For educational purposes
A reconstruction of the fearsome battle between British troops and Zulu forces at Rorke's Drift.
3D computer graphics, live action dramatisation and expert commentary combine to provide a vivid account of the Boer War's most notorious confrontation.
A reconstruction of the fearsome battle between British troops and Zulu forces at Rorke's Drift.
3D computer graphics, live action dramatisation and expert commentary combine to provide a vivid account of the Boer War's most notorious confrontation.
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LearningTranscript
00:30In many respects, Rourke's drift was a small and unimportant affair, fought out in an obscure
00:54corner of the empire by men who, in truth, need not have fought at all.
01:00In the 1870s, Southern Africa was a very problematic part of the world for the British Empire.
01:05The British had two colonies there, the Cape Colony and Natal, and they'd had all sorts
01:09of problems with the various Boer republics inland and various African groups scattered
01:14between them. Now, in the 1870s, they adopted a new forward policy which was attempting
01:19to sort out something of this political mess and to pave the way for future economic expansion
01:23in the region. And they sent out a new pro-consul, Sir Henry Edward Bartle Frere, who was sent
01:29out specifically with the intention of implementing a new policy called Confederation. And the
01:34whole idea behind Confederation was to bring these various groups under British control,
01:38whether they wanted to or not. Now, Frere, very soon after arriving in Southern Africa,
01:43decided that one of the quickest ways to bring this about was to force a war on the Zulu
01:48Kingdom.
01:49This is one of the few conflicts in history where it's almost one man's decision to go
01:54to war with the Zulus. It could easily have been avoided, the whole conflict. But Bartle
01:59Frere had a point to prove, and by every power and his means, he was going to do that.
02:05He had a great theory of turbulent frontiers, which went back to his experience in India.
02:11And he decided that the Zulu were a major menace to British security in the region.
02:16He once described them as a nation of celibate, manslaying gladiators, and took extraordinary
02:22measures in order to contain this menace.
02:25So he presented King Kachwayo with an ultimatum. The ultimatum demanded the dismantling of
02:34the Zulu military system, which meant the dismantling of Zulu culture. Bartle Frere
02:41knew that Kachwayo could not accept an ultimatum that demanded that he dismantle his own culture.
02:51Bartle Frere set up the conditions which would allow him to invade Zululand.
02:57The British government in London did not share Frere's enthusiasm, and would send him no
03:02further reinforcements to precipitate a war the British government did not want. The last
03:09regular troops to reach him, therefore, were the 2nd Battalion of the 24th 2nd Warwickshire
03:16Regiment. The 1st Battalion of the 24th had been at the Cape since 1874. Both battalions
03:25were to play a major role in these historic events.
03:32The arrival of the 2nd Battalion, 24th, brought the British regular army in the Cape up to
03:385,400 men. They were reinforced by various native troops and volunteer formations, making
03:46some 10,000 in total. Lord Chelmsford, the British commander, organised his army into
04:01five columns. Three columns were to enter Zululand at different points, while two would
04:08remain behind to guard against Zulu incursions.
04:13Napoleon Bonaparte had a slogan. He said, March divided, fight united. And that was
04:19what Lord Chelmsford was trying to do. He wanted to advance his columns separately,
04:25so that each could be logistically independent. He intended to come to Ulundi, to King Kachwayo's
04:31own capital, and fight united at Ulundi. So from that point of view, the division of Lord
04:40Chelmsford's force is sound and understandable. The problem was that it also weakened his
04:48already weak force by dividing it up. So it was a good way to move, but it was a bad way
04:55to fight.
04:56Each infantry battalion needed at least 16 ox wagons. Each one of those wagons was pulled
05:01by 16 oxen. In the end, he needed some 10,000 oxen. This was a very slow and very cumbersome
05:08process of moving people around.
05:11Also, Chelmsford's intelligence system was extremely primitive. He had very little idea
05:15about Zulu deployments within Zululand. By contrast, Kachwayo had deployed a number of
05:20Zulu, inverted commas, spies into Natal, and was fully aware of British preparations
05:26and the location of the three invading columns.
05:29On the 9th of January, Lord Chelmsford and Lieutenant-Colonel Glynn, with the third column,
05:36approached the Mzintzathi River, which formed the border with Zululand. They pitched camp
05:43at Rourke's Drift, known to the Zulus as Kwa Jim, after the former owner Jim Rourke.
