Fall of the Zulu nation
Transcrição
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 'rendZ] aus nächster Nähe Boer [bɔ:] Bure claim [klem] (Gebiets)Anspruch column ['kɒləm] Kolonne conquest ['kɒŋkwəst] Eroberung defiance [di'faəns] Trotz, Widerstand disband sth. [ds'b{nd] etw. auflösen empire ['empaə] Reich ensure sth. [n'ʃɔ:] etw. sicherstellen entity ['entəti] Wesen; hier: Staatsgebilde eventually ['ventʃuəli] schließlich expire [k'spaə] ablaufen face sb. [fes] jmdm. gegenüberstehen fallout ['fɔ:laut] (radioaktive) Strahlung fortified ['fɔ:tfad] befestigt in the long term [n ðə 'lɒŋ t«:m] auf die lange Sicht intention [n'tenʃən] Absicht invade (a country) [n'ved] (in ein Land) einmarschieren make camp ["mek 'k{mp] sein Lager aufschlagen minister ['mnstə] Geistlicher nephew ['nefju:] Neffe partial solar eclipse partielle Sonnenfinsternis ["pɑ:ʃəl "səυlə 'klps] reinforce sth. ["ri:n'fɔ:s] etw. verstärken relations [ri'leʃənz] Beziehungen retreat [ri'tri:t] sich zurückziehen rifle ['rafəl] Gewehr secretary for native affairs Minister(in) für ["sekrətəri fɔ: "netv ə'feəz] Eingeborenenfragen self-reliant ["self ri'laənt] eigenständig shield [ʃi:əld] Schild spear [spə] Speer surrender [sə'rendə] sich ergeben, kapitulieren take one's place ["tek wÃnz 'ples] an jmds. Stelle treten violate sth. ['vaəlet] 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