Rorke's Drift

by Adrian Greaves

  Chelmsford’s invasion date in early January 1879 was carefully chosen; the timing would interfere with the Zulu harvest and demoralize the Zulu population unable to gather their crops. Chelmsford was advised that from January onwards the rivers forming the Natal boundary with Zululand would be in full flood and create a natural defence for Natal against Zulu attacks. The recent rains would also provide natural grazing for the invasion force’s numerous oxen and horses, the absence of which precluded invading during the later dry season.

  Both Frere and Chelmsford fully expected a rapid defeat of the Zulu army. The British and Colonial officers and their troops were all experienced in African warfare and Chelmsford’s main fear was that the Zulus would not fight – although he had been warned by Boer leaders, remembering their own defeats at the hands of the Zulus, that he faced a powerful adversary. He realzed his columns would be vulnerable to sudden attacks and he accordingly ordered a high state of readiness to be observed during the advance; overnight, every camp must be laagered ready to resist attack. In planning his strategy, Chelmsford had to leave the border of Natal virtually unprotected while the columns advanced into Zululand. He reasoned that by an advance on Ulundi in a three-pronged attack, the Zulus would be forced to attack one or all invading columns rather than Natal; he also reasoned that the simultaneous advance would force Cetshwayo to commit all his amabutho (regiments), leaving him without reserves. Orders were given for every Zulu homestead and food store in the path of the invasion force to be destroyed; this laying waste would systematically remove supplies from any Zulu force, and it would break the will of the Zulu people2 and provoke their army into attacking Chelmsford. And when they attacked, they would be no match for his calm and experienced troops with their sophisticated firepower. Well-aimed rifle volley fire supported by rockets, artillery and Gatling guns would, in Chelmsford’s opinion, ensure the swift defeat of such an unsophisticated adversary. He accordingly gave priority to the implementation of regulations relating to the availability of ammunition. Each artillery battery of two guns carried sixty-eight rounds together with twelve rockets and additional reserves were to be readily available in accompanying carts and wagons. Rifle ammunition was calculated at 270 rounds per soldier, 70 in the possession of each man and 200 rounds in easily recognized colour-coded ammunition wagons. All column commanders had received written instructions that ‘a commanding officer would incur a heavy responsibility should required supplies fail to arrive in time, through any want of foresight and arrangement on his part’.

  During October Chelmsford undertook a tour of inspection of the proposed route to be taken by the Centre Column to the Zulu border. He rode from Greytown to Helpmekaar and then down the escarpment overlooking the Zulu border to the Drift itself. He noted that there were two routes from Helpmekaar, a ‘good one which makes a wide detour and may be considered as two days’ march distant’ (the modern road today), ‘and a bad one which takes a direct line, and could easily be accomplished in one day’. Chelmsford gave orders for the ‘bad road’ to be improved ‘as its importance for both offence and defence, would be very great.’ From his meeting with local people along the route, he became so convinced that the Zulus would shrink from his force that he also considered the establishment of camps to deal with Zulu refugees. By November the store depot at Helpmekaar was sufficiently stocked that supplies for the front line could begin to be forwarded to the advance supply depot at Rorke’s Drift.

  Everyone settled down to await the expiry of the ultimatum, and in order to retain harmony within the growing camp it was decreed by commanding officers that sports should be encouraged but all sports involving physical contact were temporarily banned from Christmas Day onwards. In reporting the ban, the Natal Witness reporter wrote from Helpmekaar on 1 January:

  At sports, as is not unusual, disputes arise, and partisanship will be demonstrative; the consequences might be a quarrel, which under the present circumstances for which the forces are collected, would prove a most unhappy and untoward event. If the prohibition of sport is attributed, therefore, to severe military discipline, there is a very good reason and excuse for it.

  Harmony was further enhanced with the arrival of the Revd George Smith in his new capacity of military chaplain; he was a huge and bearded man and was formally of the local Estcourt parish. The same reporter wrote of him:

  It is an impressive scene to witness 1,000 warlike men, in various uniforms, form square, and join a robed priest, standing in the centre, with a band of musicians – vocal and instrumental, in the worship of Almighty God. This is one of the greatest civilising influences which the forces could carry with them.

