rorkesdriftvc.com :: View topic - Donald Morris-- Ammunition--Again.

Posted: Wed Apr 12, 2006 2:40 pm

Hi,
I know that the older (and more experienced) members of the forum probably think that the story of the ammunition shortages at Isandlwana has probably received enough of an airing. I have read as much of the old postings from the now defunct message boards as possible. I have also read the articles and books by people who post on these boards who don't give it much credence.
I have, however, found an interesting E mail that was sent by Donald Morris shortly before his death. Apparently he was asked if he thought his book needed revision on the Isandlwana chapters This is the answer attributed to him. Sorry if it is old hat. I couldn't find it posted on the old board.

If I rewrote now, I still wouldn't change a word on Isandhlwana -- Jackson had never visited the field, and the maps with his articles were bizarre, since he mixes up several koppjes.
Ian Knight tries to maintain that since the British had quick-opening ammo boxes, there was no ammo shortage. *Expletive deleted*. They had some quick-opening (Mk IV) boxes, but, being British, were using up the old ones first. And some of the drummer boys had to run as much as a mile to get a helmet-full of cartridges back to the line. In 1960, I found an ammo box strap on the site of the wagon park, with marks of the bayonet used to prize it right over the head of a screw (given to David Rattray for his Fugitives' Drift Lodge museum). If that came off a MK IV box, I'll eat it.
Cheers,
DRM

Posted: Wed Apr 12, 2006 3:51 pm

Jon

Not sure if it's been posted in full on the forum before (thanks for that) although it is certainly well known that Morris continued to hold those views until the end. In fact, an interview was published a few years ago in which the same arguments were quoted almost word for word.

I've seen the metal ammunition strap mentioned, although not at close quarters as DR was holding it up for several visitors to see, but I'm pretty sure the latter - although an admirer of TWOTS - did distance himself from the claim which Morris had attached to this finding. Could a mark on a rusty metal strap be conclusively attributed to a bayonet cut 80 years earlier, I wonder? After all, the Zulus revisited the field many times in 1879, including a week after the battle in some numbers, and if any stubborn boxes which had not been carried off at dusk on the 22nd January caught their attention, one can imagine an assegai being quite a handy a tool to do a job at leisure. Much more to the point, where had the strap been for 80 years? On the ground where Morris found it??? After all the poking about the site had had for 80 years? Much of the junk was used and re-used for building materials by the inhabitants of Isandlwana, white & black, in the years after the battle, and to claim that this particular - "vital"! - piece of "evidence" proved his controversial point is a claim which, to me, beggars belief.

Still, I'll leave others far better qualified than me to make any valid points re Jackson & Morris. Morris may have visited the field before Jackson but I believe the latter visited well before his Hill of the Sphinx was published (& so had ample opportuntity to change anything) if not before his original 1965 article was.

Peter

Posted: Wed Apr 12, 2006 8:53 pm

there was a programme on the National geographic channel last weekend called "Thr Real Zulu Dawn" and it involved Ian Knight with some field archeologists and they set about looking to explain why approx 1,500 well equipped British soliders were slaughted by the Zulu's. They touched on the subject of the lack of ammo reaching the men but they discounted this due to find many of the screws used to hold the sliding panel on the ammo boxes in place. All the screws were bent over at right angles amd Ian Knight showed that with using the butt end of a martin Henry rifle to knock this slide plate off, it did indeed create the characteristic deformation of the retaining screw. Plus the archeologists said they had found many empty bullet cartridges, far too many to have just been what the men were carrying on there person. Based on the evidence they found in the field, it was decided that ammo boxes WERE getting to the men on the front line and this couldnt have been a factor in outcome of the battle.

Posted: Wed Apr 12, 2006 10:07 pm

Yeah right - so with 20, 000 Zulus in plain view James Pullen says to the lads 'no, leave those quick opening boxes where they are lads, lets struggle to open these old ones first.' Hmmmm. Don't think so.

If that is the best defence that Morris could make of his Isandlwana chapter...then it just goes to show how way off the mark it is. His battle is a straight lift from the Narrative of Field Operations, complete with 3 companies of NNC breaking at the knuckle and A, E and F companies being wiped out in seconds. So where were their bodies? Read your Wilsone Black to find the answer. They were in fact killed in the saddle, not on the firing line. How did Mr Anstey get to the Manzimyama Stream with 40 men? And how did George Wardell and his chaps magic themselves the best part of a mile back from where they started? Compare Narrative of FO with the primary sources and the evidence of the ground, and the pre-interment sources. Anybody can do it. There is absolutely no resemblance. Narrative is way off track and so is TWOTS.

I get a bit depressed that we have to keep resurrecting Morris and an account of the battle that just isn't credible when all the evidence is fairly weighed. He is the architect of the juggernaut impi that I talk about in HCMDB. ..and the QMs turning runners away from the other battalions - on the basis of what evidence?

It's a bit like harking back to the Venerable Bede for a comprehensive history of the Dark Ages - as if nobody had put pen to paper in the interim.

