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Posted: Fri Sep 28, 2007 7:49 pm

'What we learned from...' is a series in Military History magazine. They asked me to do Isandlwana for them and the piece is out now in the October edition of the mag. I knew you'd never forgive me if I didn't tell you until next month, by which time your newsagent would have cleared the October edition away! In UK the mag is most readily located in W H Smiths. Bet you can't spot the places where my precise Queen's English has been replaced with American!

Mike

Posted: Sat Sep 29, 2007 3:31 am

I bet that particular publication is not available in the outer Antipodes where some of us reside Sad

I suppose we shall have to remain ignorant of what we could have learnt from Isandlwana. (Although we could guess...)

Dawn

Posted: Sat Sep 29, 2007 9:19 am

Hi Dawn

I expect it's a small price to pay for living in such a lovely corner of the world as NZ. But maybe it's in the shops there somewhere.

It's a good, well illustrated glossy mag with lots of interestng stuff. There is a leaflet in the copy I have here which says you can subscribe for two years (20 copies) for $39.95 US. Seems pretty reasonable to me. (oh it says - add $12 US for subs outside USA. Try PO Box 420569, Palm Coast FL 32142-8961, USA.

Don't worry about missing my article I haven't said anything an expert like you won't already be familiar with.

As ever

Mike

Posted: Sat Sep 29, 2007 9:51 am

Here are the October contents but sadly no active link to Mike's article.

http://www.historynet.com/magazines/military_history/9587227.html

However, there are a couple of links to previous articles about Hlobane......

http://www.historynet.com/magazines/military_history/3028456.html?featured=y&c=y

.... and another on Khambula

http://www.historynet.com/magazines/military_history/3026636.html

Posted: Sat Sep 29, 2007 2:45 pm

I don't know what they're going to do with Mike's article, but they made some howlers with my Khambula piece! The Earl Chelmsford one sticks out like a sore thumb!

John Y.

Posted: Sat Sep 29, 2007 10:38 pm

mike snook 2 wrote:

Don't worry about missing my article I haven't said anything an expert like you won't already be familiar with.

Wow! That's high praise from you, Mike. I still consider myself an amateur!

By the way, I'm looking for a Cetshwayo quote which I'm sure I saw in one of your books. (Now that I need it, I can't find it - typical!) I remember it vaguely as it going something like; "First came the traders, then the farmers, then the soldiers." I think I have the traders and the soldiers right but not sure if it's farmers in the middle. Could you enlighten me?

You see, not quite an expert yet. Smile

Dawn

Posted: Sat Sep 29, 2007 11:13 pm

John

The editor's pen has visited the '24th Infantry' on me Shocked

- I am striving hard to avoid a fit of apoplexy as you might imagine!

Never mind - I am about to retire to the sitting room with a glass of red wine and a plate of particularly tasty farmhouse cheddar to watch a film called the Patriot. That won't upset me will it....

Dawn

Not my books. I too recognize it vaguely but not sure where it is cited I'm afraid.

As ever

Mike

Posted: Sat Sep 29, 2007 11:31 pm

Thanks anyway, Mike, it must be in Ron and Peter's then. The two books sit side by side on my bookshelf (actually that should be four, shouldn't it?) I'll have a trawl through and see if I can see it somewhere.

Anyone else able to help?

Dawn
PS Mike, I hope you can still swallow after the 24th infantry Confused

Posted: Sun Sep 30, 2007 10:41 am

Dawn

It's "the missionary"! The full quote, as usually seen, is "First comes the trader, then the missionary, then the red soldier," and can be found in a number of published works appearing in the last few decades.

In an attempt a few years ago to track down the origin of this claimed quotation, the earliest version I can find is that published on the fly-leaf of - and in the last words of the prologue of - Frank Emery's The Red Soldier (1977). As his source, he cites the sketch-book of Major John North Crealock in his footnote, and adds: "It occurs in the context of his drawings of the Zulu defeat at Ulundi."

Obviously, Emery used the quote to produce a helpful piece of alliteration for his title, and they sit well together. I don't have a copy of R.A. Brown's Road to Ulundi, containing all these sketches, so don't know whether Crealock elaborated at all, but I am not 100% convinced that anyone has ever established that these words were heard to come from the King, although they do seem "in character" and he certainly had every opportunity (and reason!) to utter them. They could have been said at any time during the 1870s to any one of his councillors, or to a trader or missionary - there was hardly a time in the 1870s when he didn't have a European house guest of some identity, whether trader or, more often, a missionary, at his HQ.

