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Posted: Wed Oct 11, 2006 12:27 pm

The key to understanding what went on at RD the first thing one must do is put 'Zulu' completely to the back of one's mind and then read as much source material as you can, unfettered by movie preconception. I am not being patronizing in saying that, it's just that it took me years to be able to do that - so I speak from experience as it were.

One of the most damaging subliminal impressions the film creates, as Dawn rightly points out, is that of a tightly-controlled battle in which an induna can start or halt a battle by waving a spear - great party trick but it bears no resemblance to real war. The Zulus did not come and go as the movie suggests. It was full on from beginning to end. And the end was earlier than is traditionally imagined, when the main bodies of the amabutho disengaged and fell back into dead ground under the cover of darkness. A few show-offs stayed behind to snipe at the garrison. Of course the main bodies were still in the area until the following morning (I imagine behind Shiyane) because Lord C's line of march cut between two of the amabutho at about 0730. This probably means that they started crossing the river as soon as it got light at about 0430-0500. It was a much slower process this time of course, because of the need to help the wounded.

The reason that so many shots were fired for a relatively low hit rate is because:

1. There was always something to shoot at.
2. The targets were not easy to hit.

Neil has made some very valid and important points about the difficulty of Martini shooting. The 351-400 Zulus killed were for the most part shot down at point-blank range in covering the distance between the cover and the north wall. Some of the better shots would have hit a few targets in the orchard by sniping. But there was an awful lot of incoming fire and most of the shooting was snap-shooting as a consequence. This means that it was per se largely inaccurate.

As I tried to point out in LWOTF there was in fact a huge amount of low cover around RD, not least the lee of the terrace at both extremities - which is why the fighting was heavy at the hospital compound and the cattle kraal, and of course the 5 feet high 50/75 yard long stone wall bordering the garden and orchard. Probably the sheltered graze angle behind that wall was between 30 and 50 yards deep along its entire length. That is where you would have found most of the Undi Corps on the evening of 22 Jan. The rest - on their bellies in the orchard and garden on the other side of the road. A few score possibly amounting to two or three hundred firing (slowly) from Shiyane. By the way it helps to have been shot at in order to know what 'cover' really looks like. It is amazing how inconspicuous people can make themsleves when they put their mind to it!

Whatever raiding of Natal kraals took place was limited in scope and effect and I would suggest was perpetrated by the Undi Corps en route to RD. It would be quite wrong to think of large numbers of Zulus breaking away on some private enterprise raiding because that begins to look a bit like cowardice and Zulus didn't do cowardice. You go over there and fight all those blokes with Martinis while I go over here and give those women and children a hard time. I don't think so.

The best analogy I can think of in understanding the temperament of a warrior race is to think back to your summer B-B-Q (or one of your many outdoor meals if you are lucky enough to live in a nice warm place like RSA) and remember those two irrritating wasps that just kept coming back time after time to attack the lovely sticky things on the table, and caused Great Aunty Doreen to let out that ridiculous shriek that you thought was so funny. The members of the Undi Corps were wasps and RD was a lovely sticky thing! The Zulus could no more help themselves in flocking round the barricades at the mission than the wasps could resist the temptation of the Pimms jug.

They drew a collective strength from each other's courage (The Zulus not the wasps!) . They were all there. They were required to be there. They could no more not be there than Colonels Pulleine and AW Durnford could have jumped on their horses and left the lads to it. They stopped behaving like big macho warrior society 'lads' when they realised that there was just no way they were ever going to get over that bloody wall - even after they had spent a while trying it in the dark. Then they calmed down, packed it in, looked around for their wounded mates and limped away to the river.

I have a theory that what Spalding jumped at in the shadows on the Helpmekaar road just as it was getting dark might well have been elements of Stevenson's coy. If you were deserting and thought you might be attacked by the enemy or shot by the British what time would you make your break for home - just as it was getting dark perhaps? Of course this has no bearing on poor Spalding who thought they were Zulus, and does not deserve in anyway the disgraceful epithet 'craven' that Saul David so wrongly applied to him.

I'm afraid that 'alternative' versions spring from imagining Rorke's Drift incorrectly to begin with. A good tip in reading source material is to look for killer sentences - they might be tucked away in great long passages written (or ghost-written don't forget) by people who were not masters of the written word. The killer sentecne might be out of place and out of context as a result but it will convey in a few words a really important message from which dozens of interlinked deductions might then flow. It becomes a detective story and in reconstructing a battle you have to move from clue to clue until you can make some sense of them all, and can then slot them into their rightful place in the jigsaw.

