Two new books have come out in the UK over the last year on the subject of Rorke’s Drift, plus a third I enjoy.

Rorke’s Drift 1879; The Anatomy of a Zulu War Siege

The first is Rorke’s Drift 1879; The Anatomy of a Zulu War Siege by Edmund York, published by Tempus Publishing in the UK and Arcadia in the USA (priced £15.99 or $26.99). Now, I have to say, I reviewed this book at some length in the VMS Journal, and got into great trouble as a result. It’s actually quite a neat paperback, with a striking cover, and lots of illustrations. I must admit, though, that I don’t like the book, and the reasons for this are mostly questions of interpretation.

The author has chosen to portray the battle in its conventional context, as a striking British victory against overwhelming odds. As such, he has been keen to play up the strategic significance of the battle, stressing its importance of the British stand against an attempted Zulu invasion of the colony of Natal. In my view, this is an interpretation of events which doesn’t hold up, because the evidence is overwhelming that the Zulu had no intention of launching such an invasion. Rorke’s Drift remains an extraordinary story of courage and endurance among the participants –- of both sides -- but its strategic importance was exaggerated in an attempt to off-set the far more damaging defeat at Isandlwana earlier that day. Indeed, one of my complaints against the book is that it is rather thin on the Zulu side of things generally, and at times falls into the trap of repeating some lurid colonial stereotypes.

It should also be said that about a third of the book is taken up with the preliminaries to the battle, including Isandlwana, so that only about fifty pages actually describe the battle. There are also a surprising number of typographical errors.

On the positive side, however, there are a number of elements which might still make it attractive to wargamers. The account of the battle itself relies heavily on eye-witness descriptions, which give a graphic impression of the fighting, the events and personalities are considered in the light of modern tactical theory. If you haven’t seen them before, the illustrations are undoubtedly useful, even if one or two are clearly miscaptioned, and those depicting Zulus are not particularly representative of the men who fought at Rorke’s Drift. It’s a bit thin on maps, however, and the only battle plan included is Chard’s well-known one of the post and barricades.

Rorke’s Drift

By contrast, Adrian Greaves’ Rorke’s Drift is a big meaty hardback, weighing in at over 400 pages (published by Cassells, price £25 in the UK), with just a few illustrations, but a better selection of maps depicting the various stages of the battle.

Again, however, the author’s account of the battle takes up only a small proportion of the book, about 50 pages. Almost half the book is taken up with appendices, and these reproduce original reports as varied as Chard’s two accounts of the battle, the Bourne and Reynolds accounts, the report on the first archaeological survey of the site, and notes on the men of the 24th (excluding other units and colonials) who defended it.

Much of the book is taken up with the point above; that the military importance of the battle was secondary compared to its propaganda value, and the author raises intriguing questions about the extent to which Chard and Bromhead were guided in their written reports, to produce accounts which would satisfy their seniors and the public at home in the UK. Again, this is an emphasis which tends to relegate the Zulu perspective to the background, and while the author’s account of the battle is well-written and generally sound, there are some contentious areas. I have never believed that the Zulus who fought at Rorke’s Drift were armed with Martini-Henry rifles captured at Isandlwana, for example, as a well-known movie would have us think; the Zulus who fought at Rorke’s Drift were regiments who had been held in reserve at Isandlwana and had not at that point taken part in the looting of the British camp.

Dr Greaves suggests that they might have nonetheless taken rifles from troops killed in the early stages of fighting at Isandlwana, and quotes a remark by Colour-Sergeant Bourne -– that he distinctly heard the sound of Martini-Henry bullets fired into the post from Zulu positions on the hill above -– to support this. Personally, I’m still convinced that Bourne was interpreting events in the light of information he acquired much later, and it seems to me far more significant that British medical reports confirm that no British casualties in the battle received Martini-Henry wounds.

Taken together, what the two books indicate is that there is still no real consensus on what actually happened at this most famous of British colonial battles, or why.

The Atlas of the Later Zulu Wars, 1883-1888

Personally, the book that I have most enjoyed on Zulu matters in the last few months has been Professor John Laband’s The Atlas of the Later Zulu Wars, 1883-1888, published by the University of Natal Press in South Africa (not sure of the price on this one; I’d guess around $25). It’s often assumed that the Zulu War ended with the battle at Ulundi on 4 July 1879; in many respects, of course, it did not.

The British carved Zululand up into thirteen independent chiefdoms in a classic case of divide and rule. Over the next few years, these chiefs bickered amongst themselves to the extent that the British felt impelled to restore King Cetshwayo – whom they had deposed in 1879 - to part of his old territory. This led – in 1883 – to a full-scale civil war between Zulu royalists and anti-royalists. At first, the anti-royalists were victorious, and King Cetshwayo was defeated; his supporters then appealed to the Boers for help, however, and they gained the upper hand. The prospect of Boer influence in Zululand in turn alarmed the British, who promptly annexed the country, causing Cetshwayo’s successor, Dinuzulu, to take up arms against them. It’s a particularly complex and tragic period in Zulu history, and this book is an excellent introduction to it.

It’s a large-format hardback, which -– as the title suggests -– places great emphasis on maps. Some of these are overly complex, particularly when looking at complicated manoeuvres across the country as a whole, but there are extremely useful and very clear battle plans of all the main actions, the vast majority of which will be new to the average reader. These battles were by no means purely Zulu affairs, and often involved small groups of either Boers or British red-coats fighting on one side or the other -– plenty of scope there for interesting scenarios! Indeed, the Dinuzulu Rebellion of 1888 was actually the last time British troops fought a major campaign wearing red coats. The narrative breaks the story down into digestible bite-size chunks, there are lots of illustrations, and there is some very useful analysis of the way in which the Zulu military system changed under the crushing weight of defeat in 1879.

Definitely the most unusual book of the three!