  Within a week of the expiry date of the ultimatum on 11 January 1879, the three columns were fully equipped and ready to invade Zululand. The main attacking Centre Column, commanded by Colonel Glyn with 1,600 Europeans and 2,500 natives, had moved down during November from Helpmekaar to Rorke’s Drift. Colonel Pearson’s Coastal Column consisted of 1,800 Europeans and 2,000 natives and Colonel Wood VC commanded the Northern Column, with 1,700 Europeans and 300 natives. There were two small columns held in reserve: one was commanded by Colonel Rowlands VC just inside the Transvaal border while the other, commanded by Colonel Durnford, was at Middle Drift to protect the Natal border from any Zulu incursion. Theoretically Durnford had a force of 3,000 natives but his actual establishment amounted to only 500, of which half were the élite and very loyal (to Durnford) Natal Native Horse. He also had at his disposal a small rocket battery commanded by Major Russell RA.

  On 10 January a general order was read to the patiently waiting troops; the Centre Column was to prepare to strike tents at 3 a.m. the following day, cross the Buffalo river and march into Zululand. At that time, the camp was aroused by the trumpet calls of the different corps to feed their horses, and after a very early breakfast, tents were struck; ‘boot and saddle’ was sounded followed by ‘prepare to mount’, and then ‘mount and fall in’. By 4 a.m. not a vestige of the cavalry camp could be seen; tents and baggage were all packed on wagons, and each corps was standing in line, formed ready to march. Once under way the trumpet call ‘trot’ was sounded, and then the stillness of the moonlit scene was broken by that martial sound of activity that only a body of cavalry can make when in rapid motion. The cavalry reached Rorke’s Drift as dawn approached and joined the waiting columns of the 24th Regiment.

  The main Centre Column of the invasion force was to be spearheaded by the two battalions of the 24th (2nd Warwickshire) Regiment. Both battalions were enthusiastic at the prospect of leading operations against the Zulus and it was a coincidence that both battalions of this regiment were to serve together in the Zulu War. The very experienced 1st Battalion had not seen home service since arriving in South Africa on 4 February 1875 after a series of Mediterranean postings. They were tough and battle-hardened after four years’ active campaigning during the Ninth Frontier War at the Cape. The 2nd Battalion, with 24 officers and 849 other ranks, had arrived in South Africa on 28 February 1878 and shortly afterwards commenced their duties at King William’s Town. Both battalions were then engaged in quelling small pockets of rebellion throughout the Cape area when news of a threatened Boer insurrection at Kimberley reached Natal. The 1/24th were already battle-hardened and extremely fit; on one occasion, under the command of Colonel Richard Glyn, they were ordered to march the 650 miles to Kimberley. On their arrival the Boers had a change of heart so the regiment promptly marched back to the Cape. This added experience helped to toughen the regiment in preparation for the arduous campaign looming in Natal.

  By the middle of 1878 rumours were beginning to spread throughout Natal that King Cetshwayo was threatening to invade Natal; consequently the 2nd Battalion was directed to Pietermaritzburg where they assembled on 6 August 1878. The 1st Battalion was not long in following the 2nd; it had been back at King William’s Town about a month when C and D Companies, under Brevet Lieutenant Colonel Henry Pulleine, were also ordered to Pietermaritzburg
.

  During the operations against the local tribes, neither battalion had sustained significant casualties. Only two officers, Captains Frederick Carrington and Frederick Goodwin-Austen, were wounded, one man was killed and a few wounded, though from disease the loss was higher: eighteen men of the 1st Battalion and twenty-one of the 2nd. General Thesiger (later Lord Chelmsford) spoke in the highest terms of both battalions, emphasizing how well the younger soldiers, of whom the 2/24th was in large measure composed, had come through this severe ordeal of hard work in the face of difficult conditions. Likewise, the soldiers respected Chelmsford, the Natal Witness reported (5 January):

  The headquarter staff camp is pitched to the right of all the others, almost in the centre as you walk from one end to the other. The Union Jack flies in front of the tent of the General, and his mule wagons are placed in position behind; otherwise there is nothing to show the difference between it and the other camps. His Excellency is much liked, and sets a good example to the men under him. He rises at daylight, and when on the march assists in striking and pitching his own tent. His manner is exceedingly affable to all, and he seems to have the happy knack of thoroughly understanding at once what is meant to be conveyed to him, although it may be wrapped up either in eloquence or long-windedness. His love of punctuality is well known through the camp, and of course leads to the same system in others.

