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The reason why
David Langley


Joined: 30 Nov 2012
Posts: 20
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I was once told that an expert is one who knows more and more about less and less until finally he knows everything about nothing.

Which brings me to my point. Do we know of ANY conflict so small and insignificant in the scheme of things that has excited such debate, such coverage, such interest, and indeed provided a livelihood of sorts [or at least a raison d'etre]for a fair number of authors?

Surely no new evidence will come to light? Surely no unifying insight?

And yet, and yet. Is the fascination in the confusion? Was Isandlwana winnable by the rednecks? And if not, why do people beat their gums over whys and wherefores?

And here I am, joining a forum many many years after collaborating with Ian Knight and David Jackson, and provoking the Morris letters to the VMS or whatever we called it!
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diagralex


Joined: 31 Aug 2005
Posts: 208
Location: Broomfield, Essex
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I find it insulting that you think the deaths of 850 European troops, 500 native allies and numerous Zulu warriors can be dismissed with the terms of "small and insignificant".
Not the best way to start on this forum.
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David Langley


Joined: 30 Nov 2012
Posts: 20
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diagralex wrote:
I find it insulting that you think the deaths of 850 European troops, 500 native allies and numerous Zulu warriors can be dismissed with the terms of "small and insignificant".
Not the best way to start on this forum.

If you study my starter you will find that I said "in the scheme of things"!
Please ask yourself:
would the Zulu Kingdom still be autonomous in 2012 if the AZW had not taken place?
would the British Empire have developed and eventually dwindled in any way differently if the war had not taken place?
Did the defeat at Isandlwana have any material influence on the oucome of the war?
Where does the campaign rate in terms of significance compared with: the Great War, Trafalgar, Hiroshima/Nagasaki, Waterloo?
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Peter Ewart


Joined: 31 Aug 2005
Posts: 1797
Location: Near Canterbury, Kent, England.
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Graham

I doubt very much if David had any intention of belittling the losses incurred by either side in the AZW. It's certainly true that the campaign was one of the more dramatic of Qn Victoria's "little wars", both for the public at the time and for historians and history enthusiasts since, but as a conflict to be compared with, say, the Napoleonic struggles, the Crimean War or the S African War (the biggest British military commitments of the same century) let alone the more recent world wars, the AZW does seem - in the last 30 or 40 years - to have commanded an attention far in excess of its relative importance or relative obscurity.

Conversely, although in the long run it had far more important and deadly repercussions for the Zulu people and for S Africa generally than it did for GB or the British Empire, in S Africa it apparently does not "enjoy" anything like the interest or informed following that it does here, with the possible exception of the modern politicisation of the legacy of Isandlwana in post-colonial or post-apartheid S Africa, especially KZN. [That was rather a long sentence - sorry!] Of course, even in this country, although it appears to command a comparatively high interest among military history enthusiasts, this "following" in the population at large is so insignificantly small as to be, perhaps, proportionally no higher than in S Africa.

David: You suggest the demise of the Zulu kingdom would have been just as inevitable had the AZW not occurred. Quite possibly - although perhaps the survivals of Lesotho & Swaziland should be borne in mind? With the AZW setting off such a disastrous train of events in the '80s, '90s & early 1900s, matters may - just may - have unfolded completely differently without the tragic events of 1879. The inevitability of imperial expansion and absorption might just have been held at bay if the kingdom had survived more or less intact and comparatively independent until, say, 1900 or so, or 1914-18, when the zenith of imperial acquisition had passed. This might not seem too fanciful when one considers not only the British Tory government's strong reluctance to be involved in a war with the Zulu in 1878 before it began, and the equally strong reluctance of a Liberal government to annexe the country after its military conquest, not to mention its constant dissatisfaction with the Natal government's position on Zululand between the 1880s and up to a quarter of a century later.

Peter
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Sawubona


Joined: 09 Nov 2005
Posts: 1179
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You preempted me, Peter, but I'll run a bit with this one anyway. Waterloo and Napoleon have both be mentioned, so I'll suggest that as an example. Surely most of us are aware that Nappy felt a might poorly before and during the battle. What if he been at the top of his form? What if he hadn't taken that little nap? I suggest that the outcome of the battle might have been quite a bit different and we all might be speaking French. So perhaps one miniscule "germ" changed the course of modern history?

It's called "The Butterfly Effect" (thanks to Ray Bradbury), but you Brits also know the same theory from the poem "For Want of a Nail". It's all about how seemingly trivial things can extrapolate into much more serious things.

Here we have the Zulu, a primitive and uncivilized people and just once they kick Britain's butt. Britain gets annoyed and she/they get serious and vindictive. Meanwhile the Boers watch, laugh, and figure that since the Zulu whupped the British at Isandlwana and we whupped the Zulu at Blood River, then we should be able to whup the British-- that they're maybe not so unbeatable after all. I see at least two Anglo-Boer Wars coming from that equation and they're both just a bit more serious than the British losses at Isandlwana. Meanwhile the Xhosa (and several of the "lesser" tribes as well), never friends of the Zulu (and still not), are getting even more annoyed with the Zulu. This enmity resurfaced yet again with the ANC versus the Inkatha (with the Afrikaner nationalists on the Zulu side this time in one of those "enemies of my enemies are my friends" kind of things), and several thousand more deaths just in the weeks to the leading up to the showdown.

Might it have been better for the Zulu people and South Africa in general if the 24th had ripped the heart out of those impi at Isandlwana and the war ended right then?
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Re: The reason why
Kiwi Sapper


Joined: 05 Mar 2009
Posts: 125
Location: Middle Earth & Home of Narnia; (Auckland, New Zealand)
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David Langley wrote:
I was once told that an expert is one who knows more and more about less and less until finally he knows everything about nothing..................................


Really, my recollection of a definition of an "expert", was

" a drip under pressure". Laughing

_________________
It was a confusion of ideas between him and one of the lions he was hunting in Kenya that had caused A. B. Spottsworth to make the obituary column. He thought the lion was dead, and the lion thought it wasn't.
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Re: The reason why
David Langley


Joined: 30 Nov 2012
Posts: 20
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Kiwi Sapper wrote:
David Langley wrote:
I was once told that an expert is one who knows more and more about less and less until finally he knows everything about nothing..................................


Really, my recollection of a definition of an "expert", was

" a drip under pressure". Laughing


It got lost in translation then!

ex = has-been

spurt = drip under pressure

ex-spurt = has-been drip under pressure.
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