the British uniforms right but there is rather too much 1970s polyester on display, and the scenes of volley-firing are undermined by the use of Martini-Henry carbines instead of rifles (not enough working rifles to be found, apparently). It can only end one way – and indeed it does. 'It serves you damn well right,' the young Zulu warrior is surely saying as he skewers Colonel Pulleine through the chest at the film's dramatic climax. Bob Hoskins finally gets it in the back (surviving trims suggest this scene was filmed a dozen different ways) – few of the redcoats seem to die in a fair fight – and even Burt has to take it like a man, after being shot, falling off a wagon and being impaled on a spear. In its concentration on British failings – 'Have we weaknesses, quartermaster?' – the film echoes traditional British attitudes towards the war, perpetuating myths as excuses (‘It ain’t my fault, all the lids are screwed down’) and reducing the Zulus to exotic cannon-fodder who, on this occasion, merely serve to look good and dish up well-deserved retribution. Although the film begins with an impressive ceremony at the recreated Zulu royal homestead (where King Cetshwayo is played by Simon Sabela, who also appeared in Zulu), it fails to offer any convincing Zulu perspective, and its apparent sympathy for the Zulu cause is undermined by an entirely fictitious gladiatorial contest between warriors that might have been written by Rider Haggard in his best 'noble savage' mode. It is, moreover, a curiously bloodless film, in more ways than one. In the stunningly choreographed battle scenes, hundreds die but very few bleed, and the film captures little of the apocalyptic horror of the real Isandlwana. Apparently, by the time the film was edited the production was beset by financial wranglings and most of the gory scenes were cut to secure a family certificate in the hope of reaching a maximum audience quickly. Scenes of minor characters dying, of blood spurting through the canvas as a soldier is stabbed in a tent, and of wounded men being slaughtered in the field dressing-station all ended up on the cutting-room floor. There is, too, an odd lack of the sort of choreographed close-up fighting which made Zulu so compelling, and its absence makes the killing seem distant, anonymous, and far less viscious than it should be. Not that there aren’t some superb moments in the battle scenes. The discovery of the Zulu impi is genuinely tense, and there are some remarkable panoramic shots of the Zulu army storming through the camp. The ‘saving the Colour’ sequence was filmed at Fugitives’ Drift, although the dramatic contrivance – a Zulu carries off the Colur in triumph, only to fall to a last shot to Simon Ward’s Lt. Vereker – is a rather limp nod to historical accuracy, an unecessary attempt to inject some personal drama and still get the Colour into the river where, historically, it belongs. Zulu Dawn apparently ran considerably over-budget and ended amidst writs, allegations of unpaid bills and the exploitation of African extras. These problems led to a chequered cinematic and video release at the time, and seem to have only been resolved after the passage of twenty-five years. This has, at least, facilitated its release on DVD.There is much in it to enjoy but it remains on the whole – aptly, perhaps – something of a heroic failure.
Come to that, the officers of colonial units didn’t wear those chic powder-blue uniforms in real life, either.
Shaka Zulu - The Complete Miniseries (1986)
http://www.amazon.com/Shaka-Zulu-Miniseries-Edward-Fox/dp/B00006JDQO/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1197608905&sr=1-1
Shaka Zulu - Last Great Warrior (2005)
http://www.amazon.com/Shaka-Zulu-Last-Great-Warrior/dp/B0007PALUC/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1197609056&sr=1-2
The sequel to the 1986 Mini-series - I have not seen this yet, although I did see the original 1986 mini-series.
Zulu Wars: Shaka-King of the Zulu/Blood River/Red Coat Black Blood
Zulu Wars Trilogy (2003)
http://www.amazon.com/Zulu-Wars-Shaka-King-Blood-River/dp/B0000C506S/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1197609709&sr=1-2
Essential for Zulu War Enthusiasts!!, February 29, 2004
By Howard S. Matheney “Sam Matheney” (Fredericksburg, VA United States)If you are a fan of the Zulu and Zulu Dawn movies, this is a DVD that you should own. Mind you, it is a documentary feature, but it is extremely well done. History buffs in general should love it. The production values are outstanding, the narration by John Hurt is excellent, and there are commentaries by Ian Knight, surely, for we Americans, the leading expert and writer on the Zulu Wars. The great majority of the trio of features consist of live action reproduction, brialliantly acted, and filmed on location in South Africa. I hesitated before buying this, as I had never caught it on the Learning or History channels, there were no extant reviews, and the packaging did not initially inspire confidence. However, my hunch paid off, and this outstanding little gem is worth every penny.
More from Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/104-7012193-8219923?url=search-alias%3Ddvd&field-keywords=shaka+zulu&x=15&y=23