Ian F. W Beckett

The battle of Isandlwana on 22 January 1879, the first major battle in the Anglo-Zulu war, witnessed the worst single day's loss of British troops between the battle of Waterloo in 1815 and the opening campaignns of the First World War in August 1914. Moreover, decisive defeat at the hands of the Zulu came as an immense shock to a Victorian public that had become used to easy victories over less technologically advanced indigenous foes in an expanding...