05:53In due course, a small military post was established by Assistant Commissariat Officer Walter Dunn,
06:00along with Acting Assistant Commissary James Dalton and Storekeeper Lewis Byrne.
06:08In 1879, the settlement at the Drift consisted of two small stone buildings with thatched
06:17roofs and, beside them, a kraal. This was now the property of a Swedish missionary named
06:25Otto Witt. Having sent his family to safety, Witt, who spoke Zulu, had stayed behind to
06:33act as an interpreter. He did this in the hope that his small action might prevent needless
06:39bloodshed. As a man of God, he knew and respected the Zulus. But in his hope for a peaceful
06:48accommodation, he was to be disappointed.
06:55On the 11th of January, the time limit on the Governor's ultimatum ran out, and the
07:00main body of the column moved on from Rourke's Drift into Zululand. Jetswayo was now at war
07:07with the might of the British Empire, and Lord Chelmsford intended to carry the war
07:13to him.
07:16The Zulu forces were organised in regiments, but they were very different regiments from
07:20the type we're used to in the British Army. Each one was called an Ibutu, and what this
07:25meant was that men in their late teens were gathered together by the king, and then separated
07:31from the rest of society, trained together. Indeed, they weren't even allowed to get married
07:35until their late thirties. That was the plan, anyway. It was devised by the first great
07:40Zulu king, Shaka.
07:42These regiments were dispersed throughout Zululand, and they had their own logistical
07:48resources, they had their own communities, their own cattle. And when the king required
07:54them to fight, he would send messengers, and the regiment would be sent out as part
08:00of an army.
08:01The Zulu army was a very sophisticated form of spear and shield armed tribal force. The
08:10difference between it and other tribal armies in southern Africa was its discipline, its
08:15tactical cohesion, and its ability to follow instructions during a battle. The difference
08:21between it and the British Army was simply immense.
08:25The British Army, of course, was a professional standing army of volunteers, and it was equipped
08:31with the very, very latest and most modern weapons. There was an enormous disparity between
08:37the two.
08:40The Zulu outnumbered the British forces going to Zululand, probably made up for their lack
08:45of technical capability. Initial numbers were around 20,000, and probably the maximum
08:52number of forces could reach 50,000.
08:57Initially the British went into the Zulu war convinced that the best way to defeat the
09:00Zulus in the field was to employ open order extended tactics. This was based on the assumption
09:06that what was necessary was to maximise their firepower, basically by simply lining the
09:12redcoats up in a long line and blasting away.
09:18With the departure of the column for the interior of Zululand, a detachment of about 300 men
09:24of the Natal native contingent remained behind at the drift. Other than the red bands, which
09:31marked them apart from the Zulus, they were armed and equipped identically. However, their
09:37will to fight was considerably less than their fearsome adversary.
09:44Also present were the 80 men of B Company of the 2nd Battalion, 24th Regiment, who took
09:51up guard duty under Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead.
09:56By the river, Lieutenant John Chard, a sabbleton in the Royal Engineers, was working with a
10:02small detachment to maintain the bridge which had been used to make the crossing.
10:10With the arrival of Surgeon James Reynolds, Witt's home was now converted, this time into
10:16a hospital to serve the needs of Lieutenant Colonel Glynn's column as they moved into
10:21Zululand.
10:25Rook's Drift was under the overall command of Major Spalding, the Chief Supply Officer.
10:33With the main column gone, there was little of note to report. On the 22nd of January,
10:42after an eventful ten days, Spalding decided to ride back to help Makar, to see why promised
10:49reinforcements had not arrived. Before leaving, he handed over command to Lieutenant Chard,
10:56with what must possibly rank as the most misguided intelligence briefing in military history.
11:04I see you are senior, so you will be in charge. Although, of course, nothing will happen,
11:11and I shall be back again this evening.
11:14I think the criticism of Major Spalding is more a modern view than those of contemporaries.
11:18I mean, he'd set out from Rook's Drift to try and find out what had happened to G Company
11:22of the 1st, 24th, and in fact, as he left, he said he didn't expect anything to happen.
11:28He was wrong. Humans are wrong all the time. You cannot criticise somebody because he's
11:34fallible.
11:36Unfortunately, history is very unkind to certain figures, and Spalding, after Rook's Drift,
11:42certainly suffered a great deal of innuendo and rumour which suggested that he'd left
11:49the post deliberately, and obviously that's not the case.
