Weather, some say, is fickle. Of course nature is just nature but when you’re on high ground, the mountains, and the weather moves in, the temperature drops in minutes and wind shifts. It is a dangerous place and that’s during mid-summer.

Perhaps summer is the most dangerous time to be caught in a mountain storm, particularly in South Africa because there’s more moisture and freezing sleet and snow sweeps over the summit, overwhelming hikers in shorts and T-shirts.

During January and February 1881, the weather along the Natal escarpment near Volksrust and Majuba was characterized by high rainfall, frequent thunderstorms, thick mist, and cold nights. This period was at the height of the summer rainy season, creating wet, muddy conditions that significantly impacted military operations during the First Boer War.

The weather at times was bitter, just like the Boer sentiment. Laing’s Nek gravesite was desecrated in 1969 when Afrikaner Nationalists under cover of dark, blew up a large Cross that had been erected over the graves of Royal Navy sailors who’d perished during the Battle of Laing’s Nek in February 1881. Such was the depth of historical bitterness.

Memories run deep. The last known Boer of the First Anglo-Boer war, Jacob "Jaap" Coetzer died in the same year as the exploding cross — 1969 - showing just how long veterans of war can live amongst a population that has no clue about their past. A vet of the first Anglo-Boer War had lived to hear Beatles music. Coetzer was 15 year’s old when he joined Commandant Piet Joubert’s commandos in the area of Laings Nek, and was a survivor of the next major clash, Majuba. Not that Jaap Coetzer was in any way linked to the desecration.

Laing’s Nek lies on the N11, a quick 20 minute drive through this pass and you ascend from the rolling hills of KZN into the highground of Mpumalanga — or the Transvaal as it was in 1881.

In January 1881, the British force under Major General Sir George Pomeroy Colley moved off from Newcastle after his ultimatum to the Boers had been ignored.
Despite his intelligence and administrative competence, his battlefield record would reveal a critical weakness: a tendency to apply textbook European tactics in environments where they were increasingly obsolete.

The Boers, by contrast, were armed with modern Westley Richards breech-loading rifles and other similar breech-loading firearms, which allowed for faster and more accurate fire than the older muzzle-loading weapons that had shaped earlier British tactics. Many Boers were also skilled marksmen, accustomed to hunting and irregular warfare, and they fought from concealed positions—rocks, ridges, and scrub—rather than in formal lines. This combination of mobility, cover, and firepower was going to be devastating.

Colley led 1216 officers and men including five companies of the 58th Regiment, 5 companies of the 3rd Battalion of the 60th Rifles, 150 cavalrymen, a party of Royal Navy sailors with two 7 pound guns, and a mounted unit of Royal Artillery with four 9 pound guns. Major General Colley was determined to revenge the previous month’s debacle at Bronkhorstpruit.
The Boers setup four main laagers on the escarpment north east of Majuba. Their main camp was based at a point south of the Standerton Road, about 10 kilometers from Wakkerstroom. From here, flanking the two roads which approached from Newcastle, their patrols could ride out to watch the Buffalo River fords, as well as Laing’s Nek.

Colley had moved off from Newcastle on the 24th January, after two days of heavy rain held up his wagons. On the 25th they struggled across the Imbazane River, and on the 26th, crossed the Ingogo River. British patrols saw Boers moving on the pass, and on the evening of the 27th, noted that Laings Nek was occupied in force. More heavy rain fell that day, and a thick mist drifted across the landscape.
On the morning of the 28th, Colley led his force out of the laager.

The British had instigated a war in the Transvaal which fired off in early 1881, but they had already ignited another flashpoint - in Basutoland. This was a fascinating conflict, and it has modern overtones. For the new British government of Sir William Gladstone, the fact they had stimulated a simultaneous slew of conflicts in South Africa was more than irksome, it was expensive and ill-timed.

While Britain was dealing with a humiliating setback against the Boers, it was struggling to enforce authority in Basutoland—highlighting how imperial control was both stretched and inconsistent in southern Africa.

Following Basutoland's transformation into a British dominion on 12 March 1868, it became the target of rapid westernization efforts by the Cape Colony administration. By 1879, the Cape Parliament had extended the Peace Preservation Act to Basutoland, with the aim of disarming the people of the territory.

