Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - Episode 71 - Anglo Zulu War Part 2: The End of a Kingdom

Episode Date: October 7, 2019

The Anglo Zulu War Part 2. In the conclusion of our series the war goes from Rourke's Drift to Eshowe before killing an Imperial Prince and burning the Zulu Kingdom to the ground. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys (For sources see the show notes of Part 1)

You think the Welsh can't do better than that, Owen? Well, they've got a very good bass section, mind. But no top tenors, that's for sure. Hello! Welcome to... Hola! Como estas? Hello! Why do you sound like I had a stroke? There's our one Simpsons joke for the episode. Anyway, this is Lions Led by Donkeys podcast.

I'm Joe, and with me is Nick. You did click on the right people. Yes. And we are at part two and the conclusion of the Anglo-Zulu war. Tap, not click. I imagine people are listening on their phones. They're tapping. I've never listened to a podcast other than my own for editing purposes on my computer.

Yeah, that's true. Yeah. I usually do phones, Yeah, that's true. Yeah. I usually do phones, so it's a tap. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, anyway, like I said, we're part two and the conclusion of the Anglo-Zulu War. You left me on a cliffhanger. Yeah.

War takes a while sometimes. Otherwise, all of our podcasts would be like four hours long, and I'd want to shoot myself. We're not hardcore history here. Yeah, now they're only one hour long, and I only want to drink myself. We're not hardcore history here. Yeah, now they're only one hour long and I only want to drink myself into a deep, deep coma. Things changed. So, last episode, we told you about how a

British army got curb-stopped by a spear-wielding Zulu force because they're dumb racists who underestimate their enemies and didn't bring enough screwdrivers. Oh, fuck. I forgot about that shit. God damn it. We compared it to MRE boxes.

If you missed out on the Battle of Isla Wanda, I recommend you go back to the last episode and listen to it first, or do what you do. I'm not here to tell you how to live your life. This episode will pick up virtually immediately afterwards. So, when the British main force under Lord Chelmsford

Clemsford I like the super British name so far so I hope this keeps going. This is a good trend. Began to en masse to prepare for an upcoming war. They stopped a small mission known as Rourke's Drift. Sounds like a supermarket. A as rork's drift sounds like a supermarket

a trader jose at a fucking supermarket welcome to rork's drift where all of our uh our workers here drink asparagus water and have you sign petitions in the parking lot um now uh works drift is named after an irish named James Rourke, which straddled the border between the British colony of Natal and the Zulu kingdom. It technically fell into both, kind of. Like, it was probably kind of illegal. But then again, so is the whole war. Yeah. Now, for people who don't remember from last week, the whole war was started without the express permission of the British government.

Yeah, dude was an asshole. war was started without the express permission of the British government. Yeah, dude was an asshole. It is exactly like if the commander of our local military base, Joint Lewis-McChord invaded Canada without talking to anybody. Invaded our city. Yeah.

Well, I mean, soldiers invade our city every four days to feast upon our local cuisine. What do they feast upon here? They drive through our fucking street and clog it up so I can't go home. The drive-thru burrito shop that I bought wine from yesterday for

59 cents. Very true. Or they go to Rainier. That's it. So they awaited there as the British ultimatum. There's a Walmart everywhere. They awaited the British ultimatum to the definitely don't have it for Walmart. Well, there's a Walmart everywhere. Yeah.

They waited the British ultimatum to the Zulu king. If you remember, that's how the war started. They gave them a very long list of

demands that could not be met in order to start a war. Yeah, it was pretty long, and none of them could feasibly be met by anybody who was going to

try to protect their kingdom. Right. Which is the whole point. It's kind of like the ultimatum that we gave Iraq before we invaded. I believe

it was the Hussein family had to leave Iraq. Wasn't going to happen and we knew that. It's the same thing. In the meantime, while all that had been going on, they turned the drift into a supply depot

and hospital for the forward army. The mission was placed on the command of, and here's another good name, Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead. Yes. The whole Bromhead? His first name was Gonville. I'm sorry.

The surname. His cousin, Gonorrhea, did not enlist in the British army. Uh, he was left to command the garrison and, uh, and sure enough soldiers together, uh, to make an understrength company from the 24th Warwick sheer regiment of foot.

Side note about our boy Bromhead here. He would eventually be played by Michael Caine in the movie Zulu. And his dad was a veteran of the battle of Waterloo. Yeah. Uh, our boy Brom had here. He would eventually be played by Michael Caine in the movie Zulu. And his dad was a veteran of the battle of Waterloo. Yeah. Uh, so yeah, he,

Oh, Gonville gets some justice done. Um, now he was later given another company, this one of the Natal native contingent under the command of William Stevenson, probably the most normally named person so far in the show. He was helped to bolster

the small mission's defenses. In the meantime, some... He probably got a lot of shit talked on him just for his name. Bitch, your name's only William? He is Stevenson? I'm fucking Bromville. Your name isn't Crumpet Mc-fucking McSweeney?

