I'm enamored with Carnage and Culture, a book covering nine battles through the history of western civilization and attempting (rather convincingly) to explain why the west is so effective at waging war. Previously I covered Cannae, a major Roman defeat that showed the resiliency of the ancient Empire. Today we'll discuss Rorke's Drift, a clash between the British Empire and the Zulu Kingdom of southern Africa in 1879. Once again, Victor Davis Hanson draws wide-ranging conclusions, in this case about the British Empire specifically as part of western culture at large. I just want to tell this absolutely wild story.
I hadn't even heard of the battle of Rorke's Drift until reading the chapter about it. In general I knew there were battles where hugely outnumbered imperial British troops prevailed due largely to superior weapons technology. But this battle is something else. We're talking 140 soldiers surviving an onslaught of 4000 attackers. The numbers are astounding.
Here's what set up this situation. Part of current day South Africa, known as Cape Colony, was European colonial territory going all the way back to 1652. A Dutch entity for a hundred plus years, it was taken over by the British government in 1814 and they steadily increased their controlled land through the 19th century. The Anglo-Zulu war came about as British leadership in Africa sought to remove the threat of the large neighboring standing Zulu army. The conflict was entirely provoked by the British and in many ways looks awful with modern eyes, but that doesn't take away from the story of Rorke's Drift.
The first engagement of the war was at Isandlwana on January 22, 1879. British troops had marched into Zululand looking for battle, even splitting up to do so. A sizable group, led by their most senior commander, was absent when the main camp was attacked by a massive Zulu army. This battle involved 20,000 Zulu warriors charging primarily with Assegai spears against 1800 British-aligned soldiers (only about half were actually regulars) holding high-powered but single shot Martini-Henry rifles. For incomprehensible reasons, the British never dug trenches or used their baggage train to form defensible positions for the encampment, tactics long known to be necessary when facing large tribal armies. Caught unprepared, they compounded their errors by fanning out in a long line to shoot at the advancing horde and were overrun. Many died fighting back-to-back with bayonets and the butts of their rifles after expending all ammunition. Almost no one survived and even the two British generals on the field perished with their men.
After annihilating British forces at Isandlwana earlier on the 22nd, the Zulus dispatched a fresh reserve of some 4000 toward Rorke's Drift that same day. The small station is only six miles away, at the time just over the border on colonial land. Used as a staging ground for the invasion, it held vast stores (food especially) drawing Zulu interest. It also housed a number of sick or wounded in a tiny hospital. At the time of the coming fight only British 139 soldiers were present and many of those were bedridden. On hearing news of the disaster at Isandlwana the two 30-something Lieutenants on site, Chard and Bromhead, together with commissary officer Dalton, had to prepare for the worst with essentially no time. They also had to keep up morale as various colonial and tribal auxiliary soldiers (200-300) fled for their lives at the arrival of the enemy. Deciding they would not abandon the wounded, the small remaining group determined to stand their ground or die.
They only had about two hours (230-430pm) before the arrival of the Zulu army. In that time the soldiers constructed walls between the small stone buildings using what was available to them: 200 pound mealie (corn) bags and 100 pound biscuit boxes. The mealie bags were dense enough to stop a bullet and heavy enough that they couldn't be knocked over easily. By the onset of the battle, they had created an enclosed fort. There was a larger perimeter made of mealie bags split in two by a biscuit box wall to create a smaller area for retreat. At all places the walls were at least four feet high and in many cases more requiring an attacker to be hoisted over.
By 530pm, the fight had begun in earnest. It would last all night with multiple assaults on the fort. Zulus that came over the wall were blown away or bayonetted. British riflemen laid down constant fire. Hundreds of Zulus using guns taken at Isandlwana were able to pick off some of the regulars from nearby high ground. Had the Zulus been better shots (or understood the technology), they could've easily ended the battle early. Instead, night set in and they abandoned the heights. Around this time the hospital's thatched roof started burning, necessitating evacuation of the patients inside. Nearly all were rescued safely. The fire then helped the defenders, allowing them to better see the oncoming attackers. Retreating behind the biscuit box wall, the remaining British occupied a smaller zone and threw up a tiny redoubt using more mealie bags, which became a last resort and location to keep the wounded. Overnight the battle waned, with the Zulus unable to penetrate a drastically reduced British perimeter. Still, a final overwhelming assault was expected sometime that morning. Due to continuous use, by then many of the bayonets were twisted and unusable. The big rifles got so hot that they'd repeatedly jammed and burned the soldiers hands horribly. Thoroughly exhausted, they kept up the fight. At 7am, a huge line of Zulus became visible and the British assumed the end had come. But then the attackers drifted away. What the defenders hadn't realized is that the Zulu army brought nothing with them for battle, including food. Even more so than the British, the Zulus by morning (January 23rd, 1879) were completely famished and too exhausted to continue after days in the field. So they went home.
I liked this excerpt from a contemporary source describing the post-battle scene: "the appearance and feeling of devastation after a hurricane, with the dead bodies thrown in, the only thing that remained whole being the circular miniature fortress constructed of bags of mealies in the centre."
In the end, British losses were shockingly small (the book says 15 dead, wikipedia 17). Hundreds of Zulu were killed that night, the 400-800 number in later accounts may have been an underestimation for various reasons. More than 20,000 cartridges were picked up, showing the ridiculous amount of firepower utilized. That averaged to about 200 bullets per man over what was eight hours of constant shooting. Remember, these were single-shot rifles so each one was loaded individually. Eleven Victoria Crosses (the highest military honor granted by the UK, comparable to the Medal of Honor) were awarded to the defenders of Rorke's Drift, including to Chard, Bromhead and Dalton.
That's the true story of how just over 100 British soldiers fought off thousands of Zulu warriors, using their rations for defense. And it's got to be the craziest thing I've ever heard.
If you're curious, the defeat at Isandlwana and the gripping tale of the defense of Rorke's Drift galvanized support for the war back in Britain. A second invasion was launched, which crushed the Zulu army and broke up its kingdom. I've also just learned there's a movie about Rorke's Drift, which includes a very young Michael Caine, called Zulu (1964). I now need to see it, even if it has some historical inaccuracies.
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