Isandlwana 1879: The Great Zulu Victory (Campaign)

Isandlwana 1879: The Great Zulu Victory (Campaign)

By: Ian Knight  

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Average Customer Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Publisher: Osprey Publishing

Release Date: 2002-09-18

Customer Review: 4 out of 5
Balanced Battle Summary - This is a clearly written account of the start of the 1879 Zulu War leading up to the battle of Isandlwana. Events described include the initial invasion of Zulu empire, subsequent British reconnaissance efforts, and the battle of Isandlwana itself. The greatest strength of the book is the authors ability to provide a balanced, unbiased account of the campaign. This is particularly welcome as other accounts have tended to portray the Zulus as a faceless mass instead of a well-organized army. In this case the strategies, tactics, and intention of both sides are well explained and provide readers with a clear understanding of this interesting campaign. As always with Osprey books, numerous illustrations, 2D, and 3D maps are included. The illustrations in this book are especially engaging due to colorful British uniforms and the Zulu exotic battle gear. The most interesting one (and the cover of the hardback Praeger edition) depicts a last stand by a small knot of British infantry and members of the Natal Native Contingent.

One minor drawback to the book is the lack of detail about the aftermath of the battle; this is not necessarily the authors fault as Osprey has very tight page limitations which forces authors to make tough choices about what to emphasize. However, the battlefield lay virtually untouched for months after the fight with only occasional visits by foraging and burial parties. More in-depth accounts of these forays would have flesh out the text.

This book along with Rorke's Drift 1879, also by Ian Knight and also part of the Osprey Campaign Series, would make an excellent gift for someone interested in African or Imperial British history.

Customer Review: 4 out of 5
Osprey at it's best - Zulu-expert Ian Knight has written an up-to-date volume on the famous battle of Isandlwana, where a british battalion was whiped out by a zulu impi in 1879. Based on new archeological findings, Knight's description of the battle and the fighting forces are detailed and well-written - the reader have much help from timelines and excellent maps showing the campaign, and the 3D bird's-eye battle maps which step by step explain the different stages of the battle. There are numerous illustrations and both 19th century and contemporary photographs. There are also three realistic plates by Adam Hook - although perhaps not as detailed and sharp as the art of Graham Turner - the illustrations are excellent and show what the battle actually may have looked like. The plates are showing Durnford's mounted auxiliaries stubmling on the zulu army, The British collapse (with the dramatic withdrawal of the artillery in the fouground and the retreating infantry hotly pursued by charging zulus in the background) and the final stages of the battle (the zulus fighting in melee with the last remnants of the 24:th and the Natal Native contignent)

The battle has been seen as an embaressing british mistake rather than a great zulu victory, but here Knight wants us to think the other way around (thus the subtitle). But here I think he exaggerates the zulu victory - although no one can deny the bravery and skills of the zulu, the victory isn't that spectacular if one consider the facts - more than 20 000 men concentrating their owerwhelming forces upon a thin, spread-out line of a mere 900 british infantry and mounted men, supported only by 800 badly equiped and badly trained native auxiliaries

This book is reliable and provides the reader with a good overwiew of the Isandlwana-battle as well as a fascinating introduction to the zulu army and the anglo-zulu war. My only reservation is Knight's ususal, way too low estimation of zulu casualties, his estimated 1,000 zulu killed are unrealisticly low considering the fire-power of the british and their desperate defense in the fierce fight for their life. I've read elsewhere of some 3000-4000 dead or mortally wounded zulu warriors, which seem much more plausible to me

Customer Review: 3 out of 5
Once More, Over the Same Ground - In 1992, Osprey's Campaign Series #14 entitled Zulu War 1879 by Ian Knight and Ian Castle, covered the dramatic Battle of Isandlwana. Ten years later, Ian Knight thought it would be a good idea to cover virtually the same ground in the new Osprey Campaign Series #111, entitled Isandlwana 1879. Granted, the focus is narrower than in the earlier volume and the graphic quality of the maps is superior, but this book essentially covers much of the same ground that the first book did. While the original title only spent 30% of its length on the Battle of Isandlwana, this new volume spends 55%. Overall, Isandlwana 1879 is a decent if not very original summary of that British military disaster, but it certainly lacks any real value-added quality over the original.

Isandlwana 1879 begins in standard Osprey format with the usual short sections on origins of the conflict, a campaign chronology, opposing commanders, opposing armies, and opening moves. Readers will certainly be impressed with the author's in-depth knowledge of Zulu leaders and units, but might have benefited from a short pronunciation guide on how to handle names like "iNgobamakhosi" or "uKhandempemvu" or just what the heck these names mean. At times, Knight seems to have the zealot's assumption that everyone in conversant in African tribal terms and hence, further clarification is unnecessary. Overall, these sections get the job done but in somewhat boilerplate fashion, as if Knight merely dusted off material from his other books. Readers familiar with the classic, "Washing of the Spears," will doubt that Knight is making a real effort to be incisive. The volume includes six 2-D maps (the war in Zululand, the attack on Sihayo's Homestead, Isandlwana Camp, initial dispositions, the British collapse, Chelmsford's movements and the British withdrawals), three 3-D "Bird's Eye View" maps (British movements around Isandlwana, climax of the battle and the British collapse) and three battle scenes (Durnford's auxiliaries stumble on the Zulu army, the British collapse and the final stages of the battle).

Knight notes that none of the Zulu commanders had any experience fighting British regulars and that, "a practical ignorance of the destructive potential of the modern weapons they [the British] possessed, had led to a dangerous over-confidence at the middle and lower levels of command." On the other hand, the British commander Lord Chelmsford was influenced by preconceptions gained in previous frontier warfare in Africa. Knight notes that in Chelmsford's earlier campaign against the Xhosa tribe that he, "faced only an elusive foe who showed a marked reluctance to engage in decisive combat." This sounds remarkably like the preconceived tactical mindset that influenced Custer three years earlier at the Little Bighorn. Yet if both sides were over-confident and didn't appreciate their enemy's strengths - as Knight claims - why was Isandlwana such a lop-sided battle?

The battle narrative comprises the bulk of the book and it also gets the job done, but with much effort to address the reasons for the British defeat. While Knight makes it clear that British pre-battle reconnaissance was a bit sloppy and based on too many false assumptions, he fails to address issues like faulty British tactical dispositions or ammunition resupply problems. Based on what happened elsewhere in the war, it is clear that the Zulus could not defeat British regulars who were defending in square or behind obstacles. The only enlightenment that Knight adds about the battle concerns the final moments of the British infantry, which he deduced from participation in an archaeological dig on the battlefield in the 1990s. Knight demonstrates that clumps of British infantry survived the overrunning of the camp and slowly tried to fight their way back to the border, but were overwhelmed enroute.

Modern military professionals could use this volume as an excellent starting point for a study of regular forces fighting less well-developed opponents, and might see parallels with contemporary operations in Afghanistan or Somalia. It is interesting to discern how over 1,300 British troops - including the battle-experienced 1st Battalion/24th Infantry - could be annihilated in the space of four hours by an opponent that was regarded as hopelessly inferior. The root cause of the defeat at Isandlwana was the same as at the Little Bighorn in 1876 or Mogadishu in 1993 (or Bunker Hill in 1775): professional soldier arrogance. While the Zulus were ultimately defeated - at much greater cost in resources and time than the British had bargained for - they did demonstrate that not all indigenous military forces merely sit around waiting to be picked off like clay pigeons by superior military technology.

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