Battle of Isandlwana (1879): The Zulu Victory That Shook Britain

The Battle of Isandlwana, fought on 22 January 1879 in Zululand, was the first major battle of the Anglo-Zulu War and one of the heaviest defeats suffered by a British army in the colonial era. A Zulu army of about 20,000 men overran the camp of the British centre column beneath the hill of Isandlwana, killing more than 1,300 soldiers and auxiliaries. The disaster shocked Victorian Britain and changed the course of the war.

Background

In December 1878 the British High Commissioner Sir Henry Bartle Frere issued an ultimatum to King Cetshwayo that would have ended the independence of the Zulu kingdom, as described in the article on the Anglo-Zulu War. When it expired on 11 January 1879, Lieutenant-General Lord Chelmsford invaded Zululand with three main columns.

Chelmsford travelled with the centre column, which crossed the Buffalo (Mzinyathi) River at Rorke’s Drift on 11 January. After an attack on the homestead of the chief Sihayo, the column moved slowly forward along a rough track, held up by rain and the difficulty of moving heavy ox-wagons. On 20 January it pitched camp on the eastern slope of Isandlwana, a steep, isolated hill whose shape many British soldiers compared to a sphinx or to the badge of their regiment.

The camp was not fortified. Chelmsford intended to stay only briefly, the ground was hard and stony for digging, and the wagons were needed to bring up supplies, so no laager (defensive ring of wagons) was formed. Chelmsford, like many of his officers, expected the Zulu to avoid a pitched battle against modern rifles.

The two armies

The force at Isandlwana included the 1st Battalion and part of the 2nd Battalion of the 24th Regiment of Foot (2nd Warwickshire), two 7-pounder guns of the Royal Artillery, mounted colonial volunteers and police, and companies of the Natal Native Contingent, African troops raised in Natal. On the morning of the battle Colonel Anthony Durnford arrived with about 500 men of the Natal Native Horse and other African units and a rocket battery. The infantry carried the Martini-Henry breech-loading rifle, a powerful single-shot weapon.

The Zulu army that had left the royal homestead at oNdini on 17 January numbered roughly 20,000 to 25,000 men, organised in amabutho, regiments formed of men of the same age group. Its senior commanders were Ntshingwayo kaMahole and Mavumengwana kaNdlela. Most warriors carried the iklwa, a short stabbing spear, together with throwing spears and a cowhide shield; many also had firearms, mostly old muskets. They could march long distances fast and fought in a well-practised formation.

The morning of 22 January

On 21 January a reconnaissance party under Major John Dartnell found Zulu forces some 19 kilometres (12 miles) south-east of the camp. Believing that the main Zulu army was there, Chelmsford left Isandlwana before dawn on 22 January with about half of the column to support Dartnell. He left Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Pulleine of the 24th in command of the camp, with orders to defend it, and sent for Durnford to come up from Rorke’s Drift.

In fact the main Zulu army had moved unseen into the Ngwebeni valley, only about 8 to 10 kilometres north-east of the camp. Zulu tradition holds that the commanders did not plan to fight on 22 January, a day considered unlucky because of the phase of the moon. Durnford arrived in the late morning and, though senior to Pulleine, did not take command of the camp; instead he rode out with his mounted men to investigate Zulu movements.

Around midday a troop of Durnford’s Natal Native Horse chased a group of Zulu herders onto high ground and suddenly found the main Zulu army sitting in the valley below. The Zulu regiments immediately rose and began the attack.

The battle

The Zulu advanced in their traditional formation, known as the “horns of the buffalo”. The chest moved directly towards the camp, the right horn swung wide to the north and west behind Isandlwana hill, and the left horn moved towards the southern side, while the loins were held back as a reserve.

Pulleine deployed his infantry in an extended firing line well forward of the tents, so as to support Durnford and command the open ground. For a time the rifle volleys and artillery stopped the Zulu chest, whose warriors lay down in the long grass. But the line was long and thin, and the companies stood more than a kilometre from the ammunition wagons. Durnford’s men, holding a dry riverbed called a donga far out on the plain, began to run short of ammunition and fell back.

As the flanks gave way, the Zulu commanders and officers, among them the induna Mkhosana kaMvundlana, urged the warriors forward. The chest charged, the British line was ordered to retire on the camp, and the horns closed around it. In the early afternoon the camp was overrun in fierce hand-to-hand fighting among the tents and wagons. Small groups of soldiers made last stands on the slopes of the hill; Durnford died with a mixed group of colonial volunteers and soldiers in the saddle below it.

