Fall of the Zulu nation

HISTORY A PICTURE AND ITS STORY
Bridgeman
Fall of the Zulu nation
Attacked from
three sides:
the British in
the Battle of
Isandlwana,
fought 130 years
ago this month
disband his army, he said, the British would invade Zululand. Cetshwayo did not respond.
Frere thought this would be an easy undertaking. The
Zulu had only spears and leather shields, while the British
had rifles and horses. On 12 January 1879, the day after
Frere’s ultimatum expired, Lieutenant-General Lord
Chelmsford led three columns of British soldiers into Zululand. They defeated the small army of Chief Sihayo kaXongo and moved on.
Chelmsford led his central column to the foot of a 100metre-tall rock formation called Isandlwana, where they
made camp. He knew that the Zulu would attack, but he did
not expect to face as many as 25,000 warriors.
On 22 January, the main part
of the Zulu army arrived to
face the British, who were in
the shadow of the hillside. A
partial solar eclipse made the
Zulu difficult to see as they
employed Shaka’s legendary
strategy known as “horns of
the bull”. While the most experienced warriors attacked
from the front, the younger and stronger warriors went
around, unseen, to both sides. Within three hours, they destroyed Chelmsford’s army, killing 1,300 men on the British
side. It was the worst defeat in British colonial history.
“I think that one of the great tragedies of the battle is
that it is the great Zulu act of defiance against colonial
conquest and invasion, but the fact that they won it ensured their defeat in the long term,” British historian Ian
Knight, who specializes in Zulu history, told PBS television.
“The British Empire was not going to sit back and take
that quietly. As a result of the Zulu victory, the British army
was reinforced ad nauseam until they had so many troops
that they eventually won the war.”
The 1964 film Zulu shows what happened next. Panicked
by the defeat at Isandlwana, the British retreated, except for
145 men defending a fortified mission at Rorke’s Drift. In
the film, the Zulu walk right up to the mission and are shot
at close range. As the first
row falls down, the second
row is shot. But the Zulu
are by now close enough to
throw their spears and hit
the British men. The Zulu
warriors keep marching
over the bodies of their
dead comrades. Because there are so many of them, and
so few of the British, the Zulu are able to get inside the mission. The battle is fought one-on-one throughout the night.
After 10 hours, the British still haven’t surrendered, and the
Zulu retreat. The film adds a nice ending that has nothing to
do with historical fact: the Zulu gather on a nearby hilltop
and sing a song honouring their brave opponents.
Within two months, reinforcements began to arrive from
around the British empire, and the British began to attack
systematically. During March, the Zulu still had the upper
hand, but in April, the British began to gain control of the
situation, despite heavy losses. On 4 July, the British
reached the Zulu capital, Ulundi, and burned it down.
Cetshwayo ran away and was later taken prisoner. The Zulu
territory was divided among 13 chiefs who were friendly to
the British.
Today it is still mainly Zulu who live in this area. A halfhour bus ride from Durban takes you to a tourist village
where local people explain their traditional way of life. The
history of the region’s two great powers is remembered in
the name of the province, KwaZulu/Natal.
l
“The British were not
just going to sit back
and accept defeat”
Die Entdeckung der Diamanten in Südafrika im neunzehnten Jarhundert weckte die Begehrlichkeiten
auf das Zululand. MIKE PILEWSKI berichtet über die bewegte Geschichte dieser Region.
ne of the great lessons of history is that no kingdom or empire lasts for ever. A rival state always
comes along, defeats it and takes its place. Indeed,
history itself is the study of the rise and fall of such
entities. Two great powers fought each other in
midsummer 130 years ago in southern Africa; six months
later, only one remained.
In the hills between the Drakensberg mountains and the
Indian Ocean, north of what is now the city of Durban, a
leader called Shaka established a powerful Zulu kingdom in
the early 19th century. To the south of Zululand, along the
coast, the British established the colony of Natal in the
1840s.