Bitch. Do you even England, bro? uh in the meantime some engineers and a few other units trickled back into the mission with the engineers uh repairing some nearby bridges and other people to resupply some units that were supposed to be coming however never showed up that was when confused the mission sent out some scouts to look around and wonder where the hell these missing companies were maybe they got lost didn't find the non-dagger wasn't working yeah they read i mean they are are led by lieutenants maybe they got lost yeah um normal that was when they ran into two survivors of the massacre at slawanda who told them they were pretty much the only ones left. What? Yeah.

Like, wait, where's the other 1,600 soldiers? We're it, bro. That's where it's all left. When the two men told their story to the commanders at the mission, they had a quick meeting, and they decided to try to figure out what to do next. Now, normally, the mission was not a combat position. They were there as a logistics hub. They were not dug in to fight off thousands of Zulu warriors.

They didn't have the ammunition, the men, or the means to do so. Right. They were arguing whether to retreat or to defend their current position. I'd retreat. I agree. I don't like spears. Generally locking yourself behind four walls while badly outnumbered just screams like someone's going to name an important building after me because I'm dead. Yeah.

I don't want a library named after me. No, no. I'd rather, you know, have a headstone later in life. I'd rather die old and poor like most veterans. Fucking ashes. I want a whole vase and poor like most veterans. Actually, fuck the headstones. Fucking ashes. I want a whole Voss. You just want to earn? Yeah. You just want a regular funeral,

but with a cremation? Because that's what most people get. It's how they give you a Ziploc baggie full of remains. That'd be fucking sweet. A giant hefty bag. We threw your piece of shit fucking grandfather in this... Here you go, you fucking scumbag this used gym sock that we found out back enjoy you motherfuckers uh now he was a man named james dalton who is a

service corps commander point out that this that a small column traveling through open country while burning with carts of hospital patients would just be overtaken and slaughtered to the last man and their best bet was to simply dig in because at least they have four walls. So they agreed that they would dig in. I don't want my stomach getting washed. Now, here's an important differentiator. And it will become important through the rest of this episode

is the Brits learn their lesson. Unlike at Isla Wanda, Bromhead and Lieutenant John Shard, who's an officer of the royal engineers immediately or order the men to start making preparations to defend the mission they began to dig in and the 400 or so men now in the mission began building a defense perimeter out of mealy bags or bags of corn uh everywhere i look called the mealy bags which i don't know i honestly don't know what that is yeah In America, we call it maze.

Okay. Stupid corn-related joke. There's no such thing as a good corn joke. They stacked deep enough. They were effectively sandbags. You could also eat your defenses if you felt like it.

They weren't going to get starved out. They were surrounded by corn. The line is reinforced with piles of biscuit boxes because apparently to build a defense if you're the british army you have to make it out of pure britishness like where's the bag of tea and where is our our large bags of racism we ran of water. Good thing we made a lot of tea. You have to make water with dicks. Fuckers. That seems like some shit they would do. Bags of dicks.

That too. They also knocked firing ports or firing holes out of the walls of the buildings to barricade themselves behind. About a hundred native cavalry also survived Isla Wanda and showed up. Once they showed up, they offered to ride to a nearby hill and

act as a bit of a lookout. I can tell from your giggling you kind of know how this turns out. I hope they would do the exact same thing I would do. Chard then rearmed some of the more able patients in the hospital as well as any civilians who happen to be with them because if they learned any for anything from

isla wanda there was no such thing as a non-combatant exactly uh on the children now some of the people like as like i pointed out the last episode um they were told the zoos were told to ignore the non-combatants and let them live in Isla Wanda. That was mostly ignored because in the frenzy of battle, you're not really going to pay too much attention at how people look. You got to wash your spear. Yeah, spears need to be washed.

Now, the soldiers must have felt pretty comfortable behind their fortifications unless you were a member of the Natal native contingent. They were posted outside of the fortifications. I mean, fellow soldiers of the fortifications. I mean, fellow soldiers of the British Army. Fucking with Giant, like he's doing air

quotes like that. It was the Team Human Shield from South Park movie. Yeah, he's just doing air quotes. British Army. Fuck you, dude. Operation Human Shield. What the fuck? Some native Natal regiment guy had a chef moment fuck yourself dude uh with the british set in place and their

natal regiment people set out to be bait let's talk about the zulu army that was coming towards them first off they were vastly larger about about 4,000 warriors strong. Are they still running? Yes. When did they stop? When they got to the battle. Oh, that was their rest. Like, oh, we can rest. Now we only have to stab people.