This did not go down well. Guns, like horses, were of immense significance in Basotho society. Most Basotho who worked on the Kimberley Diamond fields bought both muskets, and later rifles, as well as Boer ponies and other horses before making their way home. What was going on in the minds of the Cape Colony, and those in the imperial colonial office?

It is important for our story to understand global events of the time. For decades all of the European governments concerned with the coast of Africa, both east and west, had tacitly agreed not to allow the quarrels of their respective traders and officials to become occasions for empire. That was the theory.

The ministries in Paris and London wanted nothing more than to continue their gentleman’s agreement, although each suspected the other of wanting to break it. Napoleon the third had nourished a few sporadic projects for African expansion, but the catastrophe of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 had slowed them down. The French Third Republic pulled out of the Ivory Coast and was considering renouncing all options in Dahomey. It wanted to leave Gabon as well as the Congo.

But Senegal was another matter. The French colonial government in Daka had developed a local expansive programme derived mainly from the French army’s influence rather than pure economics. There were plans to build a major railway line to the upper Niger River which would link Senegal to Niger. The French rulers of Senegal were expanding eastwards as well as southwards, and had begun to encircle Gambia.

All of these moves in Africa must be recognized as part of our story here in South Africa.
Globally speaking, the main British nightmare was the Russian advance towards the Dardanelles, Turkey, Persia, India and China. So the British maintained a navy allied with Turkish armies in the near east to protect the Indian route through the Suez against the Russians.

London allied with the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II who ruled greater Turkey and his subordinate Khedive Ismail of Egypt. They were being schmoozed as reliable vassals who served Britain’s financial and imperial interests. Britain could avoid seizing territory directly which would be expensive and politically ruinous. No boots on the ground, just deploy the one-step away approach via their the navy it was thought.

The Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid ii however had been borrowing heavily from the English and even more from the French, while his revenues fell short of expenditure, and debt mounted so he raised land tax. Christians in Bosnia and Herzogovina revolted against Turkish rule, more loans defaulted, and the Sultan, and therefore the Turkish Ottomans, went bankrupt.
With that as the backdrop, let’s return to the Basutoland Gun War.

Tension had been growing for many years between the Basuto and the British. The southern corner of Basutoland was settled by the Baphuthi led by chief Moorosi who had been a tributary ruler of Moshoeshoe. In 1869 he had agreed, somewhat reluctantly, to merge his territory with British Basutoland.

The approach by the English political parties of the time to the young Boer Republics was confused, and even contradictory. William Gladstone, a liberal, had succeeded in ousting the Tory’s under Benjamin Disraeli in his famous Midlothian Campaign of 1879 and 1880. In 1880 Gladstone formed his second ministry and almost immediately, the promises he’d made about foreswearing foreign wars were broken.

There is a direct link between what was going on in South Africa and in Ireland. These two territories, so far apart geographically, featured as joint threats in the English mind of the time. The most direct link is Gladstone himself. He had criticized the annexation of the Transvaal during his Midlothian Campaign, but once in power, he hesitated to reverse British policy, fearing a domino effect where weakness in Pretoria would lead to revolution in Dublin.

By 1880, the Irish Nationalists began to see the Boers not just as fellow farmers, but as fellow victims of British coercion. This Irish link flourished throughout the 19th and part of the 20th Century with Irish Nationalists fighting both for the Boers during the Second Anglo-Boer War.

