Isandlwana and Rorke’s Drift.

1879 Britain decided to consolidate a few more chunks of Africa; it worked in Canada so why not here? First order of business was to annex the independent Zulu nation and 15,000 troops were sent off to get the job done. The first encounter was at Isandlwana and turned into Britain’s equivalent of the Battle of Little Big Horn – a far superior military force with arrogant leadership was duped into splitting its forces and was soundly punished; Britain’s worst defeat against a “technologically inferior indigenous force”. The painting by Charles Fripp gives an idea of what it must have been like to be surrounded by 20,000 Zulus with spears. Today the site is strewn with stone piles where the 1300 British dead were recovered.

Just a few miles away is Rorke’s Drift where the Zulus then descended on a mission station defended by just 150 British troops and were ultimately repelled. See the movie Zulu for an accurate depiction of the story. Little remains today of what was there in 1879 but there is a stone walled cemetery and now a 2005 memorial to the Zulu fallen by Peter Hall showing a leopard defending the shields of fallen warriors.