Yeah. But these were not the same warriors who had just stormed through the British at Isla Wanda. Did they wear socks at least? No, they're barefooted. Fuck, that's gotta... If one of them... Like, if I step on a pebble on my way to pick up my trash it was actually the the losing sandals and and footwear in general is

somehow an integral part of shaka's um who former king of the zulu if anybody has not watched the last episode shaka zulu uh a key part of the reformation of the zulu army um because they from what i read in the book the washing of the spears um awesome name by the way yeah uh is he wanted to motivate them to keep moving he didn't want to make them comfortable on the march because he wanted them to fight hard so they'd want to go home my feet hurt i can't wait to go home admittedly it worked and um well't wait to go home. Admittedly, it worked. One of the baser rules that we have in military history now from this show is if it's

dumb and it works, it's not dumb. It's true. Just don't tell the army I like my boots. They're so comfy. Now, like I said, this is not the force that had fought Isla Wanda. They were the Lion Army. Now, this sounds really fucking cool, right? It sounds badass. This was not the force that had fought Isla Wanda. They were the lion army. Now, this sounds really fucking cool, right? It sounds badass.

Yeah, congratulations. You've just fallen for every recruiter's dream because they were actually the reserves, mostly from the age of 30 to 40. Damn it. That was another main reformation that Shaka Zulu made was that, and it was actually one of the things that made the Zulu made was that, and it was actually one of the things that made the Zulu

kingdom's army leaps and bounds better than their compatriots in Africa, was that he had a very, very specific regimental system put in place per age. So the active army, quote unquote, that fought at Isla Wanda would be

their youngest, hungriest warriors fighting to get honor, glory and everything else. And then, after them was the reserves from like ages 30 and 40. But they had a fucking bitchin' ass name with the Lion Regiment, right? Yeah. Imagine enlisting in like the Lion Regiment and then showing up as a whole bunch of fat old guys. What is this?

Fuck, it's every National Guard unit ever! Uh, yeah. These lions ate a lot it's exactly like every online veteran right now that's making an enlisting in the space force joke only to find out they didn't join the emperor's like space marines but applying for fucking

article 15 clothing to fold shirts they found themselves in like a cramped office space with no air conditioning with a whole bunch of computer nerds. It's a huge letdown. Now, what is interesting here is the king of the Zulus, Ketsueho, never wanted to invade the British Natal colony. And we pointed it out last time is that was the fear mongering put in place that made everybody just kind of okay with the British war against the Zulu. He understood the limits of his army. Now, it was revolutionary for native armies in Africa to be as successful against their neighbors as well as European powers

as the Zulus were. Well, they were still largely a militia force with very little logistical systems in place because they were citizen soldiers effectively i mean they weren't getting you know they weren't enlisting and then serving 20 years off some far-flung post in the zulu kingdom they would have jobs they would farm and then like oh fuck somebody's invading home. Grab your spear and you go fight them. Let me take off my boots and just run barefoot. I mean, inside the borders of the Zulu kingdom, it works because it's self-defense force.

But if you overextend everything like a foreign invasion would do, like invading Natal, the army just isn't built for that. It's galaxy brain level of stupid. Now let me tell you how they invaded Natal, the army just isn't built for that. It's galaxy brain level of stupid. Now let me tell you how they invaded Natal. Running.

A Zulu commander named Dabulmanzi, who happened to be the king's half-brother and Shaka Zulu's nephew, had other plans. Dabulmanzi was well known within Zulu circles for being kind of dumb. He was known to be very aggressive and acted rashly without

ever asking anybody for any counsel. It was probably for all of those reasons, despite direct orders from his brother, the king, not to attack any British army forces outside of Zulu territory. And then he just went ahead and did it anyway. There's a whole lot of fuckery

in the Zulu war. There's several problems attached to this, however. While Dablamanzi had been present at Isla Wanda, he was not the overall commander. That was a different guy named Natshikwango, who had gotten himself wounded by the end of the battle. Before he had to go

and get himself treated, he spent a lot of time planning and preparing for the assault on the British encampment in order to lure them into their Buffalo-based attack plan. As we told them, the horn in the chest of the Buffalo. Now, if you're assuming that de Boulamanzi did the same amount of planning

to invade the Natal, you would be sadly mistaken. He simply had no time for that shit. Instead, he forced his reserve army, who, remember, were older and not as in shape, to march at a pace as nearly a jog for 20 fucking miles.

