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The British-Zulu War
1879
Rorke's Drift
by Gilbert Padilla
By the middle of the nineteenth century Great Britain held two colonies in
southern Africa, the Cape Colony and Natal. These stretched from the southern
tip of the continent (the Cape) upwards along its eastern coast (Natal). In the
interior of the region were two independent Boer republics, the Orange Free
State and the Transvaal. Among these European enclaves were the remnants of the
original African nations, the strongest of which was the Zulu kingdom, just
north of Natal.
To Sir Henry Bartle Edward Frere, the British government’s High Commissioner
for Southern Africa, this simply would not do. To Frere, the fiercely
independent Zulus posed a serious threat to the policy of “Confederation”,
which he advocated. The object of this policy was to ensure stability by
bringing all of these groups under British control. In 1877 Britain annexed the
Transvaal, thereby inheriting a border dispute with the Zulu kingdom (Zululand,
or KwaZulu). Further, in 1873 King Cetshwayo kaMpande had initiated a series of
internal reforms with the goal of revitalizing and strengthening the Zulu
nation. To remove this perceived threat to the authority of Queen Victoria,
Frere determined to orchestrate a military confrontation with the Zulus for the
express purpose of breaking their power.
To the British Army commander in the region, Lieutenant-General Sir Frederic
Thesiger, 2nd Baron Chelmsford, this seemed a task that would require neither
much time nor much effort. Chelmsford estimated that King Cetshwayo could
muster an army of over forty thousand warriors, but this was a part-time
citizen force armed with mostly traditional weapons, i.e., spear and shield. No
matter what training or discipline such soldiers might possess, both Frere and
Chelmsford judged them no match for a well-trained, well-equipped, and well-led
modern professional army.
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Battle of Isandlwana
