rorkesdriftvc.com :: View topic - TV prog 'Zulu

Posted: Sun Mar 19, 2006 10:00 pm

Watched an interesting programme which touched on the battle at Islandhwana and Rorke's Drift. It was on cable and satalite TV, the UK History channel on Saturday, programme was called 'Zulu - The True Story'. It appeared to be one of the Timewatch series of programmes.

There were two contributing authours to the program, Ian Knight and Saul David (authour of 'Military Blunders' as the programme makers titled it). Saul David appeared to be the main contributing authour as the programme was geared more to highlighting how incompetent Lord Chelmsford was. They spoke about how Chelmsford tried to lay the blame of defeat at Islandhwana squarely at Dumford's feet for failing to obey specific orders which according to the programme makers these so called orders were ficticious because Chelmsford knew they could'nt question a dead man. When they touched on Rorke's Drift, the progamme makers made a point of telling that when Chard and Bromhead heard about what had happened at Islandhwana there first response was to pull out of Rorke's Drift and leave but it was Commissar Dalton who persuaded them to stay and defend.

Basically the programme gave the viewers the strong impression that Chelmsford, Chard and Bromhead were not the competent respected well drilled commanding officers that people had made them out to believe that in fact all three were the complete opposite.

Some of the interesting points brought up in the old forum was in that program too. The mentioning of why the solideres were so far away from the ammunition wagons, the soldiers being cut open (this was pointed out by the great grandson of a zulu warrior at Islandhwana who said this was done to release the spirits of the men as it was a zulu custom/tradition/ritual (i forget which one was said at the time).

On the whole, a very interesting program.

PS sorry for any spelling mistakes