That sounds rough. Without a break. Alright, boys, we're gonna go ahead and run a marathon before attacking this fortified position. I'm gonna fall out. Somehow, and I think I said in the first episode, the Zulu army was a much better army than the British one. They simply lost based on technology. That does not count for Damanzi he's a fucking idiot he's just as dumb

as clemsford if not dumber um now he forced his army to march that hard so they could swing around their forces wide enough around the small british garrison to cut off their line of retreat now their force... Alright, so I guess on paper, which I'm assuming he did not come up with a plan on paper because he just came up with this out of his ass. He did it on the sand. He did a sand table. I don't even think he did that.

He was one of those guys like, this is a great idea. We should just do this. No, I will not hear any kind of dissent. Because he was also known for abusing his subordinates and stuff. He sounds like the type. He's a fucking idiot. He was noted for drinking quite a bit, which was common in the Zulu

army at the time. Getting kind of drunk before they went into battle to put some liquid courage in their veins, which is not uncommon in history, but he would get incapacitatingly drunk. Which is just, that's not taking the edge off. That's just alcoholism.

Now, this plan works if I just tell you that his whole idea was to encircle the British Army. Do you think he just talked straight out of his ass? He Ace Ventura'd that shit? Yeah. Probably not. Because they had the Buffalo. We're going to do the Buffalo guys. He's just like, oh, we're shit? Yeah. Probably not. Because they had like the Buffalo. Like, we're going to do the Buffalo guys. Like, he's just like, oh, we're going to do the Scorpion.

And did this motion like rounding? Yeah, like a tail. He was very obviously only in charge because his half brother was king. And he's the nephew of Shaka fucking Zulu. Yeah, and with that reasoning and also with him drinking, I think he sounds like he would talk out of his ass because I feel like he would. You know, I guarantee you he had a phrase at the tip of his tongue in case anybody questions,

like, don't you know who my dad is? Yeah. And he always wore boat shoes and shorts with like a button-up shirt. Like, you don't even look like, what the fuck are you? A little known fact, that Bulla Manzi actually graduated from Harvard Law. The idea that he was like,

yeah, we're just going to encircle the Brits, that works, kind of. But then you think like, in order to hold this vast army together with no communication systems, not even runners for the most part, requires a fair amount of command and control. The Bullimanzi did not have any command and control.

The force is so disorganized and badly led that he simply could not keep the army together. Random groups of warriors would just break off and raid nearby homes whenever they came across and just not come back. Um, around 4 PM army surgeon, James Reynolds returned to the mission and told him that they absolutely did not want to hear.

Uh, God damn it. Let me, let me rephrase that. Try this again. At around 4pm, Army Surgeon James Reynolds returned from the mission and told them something they absolutely did not want to hear.

It's almost COB. We gotta go home. P comes from the balls. A large number of Zulu were sprinting across the countryside and were only about five minutes away. Oh, fuck. That's terrible. Where the fuck are the guys over here?

You know, Bromfell's like, way to drop the fucking ball, guys. That is when Lieutenant Henderson, who was in charge of the Natal Horse Regiment, our contingent, rallied to face the incoming threat. Henderson rode out behind the nearby Askerberg Hillied to face the incoming threat. Henderson rode out behind the nearby Oscararg hillside to harass the Zulu, which is a good

idea. I mean, like Calvary, you harass the enemy, you run off. You guys are fat. You guys don't look good. Your mama had one big titty and one little titty, and we called her Biggie Smalls. Away!

The Zulu's like, what the fuck, man? They just keep running. That's not cool. Did you hear what he said about your mom? My feet hurt! I just want water! Bitch, I'm 40! Now, the problem was to be a harassing Zulu,

to harass the Zulus, a cavalry commander needed cavalry because as soon as his Natal regiment rounded the hillside and saw the vast amounts of Zulu warriors they broke and ran off without firing a shot your unit is broken you just see their flag above them bleaking

oh fuck Natal native horse regiment total war Henderson immediately turned around Oh, fuck! The tall native horse regiment, total war. Yeah. Henderson immediately turned around and ran off to catch them, telling Lieutenant Chard, quote, my men will not obey my orders! Yeah, fuck you, you pasty white bitch, we're out.

Upon witnessing this, the native troops who had been left outside, now these are the native troops outside the mission, not the native cavalry. Team Human Shield abandoned their positions and ran off after the horse guys. Hold on. So you tell me they washed their spears in our stomach? Let's get the fuck out of here. Like, wait. Are you saying that the white guys won't shoot us if we run away we're fucking outtie yeah they won't waste the ammo they gotta go to their fucking right quartermaster uh about that

now yes when the men the men in the mission saw their native counterparts running for their life and began to get pretty upset that they were running away from battle so they began shooting at them. The only person they managed to kill was a British corporal named William Anderson. How the fuck did they do that? If it's one thing the British are good at it's racism and they fuck

this up by gunning down the only white guy in the crowd. Holy shit do you think all their musket fire just hit him? Fuck! Lieutenant, the Bravo's like, who shot the white guy?