Survivors fled across rough country towards the Buffalo River along what became known as Fugitives’ Trail, many being caught and killed on the way. Lieutenants Teignmouth Melvill and Nevill Coghill tried to save the Queen’s Colour of the 1st/24th and were killed after crossing the river; they were among the first men to be awarded the Victoria Cross posthumously, in 1907. During the afternoon a partial solar eclipse dimmed the sky.

Losses

On the British side more than 1,300 men were killed, including 52 officers and over 700 regular soldiers, as well as colonial volunteers and several hundred African troops of the Natal Native Contingent. Only around 50 to 60 Europeans escaped, along with a larger number of African soldiers. The camp’s guns, wagons, oxen, about 1,000 rifles and hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition fell into Zulu hands.

Zulu losses are uncertain. Estimates usually put the dead in the battle at about 1,000 to 2,000, with many wounded dying in the following days; some historians suggest the total may have approached 3,000. Following custom, Zulu warriors cut open the bodies of slain enemies, a ritual meant to free the spirit of the dead, which British accounts described with horror.

Key people

• Ntshingwayo kaMahole (c. 1809–1883): Senior Zulu commander and an experienced adviser of Cetshwayo, credited with directing the victory.
• Mavumengwana kaNdlela: Co-commander of the Zulu army, son of a former chief minister.
• Lord Chelmsford (1827–1905): British commander who divided his force and was absent during the battle.
• Henry Pulleine (1838–1879): Commander of the camp, killed in the battle.
• Anthony Durnford (1830–1879): Royal Engineers officer whose role remains debated; he was killed defending the camp.

Consequences

Chelmsford had received confused reports of fighting at the camp during the day but did not believe the danger was serious until mid-afternoon. He returned to the devastated camp after dark on 22 January, and his exhausted men spent the night among the dead before marching at dawn towards Rorke’s Drift, fearing that Natal itself had been invaded. That night a Zulu reserve force under Prince Dabulamanzi kaMpande attacked the mission station at Rorke’s Drift, where about 150 men held out, an action described in the article on the Battle of Rorke’s Drift. The defence offered a story of heroism that partly offset the shock of the defeat.

Isandlwana halted the British invasion. News reached London on 11 February 1879 and caused consternation; reinforcements were rushed to South Africa and the government of Benjamin Disraeli faced sharp criticism. A court of inquiry held soon afterwards avoided blaming Chelmsford, and responsibility was often placed on Durnford, who could not defend himself. Historians have since argued over the relative blame of Chelmsford, Pulleine and Durnford.

The Zulu victory was costly. Heavy losses, followed by the defeat at Kambula in March, weakened the army, and the British won the war at Ulundi in July 1879. The dead at Isandlwana lay unburied for months before burial parties began to inter them in May and June 1879.

Legacy

Isandlwana became one of the most studied battles of the colonial era. For the Zulu nation it is a symbol of courage and military skill, and it is commemorated each year at the battlefield, where a bronze memorial in the form of an isiqu, a traditional necklace of valour, was unveiled in 1999. White cairns mark the British graves across the site. The battle has been dramatised in the film Zulu Dawn (1979), while the earlier film Zulu (1964) portrays Rorke’s Drift. It also influenced later conflict in the region, as Boer leaders took note of British vulnerability before the First Boer War.

Timeline

• 1878, 11 December: The British ultimatum is read to Zulu envoys.
• 1879, 11 January: The centre column crosses into Zululand at Rorke’s Drift.
• 1879, 17 January: The main Zulu army leaves oNdini.
• 1879, 20 January: The British camp is established at Isandlwana.
• 1879, 22 January, before dawn: Chelmsford leaves the camp with about half the column.
• 1879, 22 January, about midday: The Zulu army is discovered in the Ngwebeni valley and attacks.
• 1879, 22 January, early afternoon: The camp is overrun.
• 1879, 22-23 January: Defence of Rorke’s Drift.
• 1879, 11 February: News of the defeat reaches London.

Why it matters

Isandlwana showed that a well-led African army could defeat a modern European force in open battle, and it exposed the overconfidence of British colonial commanders. It turned a war expected to be short into a costly campaign, shaped Victorian views of the Zulu, and remains a defining moment in South African history.