The terrible disaster that overwhelmed the old 24th Regiment will always be remembered, not so much as a disaster, but as an example of heroism like that of Leonidas and the three hundred Spartans who fell at the pass of Thermopylae. (1)
Between 1837 and 1901, Queen Victoria ruled the most powerful dominion in the world. During these sixty-four dynamic years, the British Empire became a realm upon which ‘the sun never set’, and it encompassed one fourth of the earth's land surface – arguably the richest and most powerful empire in the history of the world. During the reign of Queen Victoria, the red-jacketed British soldier was engaged in sixty-three different campaigns fighting for Queen and Country, almost one military campaign per year. Of all the conflicts, that which most seized the popular imagination proved to be the Anglo-Zulu War, partly because the war came as a complete surprise to the home government, and also because of a series of major British defeats during the first seven months of 1879. Further disaster followed with the death of the heir to the Napoleonic dynasty, the young Prince Imperial, who had volunteered to fight with the British in Zululand. Suddenly, some of Queen Victoria's over-confident regiments found themselves engaged in ferocious fighting against the most powerful and most feared of all African nations – the Zulus. The fact that the Zulus had been at peace with the British for twenty-three years, and that King Cetshwayo of the Zulus had been an ally, was ignored.
On 11 January 1879 British forces invaded Zululand; it was the beginning of a brutal campaign that was to have far-reaching repercussions. A few days later, on 22 January, the British and Zulu armies met. A ferocious battle, fought to the death of the last British soldier, took place between Zulu warriors armed primarily with spears and clubs and British soldiers equipped with modern rifles and artillery; the result was the worst defeat in the colonial history of the British army. The battle was fought at the base of a small mountain with an unusual name, Isandlwana. Under the command of an experienced general, Lord Chelmsford, 1,329 officers and men of the British invasion force were killed and then ritually disembowelled. Fewer than sixty whites escaped, some would say in dubious circumstances, before the Zulus arrived. Among the numerous fatalities were six fully manned companies of the famous 1st Battalion of the 24th (2nd Warwickshire) Regiment (1/24th), all destroyed to the last man. The British Army lost fifty-two officers at Isandlwana, more than it did during the three main battles of the Waterloo campaign. No battalion had ever lost so many officers in one engagement. This battle in distant Zululand was to have a numbing effect on British civilians and politicians at home, mainly because it was so inexplicable. The disaster would bring down Disraeli's government, and the defeat proved, once and for all, that neither the British Empire nor its army was invincible.
In order to understand the background to the Anglo-Zulu War, Britain's progressive foreign policy, involving confederation as a means of successfully administering her colonies, should not be overlooked. This policy is important because it directly influenced a number of complex issues that closely relate to the years immediately prior to the Anglo-Zulu War. Confederation entailed the unification of a fragmented colony, a large single territory or a collection of neighbouring territories under one central administration. With such an administration in place, a reliable and stable policy could then control economic production, and the resulting trade usually benefited Britain. Such a unified colonial area could then develop its own locally recruited military, albeit trained and supervised by British officers. This neatly solved the problem of Britain supplying and funding hugely expensive imperial garrisons in her distant colonies.
During the 1870s confederation was becoming an increasingly important factor in British foreign policy, following its successful implementation in lands as various and distant as India, Australia, the Leeward Islands and, most recently and successfully, Canada. The policy of confederation developed as a result of expensive lessons learned by Britain while administering her other colonies and lands; without imperial administration and economic policies, such responsibilities were becoming too heavy a financial burden.
With such a policy in place, most colonies flourished; they even became self-supporting and in due course generated highly profitable trade with Britain. The same system of confederation had recently been introduced throughout Canada under the guidance of Lord Carnarvon, then Colonial Secretary, and it is in the light of this particular success that the policy was considered, accurately or inaccurately, as the solution to the problem of uniting southern Africa's European colonies into a viable self-financing Confederation.
Other factors were also beginning to emerge which sharply focused British attention on the urgency of confederating southern Africa. In October 1867 an unexpectedly large number of diamonds were discovered at the junction of the Orange and Vaal Rivers, and the location was most inconvenient for Britain. Jurisdiction over the area was disputed between two fledgling Boer-controlled states, the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. All the while, unhindered, many thousands of prospectors headed for the district from all over the world. These hardy prospectors ignored any form of local authority, and the financial potential of further discoveries was becoming increasingly apparent from evidence that indicated the promise of even greater wealth and its associated commercial possibilities. In 1871, Britain deftly resolved the matter by annexing the whole area to the British Crown, along with the neighbouring territory of Basutoland. There was some protest from the Orange Free State administration, which nevertheless gratefully accepted £90,000 as compensation. Carnarvon then formally initiated the process of confederation by appointing Sir Bartle Frere as High Commissioner to South Africa. Lord Cadogan expressed the British parliament's view when he stated:
Confederation will involve, we hope, self defence, which will remove the liability under which we labour of spending our blood and money upon these wretched Kaffir quarrels in South Africa. (2)
The newly-appointed High Commissioner, Sir Bartle Frere, was an experienced administrator from India whose uncompromising views on the treatment of natives who menaced imperial frontiers were well known to the Crown. Frere's Secretary of Native Affairs, Sir Theophilus Shepstone, was like-minded and favoured aggressive military intervention followed by annexation. Shepstone feared a black coalition both within and beyond southern Africa, followed by the spectre of a black uprising. He believed the most formidable of the troublesome native tribes was the Zulu kingdom ruled by King Cetshwayo. Frere and Shepstone encouraged the growing belief that King Cetshwayo's standing army of some 50,000 warriors was ready to invade the peaceful British colony of Natal. Frere and Shepstone were lucky that their views about the Zulus were shared by the Honourable Frederic Thesiger, shortly to become Lord Chelmsford following the death of his father, and recently in command of all British forces in South Africa.
The main players, political and military, believed a quick campaign would crush the savage foe; after all, the nine previous minor Cape Wars had hardly taxed the British army. When General Cunynghame handed over command to General Thesiger, he issued an order that said of the 24th Regiment:
They have never failed to assist me; each and every duty that I have placed before them they have readily accepted and cheerfully accomplished, their excellence as marksmen bearing testimony to their good training. (3)
King Cetshwayo would quickly be obliged to understand, like all doubters before him, that Queen Victoria ruled all of Africa. In addition, the gaps in the intricate web simultaneously being woven between Briton and Boer could be mended – once the Zulu nation that threatened both communities was eradicated. The reality was very different. Ignoring the fact that the Zulus were faithful allies of the British, Chelmsford's invasion force would shortly advance with supreme confidence towards the Zulu border. Dilatoriness and lack of caution at Isandlwana were to produce the most unexpected result – the unprecedented massacre of well armed and experienced British troops.
On 22 January, under the cliffs of Isandlwana, 25,000 Zulu warriors destroyed half of Lord Chelmsford's central column, the main body of his three-pronged invasion force. (4) There was, as the title of one modern publication records, ‘an awful row at home about this'. (5) Not since the sanguinary events of the Indian Mutiny in 1857 had such total and humiliating losses been reported to an incredulous British public. (6) The shock was sharper because of its total unexpectedness; for many, it was the first news that Queen Victoria's regiments were even engaged in South Africa.