Now, not exactly off to a strong start here. With the desertions and friendly fire over at the left, around 150 people inside the mission, about 40 of which were wounded or sick people from the hospital, Chard must have started to see the writing on the wall

because he quickly ordered his men to construct a wall out of whatever they could through the middle of the mission in case they had to abandon the outer walls, of which one was the hospital itself. Nice. At 4.30, the Zulu army's vanguard, which number around 600 men, rode the Oskarberg Hills,

the same one that the native horsemen had just run from, and approached the south wall of the mission, which is where the hospital and the storehouse was located. British troops opened fire when the Zulu were only about 500 yards away,

kicking off a battle that would go on without break for about the next 11 hours. While the vanguard was attacking the south wall, the majority, numbering in the thousands, attacked the north wall.

Even though the British were incredibly outnumbered, they pumped out a withering amount of fire, which I suppose is easy to do when you're shooting at a wall of people armed with mostly spears. That was when the Zulus began to shoot back. What? No spears? Well, they did use mostly spears.

They did have muskets. Now, the movie Zulu, which I will continue to go back to because this is the popular narrative of the battle, makes this look like the Zulus were armed with captured British Martini Henry rifles from Isla Wanda. That would be impossible

as these warriors had not been present at the battle, so they could not have looted the corpses. Instead, they were armed with decades-old muskets like the Brown Bess. Now, these guns were badly outdated in Europe. They ended up being pretty effective for the Zulus in the battle. Not sure if this is because the British simply did not

expect to get shot at, but five soldiers on the wall of the north ended up getting killed by zulu fire which is more than they killed with spears um and i can see why this worked so well because like haha we're fighting a whole bunch of africans with spears and then when you start getting shot at who needs cover not to mention it was culturally taboo for the most part like i pointed out that muskets and rifles were considered the weapon of the pussy.

It was frowned upon. Yeah, like if you used a gun, you were a coward. Like real men closed the distance and they stabbed a motherfucker with a spear. I'll use a gun. Yeah, yeah, I'd absolutely use a spear.

Yeah, I've seen me fight. I'd rather have a gun. Now, the first wave of the Zulus on the North Wall were quickly torn apart. The ones that were not killed outright found themselves pinned down, hiding behind rocks as the British continued

to pump round after round into them. The other warriors hit at the base of the mission wall and attempted to grab soldiers' rifles as they put them over the wall to open fire. They were just hiding at the base of the wall, trying to snatch rifles out of people's hands.

And they, when the barrels appeared over the wall or through their gun ports, it's kind of terrifying. Yeah. Uh, or they would just grab ahold of their arm and they just stabbed their shit out of them. They're close.

Yeah. They're very close. Uh, this had one side effect that British had never thought of. However, dozens, if not hundreds of warriors had been shot dead as they attempted to climb the stone wall

around the mission the piles of the dead bodies end up creating a ramp for the next wave of zulu warriors like world war z thank you i that's exactly what i was about to say so in case you thought the zombies of world war z or the arachnids from fucking starship troopers were not realistic that shit turns out about that too is based in historical fact so the bonus episode that francis and i did on starship troopers turns out uh not fictional it's true yeah it's okay in the zulus yeah the arachnids are uh they have thoughts they have feelings yeah and the brain bug hey you know they were just trying to make planet P great again.

That was called, right? I think so. Which means they're hugely racist. It did not take too many waves of Zulus doing this before the British on the North Wall. Did the British have their own Rico's Roughnecks? Brom heads bastards. Bromhead's bastards. Now, it did not take long for the Zulu to force the British

into a brutal hand-to-hand combat situation, which is not their strength. This included their commanders Dalton and Bromhead going spear to bayonet. Even though they were fighting an army whose entire existence was based on hand-to-hand combat, the British made good

account of themselves, but they simply could not deal with the numbers. Chard realized they could not hold the North Wall for long, and at 6pm, after two hours of bayoneting their way through endless human waves, he ordered his men to pull back into the yard of the mission where they had created the secondary position.

This had the unfortunate side effect of abandoning the hospital. I mean... Was there wounded in there? Oh, yeah. Oh. So they armed the people, the walking wounded, the people still able to move or the function of their hands. But there was a few people who were bedridden, whether it be from some tropical illness or whatever. Yeah.

Just put your blanket over your head. That's usually what I do when I have nightmares. Hide under your bed. They won't think to look there. The firing ports that had been knocked out of the hospital walls ended up becoming death traps. As warriors snatched weapons that were sticking out of them or stabbed into them with spears.