  It was to be the fate of the 1st Battalion and one company of the recently arrived 2nd Battalion to face the Zulu attack at Isandlwana where almost all the men and officers involved would be killed. On the very same day, B Company of the 2nd Battalion would initially suffer the ignominy of being left behind at Rorke’s Drift to guard the stores and then, within hours, find themselves facing potentially overwhelming numbers of Zulus seeking to destroy the position.

  In addition to the two battalions of the 24th, Chelmsford’s main fighting force was to consist of the 90th, and single battalions of the 3rd, 4th, 13th and 99th regiments, with a battalion of the 80th held in reserve at Luneburg. This force amounted to a total of nearly 9,000 professional and well-armed soldiers, with a similar number of native troops, – known disparagingly as the ‘untrained untrainables’ – divided into seven battalions and led by white officers. To this force were added irregular units based on the quasi-military Natal police together with frontier guards and local defence groups with such grand names as the Natal Horse, Natal Carbineers and Durban Mounted Rifles.

  By Christmas everything was ready for the invasion; kit was cleaned and polished, wagons were loaded and the regimental bands rehearsed the stirring themes that would spur on the columns of soldiers as they marched into Zululand. On 6 January 1879, four days before the expiry of the ultimatum, troops of Wood’s Northern column began crossing into Zululand. Everyone’s fervent hope was that the Zulus would stand and fight.3

  CHAPTER 2

  The Zulus

  I have no fears myself that Natal will be overrun by hostile Zulus, but much fear that Zululand should be overrun by hostile Britons.

  ANTHONY TROLLOPE

  Like the British soldiers, the Zulus had also originally invaded southern Africa. Over several thousand years the Bantu-speaking people spread laterally across central Africa from the equatorial West Coast and slowly progressed south and east around the wastes of the Kalahari desert. One tribe, the Nguni, settled the area known today as Natal, probably between 1500 and 1700 AD. The remaining Xhosa tribe continued south, eventually reaching the Great Fish River; they were only 500 miles from the Cape, which, unbeknown to them, was in the process of being colonized by the Boers. It is ironic that a migration of such magnitude and over such a long span of time should have failed to reach the Cape and that Europeans should fill that vacuum at exactly the same point in time.

  An insignificantly small group of Nguni people lived near the coast on the banks of the White Mfolozi river. Their chief, named Zulu, was succeeded by his two brothers who then gave way to Senzangakona. At the same time the Xhosa first came into conflict with the Boers at the Battle of Kaffirkop. During this embryonic stage of their development the group adopted the title ‘Zulu’ and had grown in size to well over 1,000. Around 1787 Senzangakona fathered the child of a neighbouring eLangeni chief’s daughter, Nandi. Senzangakona reluctantly appointed Nandi as his unofficial third wife but refused to recognize her son Shaka. In due course Nandi and her children were evicted back to the unwelcoming eLangeni who treated the family as outcasts.

  In 1802 the whole land was suffering widespread famine; nevertheless the eLangeni banished the luckless family into destitution. Nandi fled to the Qwabe clan where she had once given birth to a son by a Qwabe warrior named Gendeyana. Under Gendeyana’s patronage the family again received shelter and the young Shaka developed into such a skilled warrior that Senzangakona eventually sought his return. Shaka’s reputation increased and legend records both his fearlessness when hunting wild animals and great prowess with the spear. At the age of 24 Shaka was called to join King Dingiswayo’s IziCwe ibutho (guild or regiment of ‘national service’ warriors). During the next five years he closely studied the king’s strategy of control over other tribes by the use of brutal and aggressive tactics, a policy frequently but incorrectly attributed to Shaka.