The shift in Irish nationalist alignment was driven by a move from anti-imperial solidarity to human rights internationalism. Initially, the Irish supported the Boers as fellow "peasant-republicans" fighting the British Empire, but as the 20th century progressed, the Irish Republican movement increasingly identified with the ANC, viewing the struggle against Apartheid as a mirror to their own fight against institutionalized discrimination in Northern Ireland. By the height of the Cold War, the Irish Republican Army’s Marxist-leaning leadership saw the Afrikaner government as a pro-Western, colonialist proxy, leading them to provide tactical advice and training to Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) to help dismantle the very state they had once ideologically championed.
But at first, they were close allies in both spirit and in their political expression. The South African crisis which led to the first Boer War of 1880 and 1881, occurred because the British government claimed to be the paramount authority and trustee of South Africa, and the Boers rejected this claim.
Earlier, in 1878, Paul Kruger and Piet Joubert had sailed to London with a petition signed by over 6,500 Boers demanding the reversal of the Transvaal annexation. Sir Michael Hicks Beach had just taken over as Colonial Secretary from the more diplomatic and polite Lord Carnarvon. Hicks-Beach was nicknamed Black Michael, referring to his famously long, dark beard, his tall, thin, imposing frame, and his legendary dark temper. He was known for being abrasive, combative, and having very little patience for those who didn't respect British authority.
To the English, it seemed that South Africa was on the verge of becoming another Ireland, the inveterate hostility of whose people might only be held down at tremendous cost by main force. Gladstone and his cabinet grappled with one main question.

In both territories, Transvaal and Ireland, should a nationalist reaction be met with coercion, or concession?

The Bapedi have a rich and textured history, as with most of South Africa’s past, where religion and tradition are entwined to create a consciousness of life that is attractive to the naturally curious.

Today, part of Limpopo Province bushveld contains private game parks with Bapedi and other African names — including Moya which has three meanings. It is used for wind, or breath, or the soul, roughly translated. It is something they say which cannot be seen, but can be heard. When a sick person wheezes, you know they’re alive, because you can hear their soul, it has not departed. At night, when there is stillness, and you pick up the faint sounds of someone speaking, and upon investigation you find noone, then you know it is the soul of a dead person.

Parts of your body are Moya, the lungs, blood, heart, liver, kidneys, and sex organs, your head and your hair. It is also these parts which are mostly associated with or susceptible to, disease. Your Moya is like your iris, or your fingerprint, there is noone else who has a copy of your Moya.

While humans cannot live without Moya, sometimes it can live without their seriti, your shadow and reflection but this is the supernatural representation. The Bapedi word for shadow and a reflection in water or a mirror is Moriti.

Your Seriti is created at birth, when you cast your first shadow. For extremely traditional Bapedi, it is bad manners to step on anothers shadow, or allow your shadow to fall on someone else. Traditional healers therefore won’t work at midday when the sun is directly overhead, because it is said, the spirits of the dead are sleeping.
Chief Sekhukhune of the Bapedi knew this when he built his fortress in a steep sided narrow valley south of the Olifants River at what was called his Stat.

While the British were focusing on the Zulu’s in 1879, Sekhukhune was sparring with other English authorities along the Olifants, and the towns of Lydenburg and Middelburg were reinforced. The Bapedi Chief wanted to expand his territory across the Steelpoort River and his raiding parties were bothering the Boers there. His position was further strengthened by a drought which meant British and Boer commandos could not take to the field, there wasn’t enough grass and water for their oxen and horses. The dreaded horse sickness had also broken out, further complicating the Transvaal Government’s plans.According to the blueprint for the Transvaal that had been devised by administrator Theophilos Shepstone and Cape Governor Sir Bartle Frere, the defeat of the Bapedi would be proof to the Boers of the British good faith. It would demonstrate that British rule was a blessing.

To their considerable astonishment, this act actually put the final nail in the coffin of confederation as the Cambridge History of South Africa puts it. Since the British took control of the Cape in 1805, their policy had been grounded in the belief that once the won allegiance of the Dutch and Huguenot settler population, peace and prosperity would be guaranteed.

There is something magical about mountain passes, weaving through majesty, each corner beckoning a driver like a formidable and compelling saga, muffled in mist or bright in the sunshine. Imaginations are fired and children go quiet as the ravines plunge beside the vehicle, timeless in their elegance, conquered only by the blast of dynamite or the steady chipping of picks.

There is an old Chinese saying, Yào xiàng fù, xiān xiū lù” If you want to get rich, first build a road.”

British engineers in the second half of the 19th Century recognized that they possessed an expertise that was in short supply elsewhere, and were prepared to travel abroard in large numbers in order to provide it. So it is with great fanfare and the blasting of many a bugle to announce that South Africa’s greatest road engineer was born in Graaff-Reinet.

The dramatic saga of how roads were built in South Africa is a forgotten story of plunging horses, wagons somersaulting, with dreamers armed with theodolites or sometimes, only their amazing capacity to estimate lines across tilted Cape Sandstones with their naked eyes.