Fuck. A handful of soldiers refused to retreat and stayed behind the hospital to continue defending the bedridden patients that were still living inside of it. That's pretty brave. Some of those soldiers were Corporal William Allen, a former sergeant, who,

what else, had just been demoted for getting drunk and fighting a superior. Nice. And William Jones, a 39-year-old private. What? This isn't the 18th. He also has pay problems and married a stripper back home

who is also just taking all of his money eventually the soldiers knew they were fucked and decided to escape the only way they could hacking through the stone walls of the hospital themselves that's a terrible escape

well they couldn't get through the doors uh because like it would be a roundabout way so like fuck it we'll go through the goddamn walls now because they're way through the fucking yeah uh using pickaxes and rifle butts they beat their way to safety dragging multiple hospital patients with them all while fighting off a never-ending stream of zulu warriors. In one instance, a soldier named John Williams stabbed directly into the head with a Zulu spear knocking him unconscious

as one tends to do when your brain is fucked with a spear. Now, it didn't do that much damage because he's wearing a helmet but it did fuck him up pretty good. He woke up several seconds later finding himself surrounded by Zulus, pulled the spear out of his head, and then began to stab the people around him. I didn't pretend I was asleep.

Oh, fuck. Like, I'm dead. The fighting grew so intense that the Zulus decided to just set the building on fire. This spurned the soldiers to go back to work, once again busting their way through the hospital walls to freedom after an hour of hacking their way through the walls taking a few breaks here and there to shoot a couple people the soldiers burst through the outset and ran to safety behind the barricades which were manned by people who all assumed they were dead of the 11 patients still inside the hospital when it was abandoned charred would rescue

nine of them not a bad outcome yeah I mean I assumed it'd be much worse yeah honestly a building on fire full of bullets and angry spears like I assumed of the 1111 would be dead yeah though it must be said that several of the dead a

sergeant maxfield private jenkins and a private ad Adams were just sick and refused to move from their beds. You have those days. Even when soldiers were trying to evacuate the hospital, they weren't wounded or anything. I don't know how fucking sick you have to be to just lay there and be stabbed to death.

You just have those days where you're just like, you know what, today's a sweats day. I'm gonna watch Amazon Prime, maybe some Netflix. I'm gonna have some me time you know don't get me wrong I have been literally oh fuck there's tea in my canteen I have been literally crippled by dysentery like hooked up to two IVs at once

I've literally been crippled but like how sick do you have to be until like fuck it death is preferable I'm okay with my life I'm ready to go. I don't know, honestly. Because even when I was at my worst, I was like, I need water.

I need to go downstairs. Because when I had dysentery so bad, I almost got medevaced. I was forced to go on a couple missions simply because we didn't have people. And I made it out the wire by a couple miles. And I vomited on an Afghan policeman and shit myself but like then i walked back i didn't just like lay down and die so i don't know what they could possibly have been sick with that made it so much worse or maybe being in the british army is just so terrible they're like you know what zulus take the wheel yeah case of the mondays jesus take the wheel

just getting shanked with spears did you say queen take the wheel. Just getting shanked with spears. Did you say cheat? Queen, take the wheel. So once the evacuation of the hospital was complete and the shrinking of the British perimeter was complete, it allowed them to concentrate their fire more effectively. As the night fell, the Zulu attack only grew, however. Fighting continued unbroken throughout the night with soldiers burning through so much ammo so quickly that the rifles began to fail on them now there is a um a known malfunction in the martini henry that when it starts firing and heating up that the uh brass will swell up

inside of them and because it's a single shot weapon that after you fire it you have to manually eject the round well when it heats up it would swell up and have to be extracted with a pair of pliers which most people did not have they also didn't have screwdrivers so most of them would have to like smack their weapon off the ground to try to get the ammo out of it yeah just so they could fire again and have it happen again it's's weird, funny how I've done that in the past, definitely, where I smacked a rifle on the ground to release a charging handle.

Oh, I've definitely done that. I had, it was a magazine problem, not a rifle problem. And I think I told this story during our M16 episode. But I was in a firefight, and after every single one of my, every time I fired a round, I

M4 would jam and I'd have to slap the magazine to get the load again. So I effectively had a bolt action assault rifle. So after every round, I'd just smack the M4 off the ground to get the bolt to lock forward again. So the M1 Carbine, I have, uh, I've had one for a really long time. That was one of the first

World War II weapons I had. Had this issue where for some reason, the charging handle wouldn't come back after you fired. So the common practice apparently was you put the rifle butt on the ground and you basically stomp on the charging handle to eject that round. Interesting.

