Word: isandhlwana
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...Shaka's successors could not hang onto it. First the Boers, then the British, gained control of Zulu territories. In 1879, after numerous disputes, the British army invaded Zululand. The Zulus fought back ferociously, and at the Battle of Isandhlwana some 10,000 Zulus wiped out 1,300 British and native soldiers in hand-to-hand fighting. The British, however, had the Gatling gun. They sacked the Zulu capital of Ulundi and divided the fallen empire into 13 quarreling kingdoms...
Five miles to the west, at Isandhlwana, a mixed command of 1,800 Redcoats, Boers and native Kaffirs braced for the oncoming attack. The impi covered the distance at a dead run. Swiftly the classic Zulu charge overwhelmed the garrison. The two "horns" raced out to either flank; their mission was to lock in the enemy flesh. The "loins" encircled the rear. The "chest," or main body, rolled like a tidal wave over the British line. By sunset, it was all over. The victorious impi vanished, leaving more than 2,000 of their own dead. But at Isandhlwana...
Unseemly Start. For the Zulus, the bloodbath at Isandhlwana was their greatest triumph in a war they had not sought and could not win. The British offensive, launched in 1879, inexorably rolled on to destroy the most powerful nation that Black Africa ever produced. Author Morris has burdened the story of the Zulu nation's fitful reign and ultimate decline with unessential detail and endless digression. But the story itself survives his maltreatment...
Zulu power had begun to consolidate some 60 years before Isandhlwana under a rapacious and cruel tribal chieftain, who was called Shaka after his unseemly birth.* Viewing South Africa's teeming, disputatious tribes, Shaka had a vision of the strength that unity could bring, and he set out in 1817 to unify by conquest. Within a year, his modest impi of 350 warriors had swollen to 2,000. In ten years, an army of 50,000 enforced Shaka's will over a domain the size of Nevada...
Courage & Cannon. And so, in 1879, after presenting demands that no monarch would have met and that Cetshwayo did not understand, the British crossed the Tugela under arms. The massacre at Isandhlwana was only the first of many shocks for the British, and in the end, the campaign that they had planned to finish in two months took nine. It pitted courage and cannon against courage and assegais-and the cannon inevitably...
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