  Under Dingiswayo Shaka was appointed to lead the IziCwe regiment; he taught his warriors the close combat for which he became famous and caused the ineffective throwing spears to be melted down and recast as the long, sharp, flat-bladed stabbing spear1 or Ikwa, the onomatopoeic term for the sucking sound of the blade being withdrawn from a body. He ordered his regiment’s traditional large shields to be cut down in size and made stronger, so that in close combat the new shield could be hooked under that of an opponent and, when twisted sideways, revealed the opponent’s body exposed and vulnerable to the deadly Ikwa thrust.

  His re-trained regiment was soon pitched against the nearby Buthelezi tribe and in due course both regiments lined up for the traditional giya, a bloodless confrontation of taunts and abuse with victory going to the most impressive side. The unsuspecting Buthelezi, led by Shaka’s Chief Bakaza, commenced to giya but Shaka instantly killed Bakaza whereupon the IziCwe fell upon the unsuspecting Buthelezi and slaughtered them to a man. Dingiswayo thereupon appointed Shaka to lead the northern Zulu tribe. On Senzangakona’s death, Shaka annexed the Zulu clan and deposed his half-brother Dingane by sending him back to his own distant clan, an offshoot of the Qwabe tribe.

  Shaka was in his early thirties when he commenced his ruthless reign. Opponents and dissenters were mercilessly executed, as were warriors who did not reach the exacting physical standards required for a Zulu impi, the Zulu fighting force usually of regimental strength. He perfected the Ikwa and developed the Impondo Zankhomo, the encircling technique known as the ‘horns of the bull’ whereby the fast-running horns on each flank encircled an enemy. The main Zulu body would then engage and slaughter the surrounded enemy using the close combat techniques of shield and stabbing spear. Shaka drilled his Zulus remorselessly in order to attack the resurgent and belligerent Buthelezi clan. When the two sides met, Shaka’s warriors encircled the Buthelezi and slaughtered them before their distraught onlookers. Shaka then ordered the massacre of the Buthelezi non-combatants.

  By 1818 Shaka’s impi had grown to more than 2,000 warriors and his sphere of influence was steadily increasing. The struggle for power now focused on another powerful chief, Zwide. Zwide attacked Shaka at Gqokli Hill but the battle was inconclusive and both sides withdrew to their own territory. Shaka’s army was still intact and warriors from other clans immediately flocked to swell his ranks. Zwide attacked the Zulus again in the summer of 1819 with a massive army of nearly 20,000 warriors but this time Shaka was even better prepared.

  Shaka teased Zwide’s army into following a number of feints across barren terrain until, several days later, Shaka attacked and destroyed Zwide’s starving men. Shaka thereafter ruled unchallenged. His army grew to over 20,000 trained warriors and was b
ased in a heartland that extended from the Indian Ocean to the Drakensberg and from the Pongola river in the north to the Tugela river in the south. Shaka forced his ruthless influence still further and by 1822 his clan had grown into an empire that extended into the Kalahari desert, north to the shores of Lake Malawi and south to the northern Cape.

  In early 1824 Shaka heard of the handful of white men living at a small coastal enclave known to the whites as Port Natal and, to satisfy his curiosity, sent them an invitation to visit his kraal at kwaBulawayo (the place of him who kills). The party consisted of Lieutenant Francis Farewell RN; Henry Fynn, the British resident in Zululand; four hardy pioneers, John Cane, Henry Ogle, Joseph Powell and Thomas Halstead; and a large number of gifts. After various displays and feasts, Farewell and Fynn finally met with Shaka and during one of their meetings they sought and were granted trading rights for the Farewell Trading Company. The party returned to Port Natal but without Fynn who remained at Shaka’s request – not as a hostage, but to enable Shaka to learn more of the white men. Fynn was residing at the royal kraal when an attempt was made on Shaka’s life. He was stabbed through his left arm and ribs by an unknown assailant and lay at death’s door for a week. During this time, Fynn cleaned and bandaged the wound and generally watched over Shaka who quickly recovered. Shaka believed that members of the distant Qwabe tribe were responsible for the attempt; accordingly, two impis were dispatched which captured the Qwabe cattle and destroyed their kraals. The settlers’ position was assured and Shaka allegedly signed an agreement granting Farewell nearly 4, 000 square miles of land around Port Natal.