The Zulu didn’t have a problem with the British as neighbours; they chose to fight the Swazis instead. Relations
between the British and Zulu were, in fact, friendly enough
that Sir Theophilus Shepstone, the British secretary for native affairs in Natal, even performed the ceremony at which
Shaka’s nephew, Cetshwayo kaMpande, was crowned king
of the Zulu in 1872.
O
50 Spotlight
difficult
In spite of this, the British after a time no longer had
friendly intentions. Diamonds had been discovered in South
Africa in the 1860s. There was trading to be done and
wealth to be found. The British developed a plan to bring
both the African nations and the Boer states — in other
words, all of South Africa — under their control (see Spotlight 5/07).
The Zulu clearly stood in the way of this plan. Their
self-reliant nation was guarded by a disciplined army of
more than 30,000 men.
For a few years, the British took control of the Transvaal region from the Boers in 1877, and Shepstone became governor of that region. The Boers had been in a
dispute with the Zulu about certain lands, and Shepstone
supported the Boer claims. The Zulu now had to deal with
the British to the north as well as to the south. Cetshwayo
increased the size of his army.
In December 1878, the British High Commissioner in
South Africa, Sir Henry Bartle Frere, accused Cetshwayo of
having violated earlier agreements. If Cetshwayo did not
1/09
accuse sb. of having done sth.
jmdn. beschuldigen, etw.
[ə'kju:z]
getan zu haben
ad nauseam (see p. 65) ["{d 'nɔ:zi{m] bis zum Überdruss
at close range [ət "kləυz 'rendZ]
aus nächster Nähe
Boer [bɔ:]
Bure
claim [klem]
(Gebiets)Anspruch
column ['kɒləm]
Kolonne
conquest ['kɒŋkwəst]
Eroberung
defiance [di'faəns]
Trotz, Widerstand
disband sth. [ds'b{nd]
etw. auflösen
empire ['empaə]
Reich
ensure sth. [n'ʃɔ:]
etw. sicherstellen
entity ['entəti]
Wesen; hier:
Staatsgebilde
eventually ['ventʃuəli]
schließlich
expire [k'spaə]
ablaufen
face sb. [fes]
jmdm. gegenüberstehen
fallout ['fɔ:laut]
(radioaktive) Strahlung
fortified ['fɔ:tfad]
befestigt
in the long term [n ðə 'lɒŋ t«:m]
auf die lange Sicht
intention [n'tenʃən]
Absicht
invade (a country) [n'ved]
(in ein Land) einmarschieren
make camp ["mek 'k{mp]
sein Lager aufschlagen
minister ['mnstə]
Geistlicher
nephew ['nefju:]
Neffe
partial solar eclipse
partielle Sonnenfinsternis
["pɑ:ʃəl "səυlə 'klps]
reinforce sth. ["ri:n'fɔ:s]
etw. verstärken
relations [ri'leʃənz]
Beziehungen
retreat [ri'tri:t]
sich zurückziehen
rifle ['rafəl]
Gewehr
secretary for native affairs
Minister(in) für
["sekrətəri fɔ: "netv ə'feəz]
Eingeborenenfragen
self-reliant ["self ri'laənt]
eigenständig
shield [ʃi:əld]
Schild
spear [spə]
Speer
surrender [sə'rendə]
sich ergeben, kapitulieren
take one's place ["tek wÃnz 'ples]
an jmds. Stelle treten
violate sth. ['vaəlet]
etw. verletzen
warrior ['wɒriə]
Krieger
1/09
Also this month...
80 years ago, on 15 January 1929, American Baptist minister
Martin Luther King, Jr. was born in Atlanta. From 1955 until he
was shot and killed in 1968, King led the movement for equal
rights for African Americans. King famously said, “I have a dream
that my four little children will one day ... not be judged by the
colour of their skin, but by the content of their character.”
110 years ago, on 17 January 1899, author Nevil Shute was
born in London. In his 1957 novel On the Beach, the Australian
protagonists carry on with their lives, knowing that deadly fallout from a nuclear war will soon arrive. Shute died in Melbourne,
Australia, in 1960.
Spotlight 51