11:53I think Spalding's presence was hardly relevant. Had he been there, he would have doubtless
11:57done a perfectly good professional job, but it would have made little difference to the
12:01outcome of the battle.
12:03Major Spalding had not been gone for more than a few hours when two riders brought news
12:08from the 3rd Columns camp at Isandlwana. In one of the greatest reverses suffered by the
12:15British Army in the entire Victorian era, the camp at Isandlwana had been attacked and
12:22overrun.
12:271,300 British troops and their African allies were killed. Worse still, fresh news now arrived
12:35that a 2nd Zulu army was heading towards Rook's Drift, intent on dealing the same hard lesson
12:42to the small band of defenders at the former mission station.
12:47Lieutenant Bromhead at once struck his camp, and sent down for Lieutenant Chard, who was
12:54engaged with some half a dozen men at the ponds on the river, and sent down for the
13:00Lieutenant Chard, who was engaged with some half a dozen men at the ponds on the river,
13:04to come up and direct the preparations for defence.
13:09Lieutenant Chard consulted both Bromhead and Commissary Dalton, who was an ex-quartermaster
13:16sergeant. Dalton's advice was particularly sound. He urged Chard to stay and fight, rather
13:23than try to outrun the oncoming enemy.
13:30It was certainly a wise decision not to try and make a run for Help Makar, where the Zulus
13:39fast on their trail. There's no doubt that with the wounded men in the wagons, they wouldn't
13:43have stood a chance of reaching safety before the Zulu regiments reached them.
13:49And if they tried, they would be in the position of having a lot of wounded people in ox carts
13:56moving very slowly on poor roads, completely exposed to a Zulu attack.
14:02And in fact what happened on the day was just as the wagons were being hitched up, the Zulus
14:07appeared, so really the defence of Rorke's Drift was stuck.
14:11As soon as the garrison at Rorke's Drift heard that they were about to be attacked by the Zulus,
14:16their immediate reaction was that they were stuck in this awful position with no preparations
14:21for defence whatsoever. Henry Hook later recalled,
14:27we were trapped like rats in a hole.
14:31In fact, with the cold analytical mind of hindsight, Rorke's Drift was actually not a bad
14:38defensive position, given the sort of attack the British could expect from the Zulus.
14:44Of the two buildings, both had thatched roofs, which was a major disadvantage, but they were
14:50only about 30 yards apart, making it relatively easy to construct a defensive wall between them.
14:58The wagons which were to carry the wounded were now added to the barricades,
15:02hurriedly being built between the hospital and the storehouse.
15:07Quickly and effectively, the defence was erected.
15:11Even though it was hastily constructed from stacks of meal biscuit boxes and overturned wagons,
15:17the barricade was to prove its deadly efficiency later in the day.
15:22Rorke's Drift turned out to be a very sound defensive position indeed,
15:27not least because of the number of mealie bags that were available to turn into a defensive perimeter
15:33and the wagons that could be overturned, but also because of the small rocky ledge,
15:39which actually meant that as the defences were built on top of the rocky ledge,
15:44the defenders were a good seven feet higher than the attacking Zulus,
15:49so it was actually a little miniature fortress that was perfectly suited in many respects
15:54to the action that was about to be fought.
15:56True, it was overlooked by bluffs nearby, but in fact they were out of range of effective Zulu musketry.
16:05This was quite a formidable obstacle for anyone attacking it armed with just a short spear and a shield.
16:12The buildings themselves, particularly at the back, had very little in the way of doors and windows.
16:20The garrison were able to knock loopholes through,
16:23so that effectively they were firing from behind solid walls with just little gaps to fire through.
16:31Around the mission, there was little room for the Zulus to manoeuvre.
16:36There was some ground in front which had trees and bush on it,
16:40which was awkward for the defenders,
16:42but in fact there was a bit of a killing zone generally all around the buildings,
16:47within 30 or 40 yards in most cases.
16:54With all hope of escape gone, the wounded and sick men were taken back to their places inside
17:00and the other patients brought in from the veranda.
17:04It was a move that would save some lives, but at a considerable cost.
17:11Although it was not good, the situation did not yet look desperate for Chad and his men.
17:17There were, after all, some 300 men to defend the perimeter.
17:23But as final preparations were made, there was a new and desperate turn of events.
17:30Work on the barricade had been proceeding apace,
17:33and the men of the 24th laboured alongside the troops of the Natal native contingent.
