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Date	Original Topic
10th February 2002	End of the battle By Arie Tuit Hi, I'm Arie from The Hague (Holland) and yesterday evening the film Zulu was at television here. It was the third time I saw the film. My question is: what was the reaseon that the Zulu-army stopped fighting at Rorke's Drift, although the had far more men? Was that the number of casualties?
Date	Replies
10th February 2002	CLIVE DICKENS Arie, The reason most possibly was they in thier position could see more than the defenders at Rorkes Drift could and that was Lord Chelmesford's column of reinforcements on it's way to Rorkes Drift so they moved out fairly rapidly, dont forget they had been fighting from the previous day and through the night
10th February 2002	Arie Thanks for your answer. Another thing bothered me while seeing the film and that was why sending only a couple of hundreds Zulu-fighters each time to attack the camp and not sending a much larger part of the 4.500 Zulu's in one time to attack. I do'nt think the defenders could have handled so much Zulu's at one time. I'm glad the Zulu's did'nt.
10th February 2002	Gary Laliberty Arie, That's a very good question. I will try to answer it. Please understand that this will be 'my' opinion, based on what I have read. The first group of Zulus attack Rorke's Drift were just one amabutho(regiment) of the 4 that attacked. When the main Zulu body came, they were led by two izinduna on horseback, one whose name is not known and the other was Prince Dabulamanzi. Although the attack so far showed no signs of careful planning---the Zulus had simply advanced and attacked---a directing hand became more obvious once the Prince arrived. Now you must remember the orders from the King to the army,---not to cross the river into Natal,or to attack the British in entrenched positions. The Prince(the King's half-brother)had disobey the King's orders,cross the river and attacked the British at Rorke's Drift. So,I think the Prince wanted to keep his casualties down by attacking with a small force more than once,then attacking only once with his full force. Gary
11th February 2002	Arie Thank you very mucht for this answer. I think you gave the good reason why they did'nt attack with larger numbers of warriors. But why then the Zulu-prince offered at the first attack a lot of warriors to 'count the guns'? Strange boys those Zulu's!
12th February 2002	Julian Whybra Time to remember that this is just a film not an action replay. What you see is what you get is what the director says is good cinema!