Thomas Charles John Bain was one, who bequeathed the country with an impressive list of mountain passes and roads — and he made the single biggest contribution to these arteries which wind their way across the landscape.

Son of Andrew Geddes Bain, another born builder of roads, Thomas only took one month’s leave during 46 years of service at the Public Works Department. He married Johanna Hermina de Smidt in 1854. They had 13 children and enjoyed a long and happy marriage - apparently absence does make the heart grow fonderl. Just for the record, Johanna was the ninth child of Willem de Smidt, who was the Secretary of the Central Road Board. Keeping it in the family so to speak.

Hidden beneath Thomas’ stout hat and moustache, was an excellent judge of character, selecting foremen and overseers, to manage the mainly convict labour, motivating all to toil away for years inching along the side of cliffs and ledges.

Bain owned a Cape cart, a two-wheeled local invention, and he travelled between road, pass, bridge and drift construction sites that were hundreds of kilometers apart. Somehow, despite the time he spent away, he was a family man who’s favourite trick to stop a flood of youthful tears was by cutting a slice of watermelon.

Thomas and his father Andrew built 30 mountain passes and roads between them and perhaps the place where imagination leaps most is down through the tangled forest of Bloukrans Pass south of Plettenberg Bay. You can stand on the old Bain causeway, and look up at the vast marvel which is the Bloukrans Bridge famous these days for being the site of the world's highest commercial bridge bungee jump at 216 meters.

Some say Thomas Bain was a traveller who painted all those pictures, but that is a different Thomas Bain who was a gifted artist. Just to further confuse matters, Thomas Bain the road builder was also a prodigious artist. Perhaps that confusion is one reason why the engineer who was known by colleagues as the man with the theodolite eye, was to be almost forgotten for half a century. While his father Andrew was the giant of early infrastructure, Thomas went on to build 24 mountain passes, three major roads, and dozens of smaller routes.
He did all of this without modern explosives, he had no crushing or screening plants, no power drills, front-end loaders, bulldozers, graders, water tankers or cement mixes, no quarrying equipment, pile drivers and streamlined tarmac procedures. Then of course, neither did the men who did the real work.

What he had were the straining arms and muscles of convict and black labour — the other forgotten heroes of roadbuilding in the 19th Century. They have been pushed to the back of the heroes of history queue. The convict labour system formalized by John Montagu in 1844.

Cornelius Vijn had made a few bad decisions in his life as we all do at some point. Born in Holland in 1856, he made his way to Natal in 1874 where he rapidly learned both English and isiZulu. That wasn’t necessarily a bad decision. During his childhood, however, he’d suffered an accident, he was run over by a wagon — the wheel shattered his leg, it healed badly and from then on he walked with a limp.

He had lived in Natal for over 4 years before setting out from New Guelderland with six Zulu drivers and assistants, sixteen oxen, and a wagon loaded with woollen, baize and cotton blankets, picks, knives, saddles bridles and beads. Just to put his location into perspective, New Guelderland is a few kilometers north of KwaDukuza aka Stanger.

Cornelius Vijn’s destination — Zululand. This was a miscalculation because his journey began October 1879 on the eve of the Anglo-Zulu war. Tension had been rising for months, and most whites had fled the territory. Vijn was determined to go the other way. He sensed he could make some extra money without any competition from the other Natal Traders.

Vijn was 23 years and six months old. After being held up by rainy weather and a border check to make sure he wasn’t carrying guns, he crossed the Thukela on November 1st.
We know all of this because Cornelius’ journal was published by Bishop Colenso in 1880 — and you can find a copy online at the University of Cape Town archives.

It’s called Cetshwayo’s Dutchman, and what a fascinating read it is. His plan was to travel to meet King Cetshwayo kaMpande and sell him all the goods in the wagon in exchange for cattle.
The king had good reason to treat Vijn well, he needed someone who could function as a translator and letter writer because Cetshwayo would spend most of the coming months repeatedly sending emissaries to Lord Chelmsford, asking for negotiations.
In May, word arrived that the Boers were at Cetshwayo’s home, they were working together to defeat the English.

