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Julian whybra


Joined: 03 Sep 2005
Posts: 437
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Actually, Mike, as you well know, your so-called 'Dashing Durnford Myth' predates Morris by many years back to Edward Durnford and Fanny Colenso. Morris merely picked up the ball and ran with it. There were many in authority who quietly sided with Colenso-Durnford long before TWOTS was thought of.

Coll, to be honest, your posting of the 19th could have been more delicately worded, especially given the recent sensitivities. It was rather a red rag to a bull. You can't label someone's comments 'pathetic' and expect him not to react. It's unseemly to make comments in this vein. If you feel a comment is one-sided or unfair, then explain why, and put the other side. Constructive criticism will lead to constructive debate. You are both (we are all) allowed our opinions. I think you must just both be reconciled to being irreconcilable.
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Peter Quantrill
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Since we are quoting Sir Garnet Wolsley's views on Durnford, let me add the following Sir Garnet's Durnford quotes.
1. August 26 1875.
" It is high time he [Durnford] ceased to be at the head of a spending Department. Yet he is a hard working public servant, and a fine fellow with many most soldier-like qualities."

2. September 30 1879.
" Harrison whom I have placed on the command of troops in Transvaal is naturally very much put out by the Duke's letter on the subject of Carey's Court Martial in which the only blame imputed for the Prince Imperial's death is cast upon Harrison. I think this is very unfair and is merely a repetition of what was done regarding the Isandlwana disaster where the blame was thrown upon Durnford, the real object in both instances apparently to screen Chelmsford."

Hmm - Could it be that Sir Garnet was thinking on the lines of some sort of cover-up?
Coll
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Julian

I understand what you're saying, but it was meant, as in, if Mike is wishing to criticise those who support Durnford, he should try to credit them with having read other sources, instead of suggesting they are only going by an old book and a film. It is downright insulting, speaking like this, as it is this sort of ridicule, that stops others from posting, and those who do post, getting annoyed.

These are the results he knows will happen and, as always, reflect badly on us, not him.

However, I'm still waiting on the answer to when the finger pointing started and by whom ?

You're surely not evading this question Mike, are you ?

Coll
Paul Bryant-Quinn


Joined: 14 Oct 2007
Posts: 551
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Huw Jones's The Boiling Cauldron[:] Utrecht District and the Anglo-Zulu War 1879 discusses Durnford's role in the Boundary Commission in some detail, and sheds interesting light on the man and his character. It repays reading.

Mike:

It is only because Isandlwana has been so badly written about over the past fifty years, substantially on the back of one commanding but deeply flawed interpretation dating to 1964, that we are even having this conversation.

Not quite. Morris did not draw that picture of Isandlwana. He didn't even join up the dots. That had already been done by others, whom he followed in some detail with flourishes of his own. What Morrris did, for the most part, was to colour the picture in. Morris gets the stick which Coupland is spared because TWOTS sold millions more copies.

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Mel


Joined: 31 Aug 2005
Posts: 345
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Paul
Nevertheless, Morris wrote what he did. He even called Durnfords' foray an "admirable plan". Morris does, indeed, have a lot to answer for.

Coll,
Could I ask you a question for clarification on your view of Durnford? Are you advocating that Durnford was totally blameless on the 22nd?

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Mel
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Coll
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Mel

I appreciate the fact you are wishing an answer to your question, but my views on Durnford, have triggered far too much aggressive behaviour, which means I'd be foolish to put myself in such a position again.

It doesn't matter what I believe, as I'm like you, an enthusiast.

Trust in what you believe yourself. Wink

Coll
Coll
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Mel

Answer to your question -

Yes !

Durnford was totally blameless on the 22nd !

Coll
AMB


Joined: 07 Oct 2005
Posts: 921
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Coll,

Durnford, totally blameless?

AMB
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Paul Bryant-Quinn


Joined: 14 Oct 2007
Posts: 551
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Hi Mel

I would point out that I hold no brief for Morris, although I have suggested in another thread that he does appear to have become a kind of lightning rod for criticism of earlier AZW historiography. But if memory serves (it must be thirty years since I read TWOTS), the quote about the 'wholly admirable plan' was followed by the rider that it was based on a totally erroneous conception of the number of Zulus opposing Durnford.

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tony.ashford.@ntlworld,co


Joined: 02 Sep 2005
Posts: 41
Location: Lenton, Nottingham
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Durnford totally blameless? I think Coll is having a laugh!

In my own, very humble opinion, Durnford was a brave and even charismatic figure. But on that day he was simply the wrong man in the wrong place - he was culpable, and to deny such is to fly in the face of the facts and is, frankly, poor historical appreciation. There, said my bit! Hope the discussion goes on, it's quite gripping!

Best wishes to all.

Tony.
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Coll
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AMB

Yes.

Tony

Haven't you noticed - I don't have a sense of humour. Wink

I'm not a military historian, but I like military history.

That is, when it is told right.

Coll
rich


Joined: 01 May 2008
Posts: 897
Location: Long Island NY USA
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I like sports and its battles both internal and external among its participants. So here I am looking at Isandhlwana as a cricket match (looking at it how shall we say from a sporting motif). Lots of bad bowling dropped balls, "stickey wickets" in more ways than one. Just seems to me me the Isandhlwana"team" went down but a team is only as strong as its weakest link, isn't it? Now when a team loses, is it due to one or many?
Cricket wouldn't be cricket if at each loss only one gets to stand in gaol. But maybe I have it all wrong and Isandhlwana ain't like cricket and we must throw the team concept out? ... Cool

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Rich
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diagralex


Joined: 31 Aug 2005
Posts: 208
Location: Broomfield, Essex
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....... but a cricket team has a captain, a man in charge. The team play as best they can after the captain makes the decisions

Graham
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Coll
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Peter Q

Very interesting (other) Wolseley quotes.

Coll
tony.ashford.@ntlworld,co


Joined: 02 Sep 2005
Posts: 41
Location: Lenton, Nottingham
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Hi,

On the cricket analogy: you pick your best players and leave out the "iffy" ones. And it's eleven against eleven, equal odds.

I'm not rabid anti-Durnford , but he made mistakes. I have this recurring thought, as the senior officer on the scene he rode out presumably looking for action, or at least expecting it, without knowing exactly where his ammunition supplies were. If you send for a plumber and he arrives to mend your leak only to find he doesn't know where his tools are...well I doubt you would recommend him. Durnford didn't know WHERE HIS BULLETS WERE!! That error alone marks him as to some degree either impetuous or incompetent, or both.

Tony.
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An Official Re-Evaluation Of Isandlwana ?
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