17:40As soon as news arrived that the Zulus were on their way,
17:44the native troops bolted from their post, leaving their regular comrades to their fate.
17:52They may have struck fear into the NNC,
17:55but by attacking even the lightly held mission station,
17:59the Zulu regiments who attacked Rourke's Drift
18:02were ignoring the only really valuable piece of tactical advice their king had given them,
18:08for he had advised them not to attack the British in defended positions.
18:13The matter is in your hands, he told us.
18:17But if you come near to the white man and find that he has made trenches and built forts that are full of loopholes,
18:28do not attack him for it will be of no use.
18:34But if you can see him out in the open, then you can attack him,
18:39because you will be able to eat him up.
18:44The Zulus had the advantages of speed and violence, motivation.
18:48They were very keen to come to grips with the defenders of Kwajim Station at Rourke's Drift,
18:55and they were vastly outnumbering the defenders.
19:01They had a tremendous advantage of numbers.
19:03Unfortunately, they relied on catching armies usually in open formation,
19:08as at Lizanawana, where the Zulu impis had sighed through the overextended British lines,
19:15lines which were possibly also suffering from a shortage of ammunition.
19:19The Rourke's Drift garrison offered a different prospect.
19:23The Zulus did need to get close for their spears and their shields to inflict any casualties.
19:31All the time, therefore, that the British could keep them at a distance and shoot at them
19:37meant the Zulus would be at a serious disadvantage.
19:44There were four Zulu regiments which went on to attack Rourke's Drift.
19:49The Utlawana, the Inlondo, the Udloko and the Indulendwe.
19:58These were senior men who had been held in reserve at the Izandelwana battle.
20:04Most of them were in their late forties.
20:08Before the start of the battle at Rourke's Drift, they had already marched about 15 miles across country.
20:16They had swung wide of the Izandelwana mountain,
20:20crossed the Mzintzathi River and then gone on to attack Rourke's Drift.
20:26Most of that distance had probably been covered at a pretty fast jog,
20:31so many of them were feeling the effects by the time they arrived at Rourke's Drift.
20:37They were nonetheless eager for action, having missed out on the glory at Izandelwana
20:43and were keen to win some recognition before the day was over.
20:48There were probably around 4,000 at a rough estimate.
20:53At 4.30, less than 75 minutes after the garrison at Rourke's Drift
20:59had received news of the disaster at Izandelwana,
21:03the Zulu army made its first ferocious assault on the south wall of the barricade.
21:09The first attack by the Zulus was put in by the Indulendwe regiment
21:15and they attacked the south wall of the fortifications
21:19and they attacked with tremendous vigour and took horrific casualties before falling back.
21:26The pace of the British musketry, the rifle fire, was so fast
21:31that the Zulus were sustaining such high casualties.
21:35There were one or two close skirmishes on the wall
21:38and one or two instances where the fighting actually came to bayonets initially,
21:42but by and large the British were able to keep the Zulus at a distance
21:46and that's what they had to do.
21:48At around this time, the Udloko regiment, who were older men, who were 45 years old,
21:54conducted an attack that wrapped around the small west side of the fortifications
22:00and attacked the north wall.
22:02The only thing that kept the British from being overwhelmed by these two regiments attacking
22:08was the fact that they were able to keep up steady, rapid fire
22:13and they could only do that for two reasons.
22:16One is that the chaplain organized the wounded men to bring cartridges to the men who were shooting
22:22and the second reason was, with tremendous foresight,
22:26the British officers commanding at Kwajim station
22:30had ordered ammunition boxes to be opened in advance
22:34so that there was no mucking about with trying to find the right spanner to open the ammunition box.
22:39It was all open and ready
22:41so that the British could pour out a steady stream of fire against the Zulus.
22:46Despite the casualties they had already received, the Zulu warriors kept attacking
22:52but as the Zulu force encroached on the barricades of Rorke's Drift,
22:56the fighting grew fiercer and the number of wounded grew by the minute.
23:01I think it was Private Hitch who said that the Zulus on the whole took no notice whatsoever of the bullets,
23:06they just kept coming and coming and we kept shooting them down.
23:09The only time they flinched at all was when the bayonet was used freely.
23:13Now of course it's a totally different sort of psychological type of warfare.
23:17Possibly in many ways the Zulus understood the bayonet more
23:20so that's why they were a little bit more respectful of it.