So I've definitely done that a few times. It's super weird, but also I found it it satisfying so i wonder how they felt about smacking their martinis probably not very when you're surrounded by thousands of enemy fighters like i was fighting like think about it i was fighting like two taliban guys i wasn't very happy about it i imagine if i was fighting 4 000 of them and my m4 was also also a single shot rifle that had to be reloaded with a pair of pliers that I was not issued. I'd be pretty unhappy. You have to think about maybe who's around you

and maybe you might have a good time. Maybe the Anglo-Zulu war is the friends we made along the way. The man to your left and right that made it. Thanks, I hate it. Now, the soldiers held up in the Kettle Crawl, being Afrikaner for a hut or a farm enclosure,

began to get the worst of the attacks. By 10 p.m., they were forced to retreat to the storehouse where Zulu attacks would continue until 2 a.m. After that, they still did not give up. Those guys don't get tired. No. Well, kind of. And we'll talk about that.

But they did not give up harassing the defenders with random musket shots for the rest of the morning so the muskets were a good tool for the Zulus they didn't use them the best they use them for harassing fire which would have been really really good if they

had pressed the attack because it's a way to allow their main force to sleep or rest or drink water or eat while they continue to keep the British hiding behind walls because they were popping rounds at them. Because they're not expecting to get shot at by the Zulus. Right. It's not exactly what happened.

Now, here's the part where the movie Zulu and the Zulu attack takes a break and retreats for a bit. They reform and begin banging their shields and chanting in order to intimidate their defenders the defenders being the unflappable red jacket british army simply started singing the song the men of harlech to counter them this is a really cool scene but it fucking never happened and um the only reason i bring this up is like i found the question posited online especially on like reddit and quora but like did this really happen now i'm not saying we're a popular podcast but i'm saying we should at least address it no it did not happen and here's why they couldn't get people in rhythm so yeah the british army guys just like you know what no no no stop all

wrong from the top uh no the reason for this is that Men of Harlech wasn't even the regimental song, nor was the regiment overwhelmingly Welsh, which is what they continue to talk about in the movie. It wouldn't become the Southwest Borderer, or sorry, the South Wales Borderers for another two years, and were currently the second Warwick Shears.

And even though the regiment had been formed in Brecon, South Wales... Warwick Shears? Yeah. They sound regiment had been formed in Brecon, South Wales Warwick Shears? Yeah. They sound like they drink Worcestershire sauce. I'm getting better at pronouncing these British names after getting mocked by Nate endlessly. It is spelled Warwick Shires.

It is pronounced Warwick Shears. I've heard of Warwick Shires. Now, the regiment was formed in Brecon, South Wales but almost nobody in it had actually been there. Instead, the regimental march was the Warwickshire Lads. Nice. More than that, think about this.

The men inside the mission had been setting up defenses since 3 p.m. and fighting for about seven hours, straight without a break, and getting shot at for about 11 hours. They were probably not exactly in the singing mood. I wouldn't be. I'm never in the singing mood. No, no, I am. I would never say

I wake up in the morning, I look around like I feel like a toon. Call a bird upon my finger through the window. But yeah, it's all a scene of magical movie nonsense. Yeah, it looks cool. Yeah, it's like a great of magical movie nonsense. It looks cool. It's like a great spree decor movement, but it never happened.

Now they would eventually become the South Wales Borderers, which is I assume a much less racist border patrol. I doubt they put Scottish people in concentration camps, but

yeah, they weren't that yet. Every time I felt down, I sang my Divisions tune. Yeah. I know me, whenever I was really, really depressed in Afghanistan, I started singing the Army song. I'm like, suddenly the whole mission makes so much more sense now. And there is accounts. You almost have a drive.

Yeah. Now there is accounts of regimental tunes and marches and stuff like that being sung to rally a unit. That's totally true. It happens. It's happened a lot. It just didn't happen here. And one of the more important things is that of all the soldiers who wrote firsthand accounts of the battle, fucking nobody brings this up. So there's a hint.

Nobody talks about, yeah, we had a fucking we sing this battle with the zulus choir song like if all the people who wrote memoirs or letters or dispatches about this nobody's like yeah and then there's this really weird 15 30 minutes or whatever we made eye contact with the zulus and just fucking sing at them we sent out our best answers they sent out their best answers and they stomped the yard and we just ended up winning that's why we walked away from the battle that's That's the true story. So when dawn broke, the soldiers saw that the Zulus had

abandoned the field, leaving only their dead and wounded behind. Around 7am, the soldiers thought that their time was finally up because another detachment of thousands of Zulu warriors began to approach. Like a fresh batch?

That's what they saw. That's terrible. But they slowly withdrew. The Zulu army had been thoroughly ravaged by the fighting. They had not only been marching for about six days, but they hadn't eaten

since the first two. So they do get tired. Their ranks included hundreds, if not thousands of wounded, and they had no supplies. They simply could not continue a fight. That is when Lord Clemsford himself, his relief column showed up about an hour after the fight ended.

