Isandlwana commemoration

About 4,000 people gathered in the eastern town of Isandlwana on Saturday to commemorate the 125th anniversary of one of the Anglo-Zulu War's most brutal battles.

About 1,500 British soldiers and 2,000 Zulu warriors were killed in the eastern province of Kwa-Zulu Natal in 1879 -- the most crushing defeat of the war for the British -- after they attempted to disperse the Zulu army.

On the same day, 145 South Wales Borderers held off another Zulu army attack at nearby Rorke's Drift where 17 Britons and 450 Zulus died.

Full article here; there is also a much more extensive article in the Telegraph:

A few years ago Isandlwana - a Zulu name for the shape of a cow's second stomach, which the craggy mountain is said to resemble - was in danger of being lost as a historic site.

A school and shop had been built on the battlefield and unscrupulous traders were providing metal detectors to local Zulus to dig up artefacts like British bullet cases, Zulu blades and the buttons from British tunics.

One night two of the mass graves on the battlefield were desecrated, leaving the bones open to the elements. But with the involvement of the local tribal authority, the battlefield has been fenced off and is now protected.

While various British units erected memorials to the fallen in the years after the battle on Jan 22 1879, it took until the 120th anniversary for a memorial to mark the Zulu war dead.

International interest, mainly from Britain, has been rekindled in the battlefield by local historians such as David Rattray who set up a battlefield tour from his nearby farm in the early 1990s.

Further Zulu War news from earlier this week, in the Times of London:

Thousands of Zulu warriors interred in mass graves are to be given a proper burial 125 years after their deaths in the Anglo-Zulu War.

Agreement to exhume the bodies coincides with the 125th anniversary today of the Battle of Isandlwana. . .

Even today, the descendants of the warriors who fought at Isandlwana, Rorke’s Drift and elsewhere in what is now the province of KwaZulu-Natal can be seen sacrificing a goat or chicken to the memory of their forefathers at the spot where they were believed to have met their deaths.

Large numbers of Zulus killed in the battles were carried away on warriors’ shields and given a traditional burial in family cattle kraals, but many were left lying under the African sun for months until their bones were unceremoniously disposed of by British troops cleaning up the sites

The article also notes, for those whose knowledge of these events is derived from the popular but not exactly accurate film Zulu:

Despite the bravery of British soldiers, the real story of the Anglo-Zulu War was one of deception, dishonour, incompetence and dereliction of duty by Lord Chelmsford, and the British establishment rallying round to cover up for one of their own.

Lord Chelmsford invaded Zululand without the knowledge of the British Government in the hope that he could capture Cetshwayo, the Zulu King, before London discovered that hostilities had begun. He had such contempt for the native warrior that he did not bother to fortify his headquarters at Isandlwana, believing a direct attack to be “unthinkable”. Duped by decoys into leading almost half his 5,000-strong force into a futile search for the enemy across the 100-square mile Isandlwana plain, he was unaware that his main camp had been overwhelmed. He then tried to blame the fiasco on Colonel Anthony Durnford, one of his subordinates, who was later eulogised for gallantly fighting to the death. . .

As a close friend of Queen Victoria, he was never held to account for the disaster he presided over at Isandlwana.

It is also worth mentioning that for a long time, histories of Rorke's Drift and Isandlwana alike completely ignored accounts from Zulu sources (just as historians for many years ignored Mexican accounts of the battle of the Alamo).

Posted by David on January 25, 2004 10:41 AM