The Anglo-Zulu Battlefields

On 22 January 1879 A British Column Was Destroyed At Isandlwana By A Zulu Army That Lost Perhaps A Thousand Men Doing It, And That Evening About A Hundred And Fifty Men Held The Mission Station At Rorke'S Drift Against Repeated Assaults Two Battles Fifteen Kilometres And Eleven Hours Apart, On Ground That Is Almost Unchanged And Still Carries The Cairns Over The Dead · Dundee, KwaZulu-Natal

On the morning of 22 January 1879 a British column camped below a sphinx-shaped hill called Isandlwana was attacked by a Zulu army of perhaps twenty thousand men and destroyed - well over a thousand British and colonial soldiers killed, the worst defeat a modern European army suffered at the hands of an African one. That evening, fifteen kilometres away across the Buffalo River, about a hundred and fifty men at the mission station of Rorke's Drift held off repeated assaults through the night and eleven Victoria Crosses were awarded for it. Two battles, eleven hours apart, and the ground at both is almost unchanged: Isandlwana is still an open field of whitewashed cairns piled over the dead, and the hill still looks exactly as it does in the paintings. You need a guide here. Without one these are empty fields, and with a good one they are the most affecting historical site in South Africa.

In northern KwaZulu-Natal between Dundee and Nqutu, with Rorke's Drift 15 km from Isandlwana across the Buffalo River, Dundee, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Both sites keep daylight hours with modest entry fees and small museums - Isandlwana has an interpretive centre and Rorke's Drift a museum in the rebuilt mission buildings, and WHETHER EACH IS OPEN AND STAFFED VARIES, so ask locally before driving out. The battlefields themselves are open ground. GUIDES ARE THE POINT: specialist battlefield guides work out of Dundee, Rorke's Drift and the lodges nearby, they are booked a day or more ahead, and a half-day with one is the difference between a field and the battle. The two sites are fifteen kilometres apart on gravel and tar and are done together, Isandlwana first to follow the day's sequence. Accommodation is at Dundee, at lodges near the sites and at Rorke's Drift itself. Dundee is about three hours from Durban and four and a half from Johannesburg.

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