Dodger,

They didn't say what you said they said (!) about cartridge cases at all. There were not a whole raft of finds as I understand it. I think their principal deduction was that what finds they did have, were further forward than they expected. They should not have been surprised. An infantry company commander would have walked them straight to the spot and said 'look here'. It's all in the ground. (Pardon the pun.) Rolling Eyes

The Knight/Pollard 'experiment' with the ammo box has come under heavy fire on this forum before. I'm sure those that covered that ground before will reiterate their points.

The broad thrust of the programme that there was no ammunition failure amongst the regular infantry is right. But Durnford's troops of NNMC did run out. This was a function of poor training and of a generally poor standard of soldiering in the all amateur No 2 Column. Where was James Hamer, its commissary - with his ammuntion wagon? No, in fact he was charging about in the hills with the rest of the lads.

Not much point me banging on about it. I've had my say...

Next!

Regards

Mike

Posted: Thu Apr 13, 2006 2:40 pm

Even if it was an old type box that DRM found it doesn't necessarily mean that it was opened on the day of the battle. I agree with Peter that any number of means could account for the damage to the MK IV ammo box.

Would a Sneider-Enfield breech loader have used the old pattern box? Local volunteer units would have needed ammo for these weapons.

I believe DRMs book has been published in 19 various guises and is very rarely out of print. It has sold over 200 000 copies and is still selling. The reason why there is no problem with The Venerable Bede is that no-one still takes his works as Gospel. If I bought a copy of DRMs book today and was a newcomer to the subject I wouldn't realise just how incorrect many of his facts had turned out to be.

I struggle to understand how, faced with all the mounting evidence gathered over the years, that he stuck by his views right to the bitter end.

I have read How Can Man Die Better and the book stands up to close scrutiny. But if some "Amazing" find proved that an assumption had proved to be wrong then I think Mike would be man enough to look at the new evidence. Unless he has a rusty old ammo box hanging about.

I didn't post the quotation to hold up his work on Isandlwana as still relevant but to query why he would stick so rigidly to his guns (And ammo boxes).

Posted: Thu Apr 13, 2006 8:42 pm

Jon,

Yes, this is precisely the problem with TWOTS - because its always in print we never seem to go forward with the real history of Isandlwana. It's like fighting a bush fire - no sooner has one put a dozen people straight about Quartermasters and ammuntion boxes than another 400 people have read TWOTs and seen Peter Vaughan's ghastly Quartermaster in Zulu Dawn!! Turn around and you just find the bush ablaze behind yer legs again!!

You make a good point about Snider-Enfield ammunition.

Yes I would be quite content to change anything in either of my books on the basis of new evidence. Incidentally I spent some time at Brecon today and would definitely add Martin's Pte Jenkins to the nominal roll. Looks like a very strong case to me.

I also saw something which suggested that the second 1/24 company to leave Helpmekaar on the afternoon of 22 Jan (Upcher's) intended originally (before Rainforth met the Isandlwana survivors on the road) to camp half-way between Helpmekaar and R Drift that afternoon, rather than pushing on to the drift before last light. So there's one correction I would make to LWOTF tomorrow.

Regards as ever

Mike

Posted: Thu Apr 13, 2006 9:38 pm

Whilst we are talking ammo at the moment, regarding usage on the firing lines, with casualties being incurred by Zulu fire, would when a man had fallen, would not someone on checking the body have not taken his ammo, certainly to either supplement their own or to pass along the firing line?

I'm taking this to be before the Battalion fell back after Durnfords withdrawal?

Posted: Fri Apr 14, 2006 8:44 am

Mike

Any explanation for the decision for Upchers company to camp on the road overnight ?
They had been marching up country and obviously all must have been tired, but they had had a nights sleep at Helpmekaar (21-22 jan). They received orders to move on at breakfast time on the 22nd, but were delayed by the arrival of canteen stores which had to be packed. The company finally moved out at 3pm for the 12 mile trip to Rorke's drift. Allowing for route of march speed of 3 m.ph. they could still have reached Rorke's drift by last light.
Why was to dubious comforts of the drift rejected in favour of the roadside camp ?

Graham

Posted: Sat Apr 15, 2006 1:19 am

Graham

The explantion given for the late start was that the oxen had to be rested throughout the morning.

Leaving at 3 would give them 4.5 hrs to do it before pitch blackness set in, but one wouldn't want to be arriving anywhere in the sort of pitch blackness we are talking about in that part of the world!!. So I don't think that they'd have kept moving much past 6 - leaving an hour and a half to set up a camp of some sort, get comfortable, post sentries and detail reliefs, get a fire going, brew some tea etc etc. prior to the onset of impossible darkness.

I tend to calculate ox-wagons at 2 m.p.h. rather than 3, which with the halt coming at 6 would only get them half way to the drift.

That they got as far as they did (close enough to be seen by Dunne and others from the north wall) at some time between 1900-1930 was due to them pushing on long after they would otherwise have halted for the night I think.

