rorkesdriftvc.com :: View topic

Posted: Thu Mar 23, 2006 4:35 pm

http://www.brenthurst.org.za/press.htm

Posted: Fri Mar 24, 2006 7:56 am

I have today spoken to the Librarian, Brenthurst Library. The Board meeting of three years ago decided that they would not republish either Zululand at War or Invasion of Zululand for the following two reasons:
First that technology has altered to such an extent, the original not being on disc, that the cost would be exhorbitant.
Second, and more important, was that the original issues were numbered and therefore had become a collectors item. In no way did they wish to devalue the existing numbered copies; so that would seem to be that.
Occasionally they do appear on the local market, fetching prices which vary, depending on condition, anything up to R3,000.Well worth it if you can locate a copy.

Posted: Fri Mar 24, 2006 8:31 am

Alibris has one "Zululand At War" available. At $1500 USD. Cloth.

Alas.

MAB

Posted: Fri Mar 24, 2006 9:29 am

PETER

Many thanks for bringing us up to date. Hope you didn't mind me transferring your post from the old forum.

MICHAEL

$1500 dollars is well out of my price range until the British Army increase their pensions. Rolling Eyes

So that could be a while Crying or Very sad

975 copies does seem an awfully small print run. Almost vanity printing.

Posted: Fri Mar 24, 2006 1:17 pm

Oh boy really this is an excellent job for the cloistered monks of Columbia who overlook the sea...... Wink

Thanks all for all the updates. Looks like we have to do some banking for the gems.

Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2006 9:19 am

Just found both books one at US$250 the other at US$1500.

The question I have, as I have many books on the war, has this material been copied in other books, I would be prepared to pay the $250 but the other, my wife would kill me

Just read M Snooks HCMDB very good but very bias against the colonials and i think he has a few point wrong, and now reading Running the Gauntlet by Mossop

How come I have not heard of this auther before??????????????

Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2006 11:53 am

Andrew

I am very glad to know you think you had a reasonable return for your money but concerned that you think it is biased against colonials - or biased against anybody for that matter - except of course bad historians - (whose work can be readily located at azwrs.com). HCMDB and LWOTF actually batter seven bells out of regular officers. G.A. , a regular contributor here has already had a go at me for my treatment of some of the regular officers.

Some of the richest praise in HCMDB is in fact reserved for 'colonials' - vide Scott and the Carbineers, James Lonsdale and so on. Every man is treated fairly on his merits as far as the evidence allows.

I hope you are prepared to debate this - but look up bias in the dictionary first. If you don't want to, then I respect your right to freedom of speech, though it would be nice if what you said was both true and fair.

Regards as ever

Mike

Posted: Wed Mar 29, 2006 8:24 am

Mike

The general feel and atmosphere of the book for me leans me to thinking generally when a member of the 24th reacted in a certain manner the action was generally justified if it was Durnford or generally anybody else the reasoning was at times questioned.

Don�t get me wrong I felt as though the battle has been explained minute by minute which I thought was excellent and probably, no the best account of the actual battle I have read.

By the way I have not got the book in front of me at the moment. But I reserve the right for example to question that Durnford suddenly appeared with Scott and his carbineers, in fact THEY may well of gravitated towards him as the principle officer. Also the remnants of the 24th my well of tried to make a stand with him rather than forming squares on their own in trying to reach the saddle .

Another point to note is that you mentioned that the battle was lossed when Durnford and his mounted troops retreated from the donga. Could the battle have been lossed when the British left flank on the plateau allowed the right horn to pass them, going behind Isandlwana and start heading for the saddle.

Posted: Wed Mar 29, 2006 11:11 am

I'll mention it again. Could some of you put together your views on the various books to put on the REVIEWS section here? Unless of course you think that the AZWRS site is as much as anyone would need. Question

Please.

Posted: Wed Mar 29, 2006 4:02 pm

Andrew

I was a little miffed to be accused of bias against the colonials - but you actually make no reference to this in your reply. Surely you can't be referring to Durnford - who was a regular officer as you must know.

The following are major 'stick' figures in my books:

Wolseley - regular army
Durnford - regular army
Chelmsford - regular army
Crealock - regular army
to an extent - Gardner - regular army
to an extent - Insp Mansell - police/Brit colonial*** (One to you)

The following are defended (with reasons):

Pulleine against accusations of bumbling incompetence started by Donald Morris and plagiarised ever since - on the basis of precisely zero evidence. Most writers don't even have him in the right place on the battlefield. I'm afraid a naval CIA man knows as much about commanding an infantry battalion in action as a national service subaltern or a policeman.

QMs Pullen & Bloomfield - Ditto. Especially Pullen who was clearly something of a hero - again rather than the bumbling bureaucrat that Morris and his successors portrayed. Evidence against him zero. Evidence For him being actually rather a good bloke - HCMDB refers. Bloomfield wasn't actually alive long enough to do the things Morris and his successors accused him of!!

Melvill and Coghill. Against despicable accusations of cowardice begun by Garnet Wolseley, highlighted without contextualizing Wolseley's character by some of azwrs.com's favourite writers, and repeated again by BBC Timewatch Zulu the True Story - which should perhaps be repeated for next Xmas's pantomime season.