Later Cetshwayo was to tell Cornelius that
“No doubt the Boers are better than the English, for Mpande was setup as king by the Boers and died as King, whereas I, Cetshwayo, was crowned by the English and now my country is taken from me…” Following the British disaster at Isandlwana and the agonizingly slow progress of the second invasion of Zululand, the British government lost confidence in Lord Chelmsford’s strategic capabilities. In May 1879, Sir Garnet Wolseley was appointed as Supreme Commander in South Africa, effectively superseding Chelmsford.When word reached him deep in Zululand his reaction was one of desperate urgency rather than resignation. Knowing his reputation was on the line, Chelmsford took several decisive actions including what you may call a race for Ondini.

As the British tried to wrap up their war against the Zulu in South Africa, further afield the happy sound of a baby being born could be heard in Germany. Not just any baby.

Albert Einstein was born at 11.30 in the morning on March 14, 1879 in Ulm. His birth was not without drama; his family initially worried about his development because the back of his head was unusually large, and his grandmother feared he would have delayed development based on the sound of his cry. 

His mother Pauline was deeply concerned when Albert didn't start talking until he was three. Then when he started speaking, he had a habit of repeating sentences to himself, which led the family maid to nickname him "Der Depperte" (the dopey one).

When Albert was five and sick in bed, his father Hermann gave him a magnetic compass. This invisible force fascinated Albert and is often cited as the spark for his lifelong obsession with physics.

A compass is what the British surveyors carried, so too did some Boers of the Wakkerstroom District. The area wasn’t as stable as British Army Lieutenant Colonel Evelyn Wood had supposed. Sure, the hyena of Phongola chief Mbilini — had been killed but the abaQulusi still lurked about their mountains undefeated.

While the British had gone about their war against the Zulu with some zeal in 1879, the Boers of the Transvaal were seething about their territory being summarily annexed by the Empire only two years earlier.

The Boers of Wakkerstroom, east of Volksrus, lived on a frontier and a ledge. The escarpment along this north eastern line intersects with places like Luneburg, Paulpietersburg, Bilanyoni with Swazi territory further towards the rising sun.

June mornings are cold — as cold as the relations between the Boers of Wakkerstroom and local Englishmen. Luneburg was a Lutheran mission station and on the 4th June, the pastor’s son Heinrich Filter was killed there along with six black border policemen. Large groups of Qulisi warriors swept back into the northern Zululand region, scooping up hundreds of cattle and other livestock.

So it was with fury that commander Chelmsford and Wood heard what was going on between the Boers and the Zulu along the Mkhondo River. The two nations were in league against their common imperial enemy. Zulu deputations had visited the bughers and some Boers had even travelled to go and see king Cetshwayo kaMpande. By June reports circulated the there were even more Boers than usual wintering along the border, below the icy escarpment amongst the Zulu imizi of the Phongola.

The fact that they were safe confirmed all suspicions that there was Zulu-Boer collusion. Suspicions were further confirmed when the British found out that the Boers were even acting as guides leading the Zulu impis in their June raids that had been so destructive.
Chelmsford had been putting together a potent column for his return to Zululand after he had relieved Eshowe, and in May he began a slow moving march to Ondini. Ranging in front of his force as it gathered close to Rorke’s Drift for the second major invasion, were his reconnaissance units, scouts and observers.

And one of these observers was the enthusiastic but reckless twenty three year-old Prince Imperial of France, Louis Napoleon. The last hope of the Bonapartist dynasty, serving on Chelmsford’s staff.

He was the only son of Emperor Napoleon the Third, great-nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte. In his first 14 years he had lived the pampered life of a monarch-in-waiting, but that changed in 1870 when his father was deposed after a string of defeats in the Franco-Prussian war. Louis fled to England with his mother Empress Eugenie. Queen Victoria gave them a warm welcome — in 1871 his father was released by the Prussians and joined Eugenie and Louis at a rented mansion in Chislehurst in Kent. A failed attempt to remove a gallstone killed the Emperor n 1873, and Louis ended up in the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich.

The last quarter of the 19th Century was in some ways, like the first quarter of the 21st Century - full of tone-deaf business barons gambling building vast riches — financing politicians and in accelerating the planet towards world wars.

