As the Zulus opened fire on the patrol the prince tried to mount his horse, but something was seriously wrong; he had always been regarded as one of Europe’s pre-eminent horsemen but earlier that day he had been seen experiencing difficulties mounting his horse. Sir William Beresford had witnessed the first occasion and initially commented that the prince’s horse was too high for him, but then suggested that the difficulties were solely due to the tight trousers favoured by the prince. Only a few hours later the prince failed to perform this routine but now life-saving action. With the remainder of Carey’s party mounted and galloping out of danger the prince desperately tried vaulting into the saddle but instead of grasping the saddle, he grabbed the flimsy holster strap, which gave way under the strain. He fell heavily to the ground. Dazed, he managed to regain his feet as the Zulus closed around him. He ran towards a dried river bed and turned to face the Zulus; he drew his revolver and fired several shots before a spear struck him in the thigh. The prince withdrew the spear to use it as a weapon but the Zulus quickly overwhelmed him before spearing him to death. The Zulus may have realized that they had killed an officer as several warriors took the opportunity to blood their spear blades in the prince’s body; the seventeen stab wounds subsequently gave rise to the myth that in death, the prince had bravely ‘faced his foe’, just as he had prophesied.
In the ensuing panic Carey and the surviving troopers rode for their lives, only reining in about a half-mile from the scene. There was little Carey could do; to return would mean certain death and without a doubt the prince was already dead. He decided to report the awful loss of the prince to Chelmsford and set off for camp, only to meet up with Buller who was also returning from a patrol. Carey blurted out what had happened to an incredulous Buller who ferociously responded with the words, ‘You deserve to be shot, and I hope you will be. I could shoot you myself.’ Buller was later to ameliorate his views; he knew Carey had a sound military reputation whereas the prince had wilfully disobeyed his orders on several occasions.
The death of the Prince Imperial came as a severe shock to Chelmsford and the whole invasion force was stunned; the immeasurable shock waves reverberated through both the British and French nations and across the British Empire; the news even overshadowed Chelmsford’s earlier disaster at Isandlwana. Charles Norris-Newman, the noted war correspondent for the London Standard, wrote at the time:
But various causes, his rank and misfortunes, his connection with the British army, the actual incidents of the fatality arising out of the duties of the expedition, and lastly, the subsequent proceedings in connection with the inquiry by court martial, all combined to invest it with a special pathos and interest, almost world-wide.8
Nevertheless, fearing that the British soldiers would be less than respectful to a Frenchman, not to say the grandson of Napoleon Bonaparte, the black-bordered special order specifically laid out how the troops were to behave and not display any disrespect or anti-French sentiment.
The senior military establishment immediately went on the defensive but this time the lowly culprit was obvious; the junior officer in charge of the patrol, the French-speaking and experienced Lieutenant Jahleel Carey of the 98th Regiment, had inexplicably abandoned the prince to a small force of Zulus. His court martial was quickly arranged. Others, though, knew of the prince’s blatant irresponsibility and realized that he alone was responsible for his own demise. When the details surrounding the incident became known, Carey’s brother officers softened their views. After all, the significance of the incident arose only because one of the casualties was the Prince Imperial; had this aristocratic tourist not been present, or not exercised command of the patrol, or if Troopers Abel and Rogers had been the only casualties, the minor rout of an insignificant sketching party would quickly have been forgotten. As far as Chelmsford was concerned the Zululand campaign had already witnessed, on several notable occasions, the unpleasant spectacle of officers abandoning their men to the enemy. At Isandlwana two colonial officers, Lieutenants Avery and Holcroft, both disappeared from the battlefield; they were followed by Lieutenant Adendorff whose mysterious disappearance at both Isandlwana and Rorke’s Drift preceded that of Lieutenants Coghill and Melvill, who both departed from Isandlwana under unverified circumstances. Rorke’s Drift had been abandoned by Major Spalding and had then seen Captain Stevenson, his NCOs and the NNC abandon the mission station just as the Zulus were about to attack. The case of Ntombe Drift, where Lieutenant Harward deserted his men during a Zulu attack, had yet to come to official notice. Meanwhile an example was needed to bring home the message that officers must remain with their men, and Carey was the perfect scapegoat.
Carey’s case was unique because the man he deserted was a member of the French aristocracy who had been specially authorized to join Chelmsford’s force by none other than Queen Victoria. It is unlikely that more than a few of the rank and file even knew of the prince’s attachment to the army while he was still alive yet Archibald Forbes summed up the common reaction of indignation and sentiment when he wrote, ‘throughout the force there was a thrill of sorrow for the poor gallant lad, a burning sense of shame that he should have been so miserably left to his fate, and a deep sympathy for the forlorn widow in England’.9
In due course Carey was found guilty by court martial on a charge of misbehaviour before the enemy, and was sent home to be sentenced. The findings were forwarded to London for confirmation but the Judge Advocate General, J.C. O’Dowd, was unable to ratify the decision, as the proceedings had been rushed – the officers of the court martial had not been sworn in according to military regulations. He also questioned the assertion that Carey had been in charge of the patrol. Meanwhile the British press had learned more about Chelmsford’s blunders and his staff’s quest for scapegoats to take the blame; now the death of the Prince Imperial bore too many similarities as, yet again, a junior officer was to take the blame for the faulty decisions of senior officers. The British press protectively gathered around Carey who duly became a cause célèbre. When he arrived at Southampton, still under arrest, the mayor, the city council and a large crowd spurred on by a brass band met his ship to express their support. It is possible that such a public display of public opinion persuaded the Judge Advocate General to look at Carey’s case with greater care. Following a request from the Prince Imperial’s mother, the Empress Eugénie, Queen Victoria intervened.
Within weeks, the decision of the court martial was refused ratification and its verdict was annulled. Carey returned to full duty with his regiment. There is no evidence that he was treated by his fellow officers other than with respect and proper courtesy. He died in 1883 of peritonitis while still serving in India and many historians have written that Carey died after being kicked by his horse; there is no contemporary evidence to support this myth.
In the military context, the prince’s death amounted to little more than a scandal; it was an insignificant incident and had no bearing on the conduct or outcome of the campaign. The prince’s body was returned to England for burial, firstly at Chislehurst and then later at Farnborough Abbey in Hampshire.
The advance on Ulundi
By March a constant flow of greatly needed supplies and reinforcements had arrived in Durban; these enabled Chelmsford to regain his enthusiasm for the campaign. Once he had recovered his composure and become involved in the second invasion, he appears to have completely forgotten the letter he wrote on 1 February to the Duke of Cambridge requesting a replacement. For his part, Garnet Wolseley, eager for a field command, had volunteered his services within days of learning of the Isandlwana defeat and was appointed to take over. Meanwhile Chelmsford assembled his forces. With many more troops under his command than were available for the initial invasion of Zululand, Chelmsford was soon ready to mount a fresh invasion. His ultimate intention was to engage the Zulu army – preferably near the king’s royal homestead at Ulundi.
Chelmsford and his staff had learned much from their previous mistakes and the
two huge columns now began the slow haul towards Ulundi; as they progressed they would establish a chain of fortified supply posts to guard their lines of advance. Chelmsford planned for three substantial forts to be built along his route, Forts Newdigate, Marshall and Evelyn. These would be garrisoned by small detachments of infantry and mounted troops; those detailed for this task would strongly resent missing the anticipated British victory at Ulundi.
On 29 March Crealock’s First Division crossed the Tugela river at the site of Fort Pearson. Two nearby deserted Zulu homesteads, at emaNgweni and Hlalangubo, were partially destroyed. Apart from these two minor successes, the First Division achieved little but experienced all the depredations suffered by the earlier column under Colonel Pearson. There were too few wagons to enable stores and equipment to be moved at the speed required and the high mortality rate among the overworked trek oxen and mules merely added to the problem. There were no arrangements in place to deal with dead animals, so they were abandoned on the roadside to rot in the heat; their effluent duly polluted the watercourses and swarms of flies infested the men’s food. Disease among the animals brought disease to the men and dysentery, enteric fever and typhoid rapidly weakened the force. The slow progress and military ineffectiveness of ‘Crealock’s Crawlers’, as they were popularly known, was unavoidable, making their contribution to the reinvasion of Zululand minimal.
For the northerly Second Division to advance as planned, Chelmsford urgently needed to repossess the wagons abandoned following the disaster at Isandlwana. Many of these fully serviceable wagons still littered the battlefield and had been ignored by the Zulus so, on 21 May, the cavalry division rode to Isandlwana and recovered forty-five undamaged wagons; at the same time a token attempt was made to bury the dead in the immediate area of the shattered camp, and this part of the mission was successful although the summer rains would undo much of their work, necessitating further burials. Colonel Glyn of the 24th Regiment had instructed the burial party to leave the bodies of the 24th until the regiment could return to Isandlwana to bury its own.
All the while, King Cetshwayo watched helplessly as the three British columns moved inexorably towards the Zulu border. Many Zulus were now openly reluctant to gather round the king as they realized that their defeat was inevitable. The initial attempt in May to regroup the Zulu army had met with partial success, perhaps due to a rumour that swept across Zululand that those warriors surrendering would be castrated and their wives given to the soldiers. However, as the British advanced ever closer, greater numbers rallied to the king’s call to arms. A number of Zulu chiefs were disillusioned with war and in anticipation of defeat, Prince Makwendu kaMpande, one of Cetshwayo’s junior brothers, had already surrendered himself and his family to Crealock. He was later followed by Prince Dabulamanzi, the commander at Rorke’s Drift, who along with Mavumengwana kaGodide, a commander at Isandlwana, established a diplomatic relationship with Crealock; more defections along the coastal regions were rumoured and some chiefs declared that they were unable to fight as their imizi were overcrowded with wounded. King Cetshwayo called an urgent meeting of chiefs and all agreed to commence negotiations with the British – only to have them thwarted by Chelmsford.
