Major Dartnell's predicament

We know that Major Dartnell's force encounter a large force of Zulu's, was it the Zulus intention to attack Dartnell at the same time as Isandlwana or was it really to entice the camp to be divided.

Hi, I got the distinct feeling reading IK recently that the Zulu force was trying to intimidate the volunteers and force them back (they were successful) so as to prevent their discovering the main body before the planned attack, thus maintaining the element of surprise. The odds would suggest that the Colonials & NNC would have been in trouble had they been attacked . They certainly thought so. A nice balance to intimidate an opponent enough to force his retreat without revealing your true strength. Tricky blighters these Zulus!

Major Dartnells predicament he would not have been in this position if his scouting force was a small mobile force and not a large and slow force which he chose himself it seems it was large enough to take on a small impi when his job was to notify the main army back at Isandlwana of his find promptly and not placing Chelmsford in a dilemma on weather to suppor Dartnell or not. This mistake was finilized on the night of the 20th when determined the numbers he was going to take with him on the following morning

aussie inkosi wrote:

Major Dartnells predicament he would not have been in this position if his scouting force was a small mobile force and not a large and slow force which he chose himself it seems it was large enough to take on a small impi when his job was to notify the main army back at Isandlwana of his find promptly and not placing Chelmsford in a dilemma on weather to suppor Dartnell or not. This mistake was finilized on the night of the 20th when determined the numbers he was going to take with him on the following morning

Do you mean the night of the 21st !

No mate 21st he was at Mangeni keeping an eye on that impi but on the night or late afternoon of the 20th thats when he determined the size of his scouting force it was the size and lack of speed of the scouting force which forced Dartnell to stay the night of the 21st at Mangeni the perfect example was Brown who went to scout in the direction of Isepezi with a very small force and was chased off by a Zulu masking force Brown reported his find directly to the camp while Dartnell at the very same time was thinking of fighting this impi with his much larger force if he had only a dozen or so men all on horsback then he would not of thought of staying the night he would of went hell for leather back to the camp as Brown did