Obviously, he had many opportunities to pass such an opinion after his capture, whether to officers, interpreters, VIP visitors or anyone in England during 1882. It might be thought, given his experience, that they must have been said (if at all) post-Ulundi, but I'm not so sure. This is because they neatly encapsulate the well known warning, known by Cetshwayo, Mpande and Dingane, given by Jakot (Jacob) to the Zulu leadership in the 1820/30s, and I have often wondered if the above quote is no more than a repeat or a summary of that warning. If Cetshwayo ever did say these words to someone, we don't seem to have a source earlier or more specific than Crealock's sketch book - unless I've missed it, which is perfectly possible!.

Anyone have a more specific source?

Peter

Posted: Mon Oct 01, 2007 12:06 am

Thanks, Peter, at least I was somewhat correct. I know I've read the quote somewhere else in my collection of books, but, as usual, cannot locate it in my hour of need!

I have Zululand at War by Sonia Clarke which obviously has Crealock's letters in it. I've not yet read the whole thing so maybe I will come across a mention of it in there.

I'll let you know if I do. It might be a while though Smile

Dawn

Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2007 7:21 pm

I was surprised to see your article in the "Military History" mag, Col. Snook, and thought that it was very well done, concise, precise, and I enjoyed it very much. Very Happy

I have your two books on the Isandlwhana/RD campaign, and have ordered your next tome on the Victorian Wars. I am looking forward to reading it!

Posted: Thu Oct 18, 2007 11:22 am

Dear Yankee

Most kind, and thank you for saying so. It's always nice to hear that people have enjoyed the read. If you liked the first two books, I'm confident you'll be pleased with the next one. (I hope Shocked

!!)

Regards

Mike

Posted: Sat Oct 20, 2007 2:48 am

Mike

Hopefully that article will prove enough to entice more of my countrymen towards further reading on the subject. Hope the magazine will offer you more opportunities to expand (time and tides willing).

Well done... up to very near the end of it of course! (Coll and I still stand shoulder-to-shoulder on that front!)

By the way - not sure if they use a Yank spell checker but the 24th Infantry is a rather famous U.S. Army regiment, much maligned in days of yore -

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/army/1-24in.htm

http://www.ritesofpassage.org/mil_24utah.htm

http://www.ritesofpassage.org/mil_korea.htm

http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/korea/24th.htm

Among it's commanders were the mythologized Lt. Col. William �Pecos Bill� Shafter and the (alleged) inventor of American Rounders - Col. Abner Doubleday.

Best

Michael

Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 10:37 am

Michael

I've complained about some of the jargon slipped into that piece in my name, not least the bit about 'himself'. To be clear, I didn't write 'lose the deadwood' and am quite cross about the use of such disrespectful phrases in the edited piece. Whilst I am of course critical of Durnford, I try to be measured in terms of language, though there has ultimately to be a punch line in good history, (my preferred one in his case being 'military incompetent'), and in particular never to undermine his undoubted courage - judgement, temperament and competence are an altogether different matter - but never his courage. It is of course perfectly possible to be a heroic incompetent.

The point in the original text is to criticize Chelmsford for a lack of a moral courage in failing to remove a trucculent commander, (not to criticize Durnford) after he had given pretty clear indications that he was going to be ungovernable. As we know this led not to his dismissal, but to that extraordinary letter - which by any standard indicates a wholesale loss of confidence in D's judgement (something about which Lord C had already been warned).

As ever

Mike

Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 12:36 pm

Mike:

I've been thinking. Why did Chelmsford go the "public" route in telling Durnford he was out of line? I mean don't you think a commander with better interpersonal skills might have drawn Durnford aside and personally said, "Look old chap, it's simple. If you continue on this way you, I, the command and the army are going to have hard time working together to sack the Zulu. Keep that in mind, eh?". As it was, he probably got Durnford's back up on that one. In any case, it always looked to me that Durnford was just a good operational type commander not one who can take in the "big picture" of all facets of campaign.