Meanwhile the end of May saw the Second Division assembled along the banks of the Ncome river near Koppie Alleen. They were joined on 31 May by Chelmsford and crossed the border into Zululand, as did Wood to his north; the reinvasion of Zululand now began in earnest. Wood’s Flying Column saw its first action during the morning of 5 June when a reconnaissance patrol of irregular cavalry chanced upon a large Zulu force occupying the base of eZungeni hill overlooking the Upoko river. The irregulars approached the Zulus and commenced sporadic fire into the Zulu position whereupon the Zulus, vastly outnumbering the irregulars, retaliated by advancing on them in their classic ‘horns’ attack formation; realizing they were in peril of being surrounded, the irregulars rapidly retreated. The sound of firing alerted a nearby troop of 17th Lancers who rushed to the scene; this would be the very first engagement in Zululand for the Lancers and all were ‘keen as mustard’ to bring further honour to the regiment by routing the Zulus.10 Like many before them, the Lancers did not understand Zulu tactics and deployed using the classic cavalry tactic of charging in line. The Zulus may have been impressed as the cavalry repeatedly swept past them but it was impossible for the Lancers to engage the Zulus. The terrain was totally unsuitable for cavalry and the Zulus held their ground, taking casual potshots at the riders as they swept by. The regiment then took its first loss when a Zulu marksman, using a Martini-Henry rifle, shot and killed Lieutenant Frith, the regiment’s adjutant. The sudden and unexpected loss of this popular young officer brought the action to an abrupt halt and, carrying Frith’s body with them, they returned to camp.
The Second Division established Fort Newdigate near the Nondweni river in order to rest the men and allow supplies to be brought forward. While at Fort Newdigate Chelmsford and his staff learned the cost of relying on so many inexperienced troops: following a false alarm one night, nervous sentries fired a number of shots into the darkness which brought the whole column to an immediate state of readiness. In the mistaken belief that they were under a serious Zulu attack the infantry opened fire, followed by the artillery who opened with indiscriminate shelling of the surrounding area. By the time it was realized that there was no attack eight men had been wounded and several horses were killed in the one-sided firefight. The incident nearly killed a recent recipient of the Victoria Cross, Lieutenant Chard, who was on picket duty occupying a forward shelter trench with his detachment. During the confusion rifle fire had been directed at Chard’s position in the mistaken belief that the Zulus held it. Chard and his men threw themselves into the shallow trench; they survived unscathed and one can only wonder as to the exchange of views once normality had been restored. Exercising patriotic restraint, those war correspondents present chose not to report the incident.
The column marched on to Mthonjaneni, only 17 miles from Ulundi. Here Chelmsford formed a strongly entrenched base camp and garrisoned it with some of the Colonial volunteers and the 1/24th, much to the disappointment of their commanding officer, Colonel Glyn. Leaving his cumbersome wagon train and spare animals, Chelmsford took the remainder of his force and marched on towards Ulundi; now only the Emakosini valley, the ‘place of kings’ and burial sites of Cetshwayo’s ancestors, lay between Chelmsford’s invasion force and the king’s royal homestead at Ulundi. King Cetshwayo tried repeatedly to call a halt to the invasion but all his attempts were deliberately ignored by Chelmsford; only the final battle at Ulundi would satisfy the British. Zulu homesteads along the route of advance were burnt to the ground and their cattle driven back to the army slaughterers. On 26 June a British force attacked along the Emakosini valley destroying royal homesteads; at one, esiKlebheni, they destroyed the inkatha ye sizwe ya’kwaZulu, the sacred coil of the nation that dated back to the time of King Shaka; it was the national symbol of unity and its destruction was a serious omen to the king. They also burned every hut and village in sight and destroyed vast amounts of mealies. This attack cleared the path to the Mthonjaneni heights overlooking the White Mfolozi river; Ulundi was now visible through the smoky haze in the middle distance.
Still optimistic that he could halt the British, King Cetshwayo sent two of his royal envoys, Nkisimane and Mfunzi, to treat with Chelmsford; as a gesture they brought with them the Prince Imperial’s sword, taken as booty from his body on 1 June. The envoys sought terms required for a Zulu surrender. Chelmsford informed the envoys that he required the surrender of all British arms captured at Isandlwana and gave them until 3 July for the king’s reply. Knowing full well that the king could not possibly comply with this ultimatum because the Martini-Henry rifles were now spread across the Zulu kingdom, Chelmsford continued his advance to the White Mfolozi river where he consolidated his army’s position and prepared his troops for the defeat of the Zulus. Chelmsford was under no illusion: he despe
rately needed the vindication for Isandlwana that this final battle would bring. Only then could he return to Britain with his reputation intact – but knowing he still had to answer to Parliament, the press and the public for his previous defeats and losses. Chelmsford was acutely aware of his predicament and wrote to the Secretary of State for War, Colonel Frederick Stanley, on this very issue:
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