Finally people who say there can't possibly have been 4,500 men there fighting 150 don't know their military theory or their military history. Look what Leonidas was able to achieve in the pass at Thermopalaye for example. Look at the storming of Delhi. If the battlespace is contrained so that superior numbers cannot be brought to bear, then superior numbers don't matter - as long as the other side heve the guts to stick it out and lots of ammunition!

Anyway, more than enough from me. I'll end up writing another book on here. And I'm supposed to be down at Colenso at the moment with dear bumbling Sir Redvers. Got to go or Greenhill will be cross with me!

As ever

Mike

Posted: Wed Oct 11, 2006 1:29 pm

Andy
Please spell the gentlemans name correctly it is Pat RUNDGERN
Clive

Posted: Wed Oct 11, 2006 1:36 pm

Sean
Yes like my pal Pat Rundgren I am always putting my foot in it
Clive

Posted: Wed Oct 11, 2006 8:35 pm

No sweat, Clive........We all do it.

And as for Pat's observations. We live in a democracy, (or some of us do !), so he can't be shot for his controversial views.

I think maybe Mbeki, Zuma, Buthelezi and co could be persuaded to make it a capital offence when they've sorted out the Xosa v Zulu spat, though.
cheers, and have nice day y'all.
Sean

Posted: Wed Oct 11, 2006 10:10 pm

And all I did was ask if any one had read the booklet! Wink

Thanks to all for the replies. Dawn's last sentence sums it up for me. There's still plenty to talk about.

Julian,
Yes, Pat Rundgrens words not mine. Thanks for the reply.

Mike,
I'm so glad you decided to come out to play. Smile

As always, like in your books, your post puts things into a military context for us and provides food for thought. I'm now into my third read of LWOTF.

Regards,

Posted: Thu Oct 12, 2006 1:11 am

But where's the beef ?
Lee,
I heard mules mentioned. Maybe the wagons were mule propelled ?

Stevenson's lot might have departed with their tucker .
I certainly wouldn't have left my 'bully on the hoof' for the unbelievers.

Zulu and beef are like Humpty and Dumpty. They just go together. It's part of the culture. A symbol of wealth.

My guess is that there would have been a central depository somewhere, where supplies would be drawn, as required. Not necessarily ar RD. Maybe their beef was still en-route ?

If there were cattle there, it certainly would be tempting to hungry warriors.
I have a light in my brain somewhere that seems to recall that the 'kraal' was empty, or emptied in readiness for the fight ?
Maybe it was just in the movies, or some other siege ? Eshowe perhaps.

As for the numbers of Zulu warriors, if the Zulu say they were there, who are we to argue.

If the 2/24th had exceptional musketry skills, then good on them, they certainly needed them that day !

Sean

Posted: Thu Oct 12, 2006 2:46 am

My understanding is that the cattle kraal was empty as all the cattle was up at Isandlwana. The oxen, with the wagons, were awaiting return to RD for more supplies, which is one of the reasons Chelmsford cited for not using the wagons to laager the camp. Beef on the hoof would have been kept with the bulk of the advancing army, I would have thought.

By the way, good point about the cookhouse fires as a source for the torching of the hospital, I'd forgotten about that. Although I had thought the fires had beens doused, although a quick dousing doesn't necessarily dampen the whole fire. And embers can smoulder for ages.

Dawn

Posted: Thu Oct 12, 2006 7:55 am

Sean

The mules belonged to Chard's engineer wagon. They were turned loose by his driver at the mission and were found safe and sound after the battle grazing by the river - which was 'home' for them - where Chard's campsite had been.

I agree with Lee - if some (brief) consideration was given to evacuating the wounded by wagon, there must have been something to pull them - so not less than 32 trek oxen. I cannot immediately recall a source which mentions them - but given the enormity of the event about to unfold, that is not particularly surprising - there were much more interesting things for people to talk about in their accounts.

The cattle kraal was too small for that many animals and they certainly weren't there anyway.

The possibilities would appear to be:

1 They were in the stock pen and left there. 1 out of 5 as an explanation
2 They were in the stock pen and turned loose. 3 out of 5
3 They were in the stock pen and were run off by the Zulus. 2 out of 5
4 They were in the stock pen and were killed by the Zulus. 2 out of 5
5 They were left to graze in the general area with their voorlooper lads to look after them like herdboys and only rounded up when needed. If they were hired stock then the voorlooper boys probably moved them away when they got wind of trouble coming. Otherwise they might have got a thrashing from some big burly Boer owner on the Biggarsberg! 4 out of 5

My money then would be on some permutation or variant of option 5 as it would be easy to understand why they were not mentioned by anybody.

Unless of course somebody does have a source reference...?

