A Stunning Zulu Victory

Guest

Hi all, the Zulu won the battle of Isandhlwana.fact.
but why did they comprehensibly and overwhelmingly
defeat a large british force armed with modern state
of the art weaponry,

As the frontier wars came to a close, the british were
to assume that the up-coming Zulu campaign would
prove to be pretty much of ' more of the same '. how
wrong did this turn out to be, despite the plethora of
evidence supplied by the settlers,disaffected Natal
Zulu's, and indeed their own ' intelligence dept proved
to be worse than useless.

So it was that the british crossed the buffalo river and
invaded Zululand, its on record what the british motive-
ation was for invading this independent sovereign state.
but what of the ordinary men on the proverbial shilling a
day. when the battle was in full flow and they were be-
ing driven back through the tents,what were those final
desperate thoughts of these men standing on the edge
of eternity. and all for a shilling a day,the letters sent
home by the or/nco's were in the main lucid and many
articulate.but im always left with that notion that the
british were an army of automatons,rigid and inflexible.
so, where was the motivation, who had the most to
lose. what were the Zulu's motivation as they achieved
this famous pyrrhic victory.. cheers xhosa

Posts : 1086 Join date : 2012-05-12 Location : NYC

xhosa2000 wrote:: what were the Zulu's motivation as they achieved
this famous pyrrhic victory. cheers xhosa

The Zulu motivation seems straightforward to me. Their territory was being invaded so they wanted to send the British packing.

Regardless of the reason given, it is noteworthy that they did not attempt to follow up with an invasion of Natal, unless you count the attack on Rorke's Drift which was motivated more by vanity than policy.

Posts : 34 Join date : 2023-04-30

They defeated the 1200 soldiers because there where 20,000 + odd Zulu's.

Subject: Re: A Stunning Zulu Victory Sat Sep 16, 2023 2:36 pm

And yet 4000 couldn't beat 150 -160 British soldiers a few miles away....20000 couldn't beat 2000 odd at Kambuka.....I'm not sure the numbers involved is the whole answer.....

Subject: Re: A Stunning Zulu Victory Sat Sep 16, 2023 2:40 pm

Think it had more to do with
a) screwdrivers
b) zulus attacking under the cover of an eclipse
c) the zulus being led by a 'whiteman' *

*as we're the the Sioux at LBH.....

Subject: Re: A Stunning Zulu Victory Sat Sep 16, 2023 10:03 pm

Hi SRB1965
Who is the white man you refer to?

Subject: Re: A Stunning Zulu Victory Sun Sep 17, 2023 8:59 am

Hi Eddie

If I knew that, my name would be be placed amongst the exulted......Ian Knight, Julian Whybra, John Lalband, SRB1965 - I would be up there.

Joking aside (as my post was) there was rumour at the time that the 'savages' couldn't have beaten a white modern army, without bring lead by a whiteman.

The Zulus had a number of Europeans who assisted them - not militarily (other than gun running?) so much but mainly trade and in contacting the Europeans - James (?) Rorke (son of 'the' Rorke), John Dunne, a controversial chap called Calverley, all were associated with various Zulu notables.

Others on this forum will be better placed to tell you about the rumours at the time.

There was a similar rumour flying around in 1876 America, after Little Big Horn - perhaps in this case more circulated.

Cheers

Sime

Subject: Re: A Stunning Zulu Victory Sun Sep 17, 2023 1:54 pm

Hi

Yes I have read of all the instances that you refer to, and have delved into newspaper Archives written about them.
The rumours have been discussed on these forums and as you have stated none were involved in a military capacity, so it seems.
So going back to your C) statement above, should read:-
" the Zulus being advised by a "whiteman" as opposed to led.

Subject: Re: A Stunning Zulu Victory Sun Sep 17, 2023 2:34 pm

Eddie,

I stand (actually this should read "lie on the sofa watching South Africa vs Romania") corrected.....

Cheers

Sime

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