23:22But ultimately it was British firepower which created so much devastation amongst the Zulu ranks
23:28simply because the Zulus couldn't get close enough to do anything themselves.
23:32Armed with rifles, some Zulu warriors climbed onto the hills overlooking the mission.
23:44From this position the scarlet-coated defenders made perfect targets.
23:51Now when the Zulus took up their positions on the Oskarberg or Shiani terraces
23:56overlooking the post at Rorke's Drift,
23:59they were in a very good position to fire right down into Chad's defensive line.
24:03But in fact they were firing at ranges of 300 or 400 yards
24:07and most of them were using weapons that were really only accurate at about 100 yards
24:11or had only been accurate at about 100 yards 20 or 30 years earlier when they were new.
24:16So they're now old weapons, rusty weapons, inadequate powder, poor quality ammunition.
24:22So the Zulus are firing away at a distance really that was too great for the sort of guns that they had.
24:27And in fact they put a terrific volume of fire down into the post
24:30but it was largely luck if anything hit anybody there.
24:33Although it's nonetheless interesting to note that most of Chad's casualties
24:37were still hit by gunfire at some stage during the battle.
24:40Nevertheless the Zulu performance with regard to marksmanship
24:43was quite disappointing throughout the day.
24:47Soon the less than perfect Zulu marksmanship began to take its toll.
24:54If the casualties amongst the regulars were mounting fast
24:58they were nothing compared to the appalling losses suffered by the Zulu warriors.
25:05Despite the terrible bloodshed the intensity of the battle escalated.
25:11As dusk turned to evening the most desperate fighting went on in the hospital
25:16and at some point the Zulus managed to set fire to the roof.
25:21The hospital building was little more than a shed really with very small cramped rooms.
25:26The thing was there weren't any doors between the rooms at the back of the hospital.
25:31So in order to get them from their rooms out through the eastern wall of the hospital
25:38they had to cut holes in the walls with their bayonets
25:42and wall after wall they had to carve their way through
25:45while still turning to shoot at the Zulu attackers.
25:49It was fought at close quarters, the roof had begun, had been set on fire.
25:53People were fighting from room to room
25:56with the Zulus taking each room as the Redcoats managed to drag the wounded through to the next one.
26:02People were digging through walls to escape the attack.
26:06It was a very tense, very claustrophobic
26:10and for the reader or the viewer a very exciting spectacle.
26:16But obviously for the participants I think they might have something completely different to see about it.
26:20One Defender Private Joseph Williams unfortunately ran out of ammunition
26:24was pulled through the open doorway by several Zulu
26:27spread-eagled and disembowelled alive in front of the watching Defenders.
26:32This is one of the more horrifying incidents.
26:34Other patients were burnt alive in their beds.
26:37On the whole though the majority of the patients were rescued from the hospital
26:41passed through a side window into the hospital yard
26:44which was by that time, however, undefended.
26:48This heroic action must rank as one of the great feats of courage seen in the whole Victorian age.
26:55Private Hook certainly deserved his Victoria Cross
27:00rather more than the unfavourable image which Hollywood was to paint of him.
27:05Private Hook is the one character at Rort Street whose name has been somewhat maligned.
27:10He was often being described as a malingerer and a drunkard.
27:14In fact he was from a stable middle class, low middle class background
27:18and proved a redoubtable heroic defender both within the hospital area and on the outside perimeter.
27:26He was actually the unit cook and both before and after the battle
27:30it was he that made the tea that the British soldiers so depend upon.
27:34He was an exemplary soldier.
27:35There's no evidence from his record of him being a reign for misconduct of any sort.
27:39But in the film Zulu, made in 1964, James Booth played Harry Hook very well
27:48as a bit of an anti-hero, a bit of a rebel, a malingerer in the hospital
27:54and not entirely a fellow of good character.
27:57And it was very effective and it made the movie interesting
28:01and it doesn't have a lot to do with the genuine character of Harry Hook.
28:05But Zulu was a movie. It was not a history book.
28:10And there are a lot of historical inaccuracies in it.
28:15In the darkness of the African night, lit only by the flames of the burning hospital
28:21the fight for Rourke's drift grew ever more desperate.
28:25Now completely surrounded and having repulsed several charges
28:35Chard ordered his men to retreat first to the middle, then to the inner walls of the Kral.
28:42Here the British were out of range of Zulu fire from the rock terraces above.
28:48The burning hospital created both an advantage and a disadvantage in the dark.