Regards

Mike

Posted: Thu Oct 12, 2006 8:19 am

The fact that nobody mentions cattle, cows or oxen in any of their reports makes me think they weren't in the vicinity. Darn, now we have to get out of our heads that beautiful image of the soldier stroking the head of the calf in "Zulu".

Dawn

Posted: Thu Oct 12, 2006 9:37 am

Hi all

Since mentioning in the initial response to this thread, that were no cattle at the Drift, I have been informed otherwise.

Private Caleb Wood stated '..I and a few comrades were on fatigue duty a short distance from the camp, burying some dead cattle..'

So, there were certainly cattle there but not live it would appear. Having said this, the fact that some had died would seem to imply that there were living beasts in the vicinity.

Cheers,

Glenn

Posted: Thu Oct 12, 2006 1:54 pm

Glen

The cattle may not have been slaughter beasts that Private Wood was trying to bury, but were probably draught Oxen. The Oxen had been worked extremely hard, bringing up supplies to the drift, on bad roads and in poor weather. They had not been given time to graze and few people knew how to look after them properly.
Chelmsford had written to Sir Bartle Frere on the 11th January and had stated that " Already we have lost a large number of Oxen".
Once the invading column had passed beyond Rorke's drift, it would have been the sensible decision to quickly bury any dead animals left behind to prevent disease.

Graham

Posted: Thu Oct 12, 2006 3:05 pm

Okay as we're going off on one of those tangents...

From Horace Smith Dorrien, writing of his return to Rorke's Drift from Helpmakaar on the 23rd January 1879;-

"...The next day I rode down to Rorke's Drift some twelve miles to resume charge of my depot. There was the improvised little fort, built up mostly of mealy-sacks and biscuit-boxes and other stores which had been so gallantly defended by Chard, Bromhead, and their men, and Parson Smith and all around lay dead Zulus, between three and four hundred: and there was my wagon, some 200 yards away, riddled and looted, and there was the riem gallows I had erected the previous morning. Dead animals and cattle everywhere - such a scene of devastation..."

Smith Dorrien also noted that each wagon was pulled by 16 oxen, and that on no account should cattle be allowed to graze, (for fear of "redwater~" - a fatal disease apparently), and that fodder should be carried on the wagon. Upon reaching camp "bullocks could be tied to the poles and fed instead of being loosed to graze"

As Stevenson's company had been detailed off to remain at Rorke's Drift to cover the river crossing, it seems odd to think that their main food supply was then marched off all the way to Isandlwana.....but still who knows!

but has anyone mentioned the old sow and her piglets and the old cat...??

Posted: Thu Oct 12, 2006 9:34 pm

Well, now we have an account of dead animals and cattle everywhere.
Thankyou Lee.

Good on Smith Dorrien. With accounts like his, we can relive the devastation all these years later.

so, back to Pat's point,

6. After the Hospital fight, the Zulu gave up trying to take RD and went into siege mode with only small decoy attacks in order to steal the cattle at RD. (page 42)

If the animals were dead, probably where they were tethered, then it was highly unlikely that they were the object of the "small decoy attacks in order to steal" them.

I take it that the animals mentioned were not in the perimeter and would have been the subject of a bit of blood lust and spear blooding.
They could possibly have been in firing range, though,
but to run the gauntlet of fire just to kill them ???? Makes one wonder,
but then who knows what's going through a pumped up Zulu's mind with his blood lust up.
I wouldn't want to be in the vicinity.
Sean

Posted: Thu Oct 12, 2006 10:23 pm

Well, in my amateur Wink

opinion, the Zulus wanted the British soldiers and wanted them dead, nothing really to do with cattle, etc. The siege occurred, due to the fact the post was not going to fall, at least as long as the defenders could hold. I read on several occasions that many warriors at Isandlwana were 'kinda annoyed' that they couldn't get near any of the British soldiers to fight and kill, because of the sheer numbers of leading warriors preventing their reaching them first. However, the other warriors attacking Rorke's Drift had a whole company 'all to themselves', with the possibility of all or most of the warriors getting 'in on the action'.

Anything outwith attacking the post, as in, stealing cattle etc., I guess would be a case of - can't manage the first plan, let's do this instead.

Coll

Posted: Fri Oct 13, 2006 1:26 pm

Coll
The British raiding party's the week before the actual invaison did pinch a lot of cattle and cattle was money in the eyes of the Zulu and where would the military take them all the way back to Pietermaritzburg I think not Rorke's Drift was much nearer and boy did those Zulu's want their
cattle back obviuosly it meant killing the soldiers but they had got to do anyway they where after at war with the British
Clive