Regards

Mike

Posted: Wed Apr 19, 2006 9:42 am

"If I rewrote now, I still wouldn't change a word on Isandhlwana -- "
I know for a fact that he acknowledged in person some of his errors to David Jackson on the one occasion they met.
"Jackson had never visited the field, and the maps with his articles were bizarre, since he mixes up several koppjes"
Jackson's maps are copies of contemporary ones for the sound reasons he states. I can't find any examples of his mixing up koppies.
"Ian Knight tries to maintain that since the British had quick-opening ammo boxes, there was no ammo shortage. *Expletive deleted*. They had some quick-opening (Mk IV) boxes, but, being British, were using up the old ones first."
They were all 'quick' opening boxes relatively speaking. Since none of them actually required a scewdriver for opening (a point which DR insists was relevant when it wasn't) the problem did not arise.
"And some of the drummer boys had to run as much as a mile to get a helmet-full of cartridges back to the line."
Drummer boys? Where does that come from? The band were told off as stretchers bearers and ammunition carriers. Company carts were loaded and used for the purpose. A mile?
"In 1960, I found an ammo box strap on the site of the wagon park, with marks of the bayonet used to prize it right over the head of a screw (given to David Rattray for his Fugitives' Drift Lodge museum). If that came off a MK IV box, I'll eat it."
Isn't it more likely that a Zulu would use a bayonet to open these boxes after the battle? He wouldn't have used his precious assegai blade. And he wouldn't have known the quick way to open it. A British soldier would.
"Cheers"
Mine's a pint!

Posted: Wed Apr 19, 2006 11:53 am

Excellent stuff Julian. Many thanks. That's laid a few myths to rest.(For about a week at my guess).

Originally posted by Mike Snook :-

It's like fighting a bush fire - no sooner has one put a dozen people straight about Quartermasters and ammuntion boxes than another 400 people have read TWOTs and seen Peter Vaughan's ghastly Quartermaster in Zulu Dawn!! Turn around and you just find the bush ablaze behind yer legs again!!

And guess what happened to me just before Easter ! I spent a whole afternoon debunking the myths to a relation of my girlfriend who is a big fan of the films. I showed him Mike's books and lent him a couple of my more up to date publications. He couldn't believe how many of his ideas on Rorke's Drift and Isandlwana were incorrect. Unfortunately he picked up a book at random and exclaimed "Would you believe it! Adendorff wasn't even at Rorke's Drift!"

I'm taking up knitting...less controversial.

Posted: Wed Apr 19, 2006 8:08 pm

Fire! Fire! Form a chain...

M

Posted: Wed Apr 19, 2006 9:39 pm

The concept of there being some "Quick opening" ammunition boxes, which in turn infers there were other "slower opening" ones, and the suggestion that the "quick opening" ones were MkIV boxes is misleading I think.

The MkIV and MkV boxes opened in the same way. Both had a sliding lid section that was released by removing a screw. The difference was that the MkIV boxes were for Land Service and had iron bands around them to make them more robust. The MkV boxes were for General Service (i.e. could also be used by the Royal Navy at sea) and had copper bands instead, to avoid the corrosion problem.

The bands only needed to be removed to allow removal of two upper end sections which in turn allowed the sealed inner tin containing the ammunition bundles to be replaced when the box needed refilling. Repeated use of the screwholes meant the upper end sections themsleves could be loose, and the bands supported them and added to the rigidity of the box. The bands did not need to be removed to get the ammunition out in action.

MkIV boxes may well have been in use in Zululand in 1879. The box was "suitable" for use there, but had been replaced by the MkV.

The concept of different ammunition boxes for Home Service and Foreign Service post dates the war. perhaps its obvious but I should make it clear that Home Service, Foreign Service, Land Service and General Service meant different things (though can overlap in where they would have been used).

As a point of interest .577" Snider ammunition came in similar boxes, in so far as they too had a sliding lid section retained by a single screw. They lacked any form of supportive banding.

If it helps, I can provide jpegs of MkI Snider boxes and MkIV Martini boxes from the original boxes I have managed to get hold of.

Posted: Mon Apr 24, 2006 2:42 pm

The use of a Martini Henry butt to open, with a tap no less, an ammo box? As Mike S has mentioned, this has been extensively debated in the old forum and in my view remains a hoary old myth. For starters the box used in the TV programme neither resembled an original, nor was it made of the same type of wood as the original.
Hundred quid to a pint it cannot be done. Ron and I have already offered to make a box to exact specification and timber. Bring on the TV cameras and let the show begin. Or perhaps we can use Ron's battered box made to specification but now still unopened, despite fearsome blows from a sledgehammer.
Sorry to appear so dogmatic but the same issues keep coming up.

Posted: Mon Apr 24, 2006 3:54 pm

The ammunition debate is, however, scattered over several threads in the old forums. Also the old forums are now defunct. People such as myself are new to this discussion. I have read extensively on the subject but have never had the opportunity to find other peoples views. Yes I have read all the old postings. It took me quite a while. Also the main reason for starting this subject up again was not for the reason of debating the lack of ammunition (Or otherwise) but to speculate as to why as late as 2002 it would appear that someone who had done pioneering research in the area we are interested in would still seemingly stick to his opinions of forty years previously.

Thanks to Julian Whybra I have ascertained that Mr. Morris had indeed acknowledged some of the new findings to David Jackson. I hadn't come across this in the defunct boards (I might have missed it...there were lots of threads).

Jon