28:55On one side it exposed the Zulus who charged the defences.
29:00On the other, the intense shadow it cast concealed several determined attempts to break through.
29:08When night fell, the action at Rourke's drift had reached its crucial point.
29:14The Zulus finally had a chance to achieve what they had set out to do.
29:19It was very rare for them to fight at night
29:22and one of the reasons why they continued to do that is obviously they felt they had the chance
29:26now that darkness had fallen, to overcome the garrison.
29:30There was a constant wave of Zulu attacks. There was a rattle of musketry all the time.
29:35The hospital roof was catching fire.
29:38There were attempts to set fire to other parts of the defences which were being doused by the defenders.
29:43So it really was the most dramatic occasion with the flames lighting up the events.
29:50And also you mustn't forget the screams of the wounded and dying that you always get in action.
29:55And their tempo of operations was such that the British had to keep shooting
30:00long after their rifles were starting to jam with dirt and from lack of cleaning.
30:05The barrels of the rifles were becoming too hot to hold
30:08because they were putting so many rounds through them.
30:12And it was a matter of continual vigilance and defence for the defenders
30:17and a matter of heroic attack on the part of the Zulus.
30:22By that stage, Chad and his men had been forced back to the small area in front of the storehouse.
30:29As the night wore on, under the terrible psychological and emotional stresses of combat,
30:36the men were getting desperately thirsty.
30:40There was a water cart within the perimeter,
30:43but it had unfortunately been abandoned near the hospital when everybody fell back to the storehouse.
30:50The terrible thirst of the defenders drove them to make a sally
30:55to pull in the water cart through the biscuit box wall,
30:59the improvised biscuit box wall that was part of the defences.
31:03Now at this point the Zulu attacks had been lessening in ferocity, but they were still attacking.
31:09Shortly after the sally to get the water, there was a full-scale Zulu attack at 2am.
31:15So it was tremendously risky, but it was necessary to bring that water.
31:22If you put yourself into the shoes of the party who are ordered to go out into the pitch darkness
31:29with the Zulu chants and the noise in the middle of the African night,
31:34find a water container and bring it back into your own perimeter.
31:38That's not a mission you want to be handed to every day.
31:41It took real guts, real courage to go out there, armed only with a bayonet,
31:46in the darkness and bring back that water, but they were in such desperate straits
31:51that there was no alternative.
31:53Somebody had to do it, and it's a typical Aurora's drift,
31:56where you do have these tremendously brave individual actions on both sides
32:01that people were prepared to go out there and bring back the precious water.
32:07By the first grey light of dawn, the spirit seems to have left the Zulu warriors.
32:13Crippled by their terrible losses, the warriors began to creep away.
32:20The morning revealed a scene of devastation.
32:24The hospital had been gutted by fire, its smoke still dirtied the rising mist.
32:30And everywhere lay the dead.
32:33Among them were the few redcoats who had died near the perimeter.
32:38Fifteen of Chard's men were killed, but the overwhelming majority of the dead were Zulus.
32:46When the sun came up on the morning of the 23rd of January,
32:48the British were appalled at the sight that greeted them.
32:51Rook's Drift had been turned into something of a slaughterhouse.
32:53There were great heaps of Zulu bodies piled up against the barricades,
32:56particularly in front of the hospital, which had been charged over time and time again.
33:01Now, Chard says that in the immediate aftermath of the fight,
33:04they buried something like 350 bodies in front of the post.
33:08But he admitted later that quite a few more turned up over the subsequent weeks and months.
33:12And in fact, there are some quite reliable statistics which suggest
33:15that something like 600 Zulus were actually killed at the Battle of Rook's Drift.
33:19Now, on top of that, of course, you've got an unknown number of wounded.
33:22Even if there were only 300 or 400 wounded on the top, which would be a very small proportion,
33:27you're looking at something like 1,000 men who sustained a wound in action.
33:30So it means that something like one in four Zulus who took part in the fight sustained some sort of injury.
33:35And there are some very graphic accounts, actually,
33:37which suggest that even men who survived sustained two, three or even four wounds
33:42and then were helped away by their comrades and somehow survived.
33:46Fascinated by the scene, Chard walked among the hundreds of corpses,
33:51littered with empty ammunition packets and cartridges,
33:54and noted the strange attitudes men had fallen in.
33:59Strangest of all, he saw that a number of Zulus had died in the same position,
34:05crouched forwards on their knees and with their faces on the ground.