Though by this point, the soldiers within the mission were so exhausted and shell-shocked and expecting to fight again, that when they showed up, they nearly shot them, thinking they must have been Zulus that were wearing stolen coats. What? Yeah, they didn't though. They were really close. Clemsford

unit, having seen the destruction of the British army at Isla Wanda, returned the favor by going into the field and executing every single wounded Zulu that they found. Trooper William Clark. Washing their bullets. Washing the bayonets. Yes. Trooper William Clark. Washing their bullets. Washing the bayonets. Yes.

Trooper William Clark noted in his diary, quote, Altogether we buried 375 Zulus. Some of them wounded were thrown into the grave alive. Seeing the manner in which our wounded had been mutilated after the battle from being drug into the hospital, we were very bitter and did not spare any wounded Zulus. Oh, God. The British, after hours of fighting, had lost only 17 men, with a further 15 wounded.

That is surprising. Right? Yeah. Holy shit. It's like one of those statistics that when I read it, I'm like, this is like some Greek mythology battle or some shit. Now, the total number of dead and wounded Zulus are unknown because a lot of them got brought back to. Is that really documented? Did they document that type of shit?

The Zulus? No, the Zulus didn't keep track of their wounded and dead, but they did carry a lot of dead bodies and wounded back with them. So the only numbers that we know are the ones that were kind of by the British of whatever's left in the field. Okay.

It's kind of just like a war of attrition where it's, well, this is what I saw. We killed 50 of them, but you could have killed more. You could have killed less. Right. I was, this is what I saw. We killed 50 of them, but you could have killed more. You could have killed less. I was really sure. And I mean, they killed all of them because they didn't leave any wounded. Of the battle, 11 Victoria Crosses, which is the highest

award the United Kingdom has for heroism, were rewarded. Now, while both sides had taken losses, that did not mean the Anglo-Zulu war was over. The Zulus were still running high from defeating the British at Isla Wanda, and they meant to repeat that action.

Though, this time they were going to plan a little bit more than they did at Rourke's Drift. So they were going to do more buffalo and more animal action. Yeah, they were going to rule out the cheetah. Now, there's one fatal flaw in the Zulu's plan going forward. They kept planning every battle like it was going to be Isla Wanda, whose main linchpin depended on total British incompetence.

The old, I played high school D1 football. Yeah. And that was not something that you can continue to edge your plans on, not to mention after seeing the results of Rourke's drift. The British learned the hard way that they could never underestimate the Zulus again. You best fucking bet the British were not going to fight without prepared positions. A good example of the British learning and adapting to Zulu tactics was the Battle of Iazande. The British were advancing towards the Zulu capital of Yolundi

when they came across a group of about 6,000 Zulu warriors. Why is there so many of them? Well, they're defending the fucking homeland. I mean, the British were never in the hundreds. Because they're mobilizing every able-bodied Zulu man to defend their homeland. What is a man considered in? Like, What age is considered? About 16 and up. Now, the Zulus did have their own

small version of Sparta. They had even their own version of Diagoge where young Zulu men would be thrown into what is effectively a regimental barrack system where you would fight and steal. The whole iron sharpens iron concept. Right. Where they would bond with the men around them by fighting amongst themselves,

establishing a pecking order. Fuck, 6,000? God damn. All right. Yeah, and at this point, they know the British are not going to stop. The British didn't come over from Natal to teach them a lesson.

They came over to destroy their kingdom. And it was truly a war of survival. Now, did they always have thousands of people on the ready? No. But they knew that they had to sacrifice things from other aspects of life to keep the British at bay.

Right. Now, this group of 6,000 Zulu warriors was the left horn of an advancing force of a different Zulu army. A group of the Natal native soldiers led by a gang of Lieutenant Hart and a group of British NCOs discovered them.

Now, upon discovering or being discovered, the left horn attacked, causing the native soldiers to leave their European leaders behind to a very quick and violent death. But, this horn attacking so quickly made the rest of the Zulu's armies plan

go to shit. Now, with the element of surprise gone, the British camp manned with about half as many Zulus was immediately under attack by the entire Zulu army, numbering around 12,000 warriors. Now, this sounds like the prelude to Isla Wanda 2.0, right? It sounds like Massacre.

Now, that probably would have been the case. This time, it was Isolanda, but for the Zulus, Oh, the British in the camp had not only dug in, but they were prepared and ready to fight. They had brought several batteries of artillery and Gatling guns with them. We now,

when the Zulus came down upon them, they almost immediately lost over a thousand men in only a few short minutes oh fuck because while facing a withering amount of rifle fire sucks if you're like an unprