Durban - Anglo-Zulu War Battlefields Tour

Isandlwana & Rorke’s Drift – Two of the sites where the British and Zulu Nations clashed in bloody battle. Be transported back in time by our narrator and specialist Battlefields Guide, who will reveal the challenges, heroic tales and cunningly intricate strategies used by both armies in these historic massacres.  The Battle of Isandlwana on 22 January 1879 was the first major encounter in the Anglo-Zulu War between the British Empire and the Zulu Kingdom. Eleven days after the British commenced their invasion a 20,000 strong Zulu army attacked a portion of the British main column consisting of 1,700 to 2,000 mixed British and colonial forces. The Zulus were equipped mainly with traditional iron spears and cow hide shields, but also had a number of muskets and old rifles though they were not formally trained in their use. The British and colonial troops were armed with the then state of the art weaponry. Despite a vast disadvantage in weapons technology, the numerically superior Zulus ultimately overwhelmed the poorly led and badly deployed British, killing over 1300 troops, including all those out on the firing line. The Zulu army suffered around a thousand killed. The battle was a decisive victory for the Zulus and caused the defeat of the first British invasion. The British army had received its worst defeat ever, fighting against a technologically inferior indigenous force.   (L)