34:13Although he could not have known it at that point,
34:16Lieutenant Chard and his small garrison had won their heroic struggle for survival.
34:23What they needed now was the arrival of a relief column, and fast.
34:30Chard kept his men busy.
34:32Although most were exhausted, he was careful to occupy them with routine tasks during the tense wait.
34:40One patrol was sent out to gather the Zulu weapons.
34:46They discovered many wounded Zulus were still alive.
34:51Today it would be a war crime, but in 1879, unremarked by anyone,
34:57the Redcoats simply shot the wounded Zulus they came across.
35:02From today's perspective, the shooting of up to 200 Zulu wounded
35:06in the aftermath of the battle was morally reprehensible.
35:10In fact, many of the wounded were clubbed to death in order to save ammunition.
35:14Hamilton Brown, who was a commander of one of the Natal native contingent battalions,
35:19did say that it was essentially a beastly necessity.
35:22His argument was, war is war, and savage war is the worst of the lot.
35:29He also pointed out that the Imperial troops from the 24th Foot
35:35were extremely agitated and angered by the mutilation of the corpses of their former comrades.
35:43I think our late 20th century concerns with the sanctity of human life
35:46have little place on the battlefield in 1879.
35:49After what these men have been through, it was really only to be expected.
35:55This was the way in which you dealt on the battlefield
35:57with men that were too badly wounded to survive.
36:00Shortly afterwards, another disturbing development caused Chard to hurriedly call in his patrols.
36:08The Zulu warriors had returned.
36:11Chard and his men watched with mounting apprehension
36:14as they approached around the slope of the Cheyenne Mountain,
36:19kept out of rifle range and squatted down on a hill opposite.
36:25Then, after some time, they rose as one and went away.
36:33The popular belief that the Zulu were saluting the Redcoats is unlikely to be true.
36:38There are far more likely reasons for their behaviour.
36:44The Zulus who fought at Rourke's Drift had been marching and fighting for 24 hours.
36:50They had crossed more than 15 miles of rugged terrain, mostly at the run.
36:56And they had been beaten once already by superior firepower
37:00of an enemy who showed no signs of weakening.
37:03They had seen a quarter of their number either wounded or killed.
37:09The film Zulu includes a marvellous stirring moment at the end
37:12when the Zulus reappear over the skyline and start chanting songs.
37:17The British garrison work out that the Zulus are actually saluting them for their courage.
37:21It's become very much part of the popular myth of the Battle of Rourke's Drift.
37:25I'm sorry to have to say in many ways that actually it didn't happen like that at all.
37:29The closest that happened was that on the morning of the 23rd,
37:32some of the Zulus, probably the rear guard,
37:35because most of the rest of the Zulus had already retired overnight,
37:37came into view out of rifle range from the garrison at Rourke's Drift.
37:41And they sat down on the hill opposite.
37:43And for a few moments the two sides stared at each other
37:46before the Zulus rose up and retired back out of view.
37:49In fact, what was happening, they were probably intending to retire
37:52down towards the Mzenyati River at Rourke's Drift,
37:54but they could see Lord Chelmsford's Con coming in the opposite direction.
37:57So they couldn't retire by that route and they simply marched off in another direction.
38:01Now it is true that both sides gained a terrific respect
38:05for each other's fighting qualities at Rourke's Drift,
38:07but the practicalities of it were that on the morning of the 23rd
38:10everybody was far too exhausted, far too spent emotionally and physically
38:14to go in for those sort of niceties.
38:19Rourke's Drift was saved.
38:36The Zulu war would rage on, long after the morning of the 23rd of January.
38:42But the epic defence of Rourke's Drift was over.
38:46The Redcoats were naturally elated,
38:49but a terrible blow had been dealt to the Zulu nation.
38:55The 22nd of January, 1879, was a very costly day for the Zulu Kingdom.
39:02The Zulus had fought not only at Isandlwana and Rourke's Drift,
39:06but also at Inyasana down on the coast.
39:10At the end of the day, they had probably the best part of 2,000 casualties.
39:17It was an appalling casualty rate,
39:20and King Chetweyo was reported to have said,
39:23an Asagai has been thrust into the belly of the nation.
39:29Certainly, there were many Zulus at the end of that day
39:33who were not quite sure whether they were victorious or defeated.
39:39By simple virtue of the fact that the Zulus won at Isandlwana,
39:42there was very little chance of King Chetweyo negotiating any future political settlement,
39:47because the British were then determined to crush the Zulus militarily
39:50before they instituted any peace negotiations.
39:53So not only was it a costly day in itself,
39:56but it had the most apocalyptic consequences for the Kingdom,
39:59because it led ultimately to the renewed invasion by the British
40:02and the great disasters at Kambula, at Ginginflova, and ultimately at Olundi,
40:06where thousands more Zulus were killed.
40:09The great royal centres of the King's authority, the Amakanda, were all destroyed,
40:13and King Chetweyo himself was chased off of his throne and out into the bush,
40:17and finally captured by the British and brought home as a prisoner.
40:21In the face of the disastrous Isandlwana,
40:24the British public needed a victory.
40:27Here was a heroic feat of arms worthy of the name.
40:32The details of the battle were already being noted,
40:35and the nature of the conflict was elevated by its thrilling odds
40:39and acts of bravery from an insignificant siege to a famous victory.
40:45The public reaction was literally ecstatic.
40:47Many music halls published songs in memory of the heroic defenders of Rorke's Drift,
40:52and huge amounts of literature were published as well.
40:56The reason for this amazing outbreak of popular hysteria
41:00can really be seen in terms of the earlier massacre at Isandlwana.
41:04Really, Isandlwana was the more important battle,
41:07and the fact was that the British army was defeated there on the 22nd of January.
41:11Rorke's Drift was an afterthought from a tactical point of view,
41:15but of course it provided exactly the sort of example of British courage
41:20that both the government at home and the British public wanted to see,
41:24and I think there's certainly a sense in which Rorke's Drift
41:28was made to be a much greater victory than in some ways it was.
41:32Lieutenant Chard and Lieutenant Bromhead
41:35had both been in a state of career suspension before the battle.
41:39Chard was an engineer, and he could be promoted only on the basis of seniority,
41:45and he had to wait for people older than him in the service to die or retire,
41:49but Rorke's Drift, he's a major.
41:52Lieutenant Bromhead had been in a state of career suspension
41:56because he was deaf as a post and people didn't think he'd be much good on a battlefield.
42:00Rorke's Drift happens, promoted major.
42:03So the army needed to make all of these people into heroes
42:08to wipe out the disgrace of being defeated at Isandlwana.
42:14Eleven Victoria Crosses were justly awarded
42:17for the tremendous heroism shown by the defenders of Rorke's Drift,
42:21the most for a single action in the history of the British army.
42:35The action at Rorke's Drift can be seen very much as a race against time.
42:40The garrison has to hold out until the prospect of relief can be got to them.
42:46To do this, they have to last out the afternoon,
42:50and that's fairly easy to do because they can see their opponents
42:53and they can keep them at a decent range.
42:56At night, it becomes a different story.
42:58As darkness falls, the balance shifts into the favour of the Zulus,
43:03and they now have the opportunity to overcome the garrison.
43:07And they come very, very close to doing that.
43:09They actually squash the garrison into a smaller and smaller area,
43:14and in the end, they're compacted into an area
43:17where there's a redoubt of mealybags on the veranda,
43:20and they're getting low on ammunition,
43:22and they're just having to hold out till dawn.
43:24It's a very tense and a very time-sensitive situation.
43:30It's not, in strategic terms, that important a battle.
43:34Almost all of the other battles in the Zulu War
43:37are of far greater strategic significance.
43:39Yet the Battle of Rorke's Drift, I think,
43:42has come to represent a certain way that the British
43:45like to remember their colonial history.
43:48The image of redcoats manning the barricades on the frontier of empire
43:54is a particularly potent one, I think,
43:57and also the conception of the enemies of the British Empire.
44:02The Zulus have come to represent a particular type of
44:06almost romanticised noble savage warrior, in a sense.
44:11These were the acceptable enemies of the empire,
44:14if you want to look at it in those terms.
44:16Brave, courageous.
44:18There was no great bitterness at the end of the war.
44:21It was a stand-up, knock-down fight between two courageous foes,
44:24and the British came out respecting their enemy.
44:27If you add into it this whole mix of redcoats and heroism
44:31and the exotic locations of standing back-to-back
44:34until the last cartridge is fired,
44:36I think you have a particularly potent mix
44:38that really strikes a number of chords in the popular consciousness,
44:42even today, considerably over a century on from the events themselves.
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