The Rorke's Drift VC winners. Ditto more despicable revisionism from those who would sink to any depths to cash in with a bit of sensationalism.

The whole thrust of my writing is to extol the gallant conduct of those who fought on 22 Jan, regardless of the colour of their skin or their capbadge - with one proviso - they actually have to have been gallant - if they were less than gallant - vide say Gardner and Adendorff (officers leaving enlisted men behind) for example, then I have said so, without belabouring the point, whilst at the same time having tried my best to describe how frightening a scene it was, and how less than heroic conduct is perfectly understandable.

It cannot have escaped your attention that the 1st/2nd/24th were the only major contingents that actually fought it out back to back. But the gunners did their bit - before trying to save their guns as they were duty bound to do - for which I have given them full credit - and the carbineers (colonials) were brilliant - for which I have sung their praises to the heavens. By contrast the NNMC ran away and I have had the moral courage to say so. I have explained how badly the levies were treated and explained that there was very little reason for them to die for Queen Vic - even though many of the dismounted ones did.

If I was writing HCMDB today I would highlight how few NNC NCOs survived Isandlwana - though the bare facts of the case are there in the appendices - based on Julian's (and others) outstanding research work over the years. This suggests to me that many of them must have rallied on the infantry - and I would like to give them credit for doing so - but failing to mention this in the first edition was by means a function of bias - it simply didn't dawn on me until the other day - some NNC officers survived - barely any of their NCOs did - reason - horses or the absence thereof.

Anyway Andrew, I don't want to give you a broadside - that is by no means my intention - but if you are going to use words like bias it is important that you can substantiate them.

Of course I have extolled the bravery and steadiness of the 24th - but I have shown why this should be so - and it says in the first few pages and on the jacket - this is a book in which my regiment is the hero. Everybody had the opportunity to put it down at that point - whether they bought in a shop or on the internet. Couldn't be more up front than that!! That's not bias - it would be bias not to write up the Carbineers, or the gunners serving their pieces in the open, or the uMbonambi for driving A Coy in frontally, or the uNokhenke for bravely trying to force their way down the spur etc etc.

Enough. I hope I have been able to convince you that bias may not be the right word, and I am grateful for your overall tick in the box. The nice thing is that you are a real person not a puppet or a front organization.

Regards as ever

Mike

Posted: Wed Mar 29, 2006 4:17 pm

Andrew,

By the way your point about the right horn in your last paragraph is a perfectly fair one and I don't disagree. It is a matter of timing as I think I explained - it was lost on the right - but hey it was always going to be lost on the left in the fullness of time anyway. Some of this stuff comes out in LWOTF which I don't think you have read yet.

M

Posted: Wed Mar 29, 2006 9:18 pm

Mike:

In your books, I am glad that you do take the position of extolling the "gallant" conduct of those fighting for their lives at Isandhlwana and Rorke's Drift. I always think about this scenario...that every single man in that regiment under the circumstances could have simply thrown down their arms and made a run for it and be done with the whole thing. I mean what's the use if you were going to get caught and served up mince meat and all to blood thirsty parties of Zulus?
Now the fact of the matter is that the entire regiment at Isandhlwana stood its ground and fought bravely to the death and most probably made the Zulus pay dearly for each one of their lives. The great thing about the actions at Isandhlwana and RD is that it throws up in relief and internalizes to everyone what matters when it comes to live or die and how you deal with it. Both actions are examples of true courage in the face of tremendously bad battle odds. Not to disparage the Zulu, but I'd think they would not have stood and faced the odds that the 24th did if they were in similar circumstances. They would probably have picked up and gone leaving their shields to be picked up by their pursuers.

Posted: Thu Mar 30, 2006 8:03 am

Thank you Rich, that's exactly the point. And the fact that they did that, is exactly why we are all here talking about it, reading or writing books about it. Well said.

Regards as ever

Mike

Posted: Thu Mar 30, 2006 1:44 pm

I think Mikes book actually phrases it, that they the 24th weren't fighting for the Queen, but for their Regiment and more importantly their mates.
As a humble ranker, 12 years service and up n down the promotion scale Very Happy

One thing that was drummed into me was my section, forget even the Regiment, you fought for your little world and your mates, the most heinous crime in the Army is to run out on them, as a ranker I've seen men who have become pariahs and disappear from the view of others pretty quick.

So Mike shows why they fought, this isn't a case of B******t, this is something the British Army has thrived and survived on, something so very unique in the world. (case of point, one trooper can trace his family back to the 30s, and his son now is in the Reg)

Forget Queen and Country and Flag, they fought for something more real, and they died knowing that, simple but true.

Posted: Sat Jun 10, 2006 3:36 am

That that I'm one to boast....oh, what the heck....I'll do it anyway! I've managed to secure of copy of Sonia Clarke's Zululand at War 1879 for a not to be disclosed sum! A cloth bound one to be sure, but half a weeks wages all the same. I was smiling all the way home. It's amazing what turns up in these Antipodean Isles.

And no, you cannot borrow it.

Dawn