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Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2012 2:32 am

One thing that I've found extremely lacking, is the recorded reaction by the families of the Isandlwana casualties, as in, they are or are almost non-existent.

Yes. I may be comparing to modern day, but surely the grieving families expressed something, whether sorrow, puzzlement or even anger, on hearing of the deaths of husbands, fathers, brothers and sons, at Isandlwana ?

Was there nothing written by them at all afterwards ?

Private letters to each other might have been missed or lost over the years, but did nobody, other the Edward Durnford, question events, and how and why their family member(s) died ?

There was a great deal of celebration about Rorke's Drift, but what about the voices of the families of those killed in the earlier battle, didn't they say anything ?

It might be said that it 'wasn't the done thing back then', but family is still family, and those families of the dead surely would have been seeking answers ?

I'm only an amateur, but isn't there any detailed coverage of their opinion/grief, rather than just referring to there being a public outcry at the loss, or something similar ?

I very much doubt the families would have been satisfied with what they heard or read afterwards.

What would have happened nowadays, if several hundred British soldiers and their allies were killed on the same day on the same battlefield ?

Wouldn't an inquiry have been demanded and ultimately held ?

Coll

Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2012 10:59 am

They were all in the army. The army lost hundreds every year, thousands in some years. Grief met the arrival of the news, followed by "God's Will Be Done."

The parents of those killed at Isandlwana were born, mostly, during the period c1810-1840. Among the parents of ORs, only a minority was literate (with Wales being more literate than England, perhaps). In the fourth quarter of the century this would change dramatically but in 1879 the access the parents of Isandlwana casualties had to the printed press was far short of that experienced in, say, the South African War. (Again, Wales presented a slightly different picture, as PBQ could explain).

To whom would they write - if they could write? A newspaper? Their MP? But why would they write? Were they aware of any "controversy", which was acted out in Parliament and the press? With no TV, no radio, newspapers only for the few and much of the coverage being pretty unpenetrable for the unededucated, they not only had no obvious vehicle for protest or for questions, but were just as likely to be unaware that any questions required answering. Again, Wales is likely to provide the only exceptions, with higher levels of newspaper reading and because a family was much more likely to be in touch with other bereaved families in the valleys of S Wales, compared with the bereaved families scattered across England. The biggest questions aired in many of these papers was not "What went wrong on the battlefield?" but "Why has the British army attacked Zululand?"

Among the families of the officer casualties, grief was tempered with the knowledge that this could happen at any time; that he had led an honourable life and died in the service of his Queen and, in this particular case, had fallen in one of the most "glorious" episodes of British arms, however shocking the defeat; pride vied with grief; indeed, look at Campbell's widow, who positively gloried in her husband's "heroic" death. Honour accrued to the families of each. They knew full well that an early death was just as likely as advancement by rank through the filling of dead men's shoes or distinction in battle. Of course, among these literate and educated people, letters might have touched on the controversies of the day, but only Durnford's family felt the need to protest because his culpability for so many dead had been suggested. No such stain attached to the memory or reputation of any of the others, whose lives, and now their deaths, had enhanced their reputation and that of their families. And, of course, they had all gone to a better place.

An officer's or gentleman's honour was everything, and his death in the Queen's uniform had cemented his reputation for ever. As for the loss? "God's Will be Done."

Peter