There are ripples in the timeverse, all the way to now, because the latest empire has started a war that it cannot end. The infinite rule of war is do not start a war you cannot finish — British back in 1879 set off a whole host of pain for itself by invading Zululand because the Boers of the Transvaal were flexing.

First, however, was the small matter of trying to Crush the Zulu empire.

Not only had the British suffered sharp reverses at Hlobane and, most dramatically, at Isandlwana, but Lieutenant-Colonel Pearson’s column had now been shut up in Eshowe for nearly two months. At first the invasion had been greeted in Britain with confidence and patriotic support, yet that mood began to shift as the scale of the setbacks became clear and questions were asked about Lord Chelmsford’s conduct of the campaign. Confidence gave way to unease as news filtered home that the war was proving far more difficult than anyone had expected.

So it is to Eshowe we go.

At the end of March 1879 Zulu warriors were spotted hiking down the hills near the Eshowe garrison, heading towards Nyezane near Gingindlovu on the coastal flats. They were led by Somopho of the emaNgweni ikhanda, Cetshwayo’s chief armourer — and the army he led towards the Thukela was an interesting bunch.

They included 3000 Tsonga from St Lucia Bay, along with 1500 from the kwaGingindlovu ikhanda, joined by Dabulamanzi, Cetshwayo’s headstrong son who lived at eNtumeni near Eshowe and who commandedd 1000 men. There were 3000 men of the iNgobamakhosi, uNokhenke, the uMbonambi and uMcijo, joined by 1500 of the iNdluyengwe. Chief Sigcwelegcwele led these amabutho, along with Phalane kaMdinwa of the Mphukunyoni — Phalane was of royal blood and set an imposing figure amongst his troops.

He wore brass ornaments on his ankles and neck, and had grown his fingernails five centimeters long, they were apparently as white as ivory and gave him a dangerous cat-like appearance, he was tall, a Marvel Superhero of the Zulu.

This force of about 11 000 was in Lord Chelmsford’s way, and he was about to cross the Thukela River to relieve Pearson in Eshowe. Cetshwayo’s was aware that the English Zulu chief, had turned his coat, John Dunn who had initially fled Zululand, then tried to remain neutral, had now openly thrown in his lot with Chelmsford’s relief column. He had observed the British response to the defeat at Isandhlwana and realised that the Zulu could not win this war, nor even draw it.

Chelmsford’s response was to turn to John Dunn, and with him came something the British had lacked until then — a practical understanding of African warfare. Dunn encouraged constant forward reconnaissance, understood the rhythms and tactics of Zulu fighting, and insisted on the discipline of laagering, measures that addressed many of the army’s earlier weaknesses. He was placed in charge of 244 men and effectively made chief of intelligence — a somewhat unusual appointment. Until then such responsibilities had normally fallen to regular British officers. Dunn, however, was no officer of the Crown. What he brought instead were deep personal ties within the Zulu kingdom, along with a network of scouts and informants. In Chelmsford’s camp he would operate not only as an intelligence gatherer, but also as a crucial intermediary between the British command and the African world beyond their lines.

The twenty thousand strong Zulu army was camped near Nseka Mountain south of the British camp at Khambula hill — north west of modern day Vryheid. After defeating Lieutenant Colonel Evelyn Wood’s Number 4 column at Hlobane, Zulu commanders Ntshingwayo and Mnyamana stopped to rest their men on the banks of the White Mfolozi. about twenty kilometers from the British camp.

Wood’s column had retreated to the base at Khambula Garrison — along with the cavalry led by Redverse Buller after the thrashing they’d received at the Battle of Hlobane. You heard about that in episode 262.

Perhaps it made sense to wait, the British had already been reinforcing Kambula for weeks and the position that Evelyn held was strong. They had spent weeks digging elongated earthworks, a redoubt on a narrow ridge of tableland on the summit of Khambula. There were two guns here, and it was connected to the main wagon-laager which lay 20 meters below and 280 metres away by the four other guns placed at regular intervals. These were significant weapons.

The wheels of the wagons were lashed together, and each wagon-pole or tied tightly to the wagon ahead, sods of earth had been thrown up under the wagons to form ramparts, and bags of provisions run along the outside of the buckrails of the wagons with firing slits every few yards.

