Relationship between the Afrikaners and the British during the Zulu War.

Posts : 747 Join date : 2009-10-18

Was the relationship between the Afrikaners and the British during the Zulu War a favourable one?

In 1877 The Afrikaners had showed reluctance to accept British rule. The kind of examples I’m looking for is like the incident at Rorkes Drift, I could be wrong but was it not the Afrikaners that refused to help and rode off leaving the British to it. I’m just trying to establish weather or not the Afrikaners bared true allegiance to the British. I would be interested to know what other battles the Afrikaners took part in during the Zulu War. And any documented records by the British giving a good account of them.

Mr G

Posts : 1603 Join date : 2009-09-21

Well the Boer war shortly followed the Zulu War.

Did any of the Afrikaners receive the Zulu War Campaign medal? Idea

Posts : 2558 Join date : 2009-04-06 Age : 61 Location : UK

It wasn’t just the Afrikaner’s that fled from Rorkes Drift, some of the NNC went with them or shorly after.

Lieutenant Adendorff was an Afrikaner officer who appears to have been involved in both battle’s Isandlwana and Rorkes Drift. But I believe this has been disputed.

Did any of the Afrikaners receive the Zulu War Campaign medal? Lieutenant Adendorff certainly did.

According to my knowledge, Adendorf was a German , who had come up from Caffraria with Schermbrucker or earlier! Definetly not a boer!
There are records of the boers actually allying themselves with the Zulu and for certain with Umbelini in the disputed territory. Only Uys with his group joined the 4th Column of Wood out of personal reason and gain. He was farming in the disputed territory and also wanted to revenge the murder of his family in 1838 by the Zulus.

Adendorff came from Caffraria with Schermbrucker and joined Lonsdale and the NNC when on route to Utrecht. He was definetly involved in both battles of Isandlwana and Rorke's Drift.
I can understand that he was deserted by most of his troops during the Isandlwana battle.Having only arrived in Natal in November and joined the NNC in the middle of Dec he only had a couple of weeks to build any trust relationship with his troops. I feel for him having been a Lt myself in the South African Bush War with 121Bn in 1988 having 30 Zulu troops under my command. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

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