Below this defensive structure was another smaller laager of wagons, connected by a palisade — into which 2000 cattle were crammed. On the right side of both laagers lay a rocky ravine, no-one would be climbing up this access point and through which the stream of Selandlovu rushed. To the left, the ground sloped away more gently, and provided an excellent field of fire.

Wood had 2 086 officers and men, including eight companies of the 90th Light Infantry — and seven companies of the 1/13th Light infantry totaling 1240 troops. The mounted squadron included 99 from the Mounted Infantry, four troops of the Frontier light horse of 165 men, two troops of Raaff’s Transvaal Rangers, almost a hundred of Baker’s Horse, 40 more from the Kaffrarian Rifles, bolstered by a Mounted Basotho group of 74, they’d come all the way from Basotholand, from further south, joined by 16 men of the Border Horse, along with 41 Boers from a local northern Zululand commando.

58 black support troops were also camped at Kambula, along with 11 Royal Engineers, and 110 men of the number 11 Battery, Royal Artillery and their six 7 pounders.
This was a well balanced column, but still about ten percent the size of the nearby Zulu army. The British had a major advantage, they were defending a well constructed and armed with the latest weapons of war.

Unlike the other battles, the British had measured out range markers and setup stone cairns painted white. The Zulu would not be able to easily charge Khambula over the open ground, nor climb quickly enough in numbers to attack over the steep eastern edge.

Dawn broke on the 29th March 1879 and the Zulu commanders gathered their men. The youngsters demanded the army launch a straightforward charge up the slope to smash the English once and for all, but Chiefs Mnyamana and Ntshingwayo were smarter than that. Both had strict orders from Cetshwayo about tactics, and he’d made it clear there would be no more direct full frontal attack on well dug-in British camps.

Mnyamana was more of a diplomat than soldier, if you remember it had been Ntshingwayo who led the men in their victory at Isandhlwana, but Mnyamana was technically the senior commander - so it was he who formed the amabutho into their traditional circle.

As the sun lifted over the hills, mist coiled along the White Mfolozi, and thousands of Zulu warriors formed in their regiments on the riverbank. They stood shoulder to shoulder while their commanders strode before them, voices rising, calling them to courage and endurance.

The battles are coming thick and fast because this is the end of the seventh decade of the 19th Century - the British have just been defeated at the Battle of Hlobane mountain on the 28th March.

There’s been so much skop skiet and Donner it’s time to reflect on matters further south west Before we buzz back to Zululand next episode.

n the Transvaal, resistance to British rule was slowly setting, like mortar hardening between stones, the scattered grievances of the Boers beginning to cohere into something firmer, more deliberate. Far to the west, Kimberley glittered with a different intensity - fortunes were rising from the dust, deals were struck in the heat and noise, and the great hole in the earth swallowed men and money alike. Yet beneath the clangour of picks and the shimmer of diamonds, another current was moving. For even as the town prospered, a sequence of personal tragedies was about to cast a longer shadow over Kimberley shaping not only its mood but the hardening temper of one of its most ambitious young men.

Cecil John Rhodes would endure a series of personal blows in the years ahead. These losses did not soften him. If anything, they seemed to harden an already melancholic temperament. One by one, the setbacks accumulated, and the young speculator who often appeared distant in manner would, in time, come to embody the ruthless vanity and moral ambiguity that marked the diamond fields and the empire they fed.

The string of tragedies began with his brother Herbert. It was he who had come to South Africa first and started the Cotton farm at Richmond near Pietermaritzburg. And It was he who had impulsively upped and off to Kimberley to look for diamonds. Once these had been unearthed and he’d convinced young Cecil to join him — he upped and off once more to the eastern Transvaal, where gold had been discovered. After a while he tired of that life and began gun running from Delagoa Bay to amaPedi people, then roved about into northern Mozambique and what is Malawi today. He hunted the next gold find everywhere he went, a mad Victorian searching for his personal treasure.
Cecil John Rhodes watched and took his own notes. He was already thirsting for power, and now he realised there were two routes. From Barney Barnato he learned the value of politics, and from JB Robinson he came to understand the uses of Journalism. Rhodes wanted something much bigger, and that was a seat in the Cape Parliament.

He ran for representative of a rural territory, Barklay West which was a mistake. When he appeared at a meeting one of the local boers told him off
“In the first place, you are too young, in the second, you look so damnably like an Englishman…”
Rhodes, unlike certain modern politicians, listened.
First stage of campaign complete, time for second stage. And here it may surprise many listeners, but he turned to black South Africans because at this time in our history, blacks could vote in the Cape.

All they had to do was show they had enough cash, the Cape qualified franchise. Every voter had to show either 25 pounds of land or more in value or prove they received at least 50 pounds a year in income.

After disbursing black workers with an unknown sum of money, 250 turned up to vote for Rhodes on election day and largely because of this support, he won. It is truly amazing that Cecil John Rhodes won his seat in the Cape Parliament because of black voters, and would go on to hold that seat in periods of triumph, disgrace and depression, until the day he died.

By mid-March 1879, Cetshwayo kaMpande made another attempt to open talks with Chelmsford, sending his indunas to negotiate for peace — but the British had no appetite for compromise.

On the 22nd March two emissaries arrived at Middle Drift, a central crossing between Natal and Zululand, but Chelmsford had already laid out rules that any Zulu representatives should communicate directly with him. Captain Frank Cherry who was He commanding officer of the 3rd Regiment, Natal Native Contingent (NNC), was stationed at Middle Drift. His job was primarily defensive—guarding that specific crossing point against a potential Zulu counter-invasion of Natal. Alongside him, F.B. Fynney - the Border Agent for the Lower Tugela. Fynney was a crucial figure because he was one of the few British officials who was fluent in Zulu and understood the nuances of Zulu diplomacy.

The two messengers used their Christian names, Johannes and Klaas. They brought a message from King Cetshwayo that essentially said: "What have I done? I want peace. Let the fighting stop.”

They were frigidly received and sent back with a reminder about the terms of the ultimatum before war began.

The British were also fully aware that Cetshwayo had called a general muster of his army at oNdini, and believed the two messengers were actually spies. A day later, on the 23rd March, two other messengers arrived in Eshowe but Lieutenant Colonel Pearson ordered them to be clapped into irons — they were spies he said and could not be accorded the traditional sanctity they enjoyed at royal emissaries.

Not to be denied, Cetshwayo, who by now had been joined by his main army and he was pondering where to send them. Unfortunately for Colonel Evelyn Wood, the Zulu King decided they should attack his column.

After the largely inconsequential but shocking massacre at the Ntombe River we covered last episode, Colonel Wood was in a bit of a bind. He’d lost over 70 men on the 12th March. Still, he had something positive to report to Lord Chelmsford, Cetshwayo’s eldest brother prince Hamu had decided to switch sides and support the British.

Many of the men of his amaButho had fought the British at Isandlwana, and Wood promptly recruited these very same men into his column as irregular troops, despite the fact that their spears had been so recently washed by imperial British blood.

It is hard to explain how the military works to most people, but battles are not carried out with the hot headedness of hate. So when a soldier wants to swap sides, usually they are debriefed, given a quick training update, checked to ensure they’re not lunatics, and then given their new uniforms and weapons and signed on. They are very useful when it comes to intelligence gathering.

Chelmsford was over the moon about Hamu’s move, and believed what he called the “important event” would ‘spread doubt and distrust in Zululand’. Partly to alleviate the pressure on Pearson in Eshowe, and partly because he hoped to capitalise on Hamu’s arrival, Chelmsford gave Wood carte blanche to make an attack on the Zulu.

“If you are in a position to make any forward movement about the 27th March, so that the news may reach the neighbourhood of Eshowe about the 29th, I think it might have a good effect…”

A relief column was on it’s way from Natal and would soon cross the lower Thukela on its way to Eshowe. Perhaps some kind of victory to the north where Wood was operating would draw Zulu amabutho away.

Wood was nothing if not a quick operator. A few days after receiving the order, on the 28th March, he launched a two-pronged attack on the abaQulusi stronghold of Hlobane Mountain. It was risky, not only did he have no idea of how many Zulu warriors faced him, he also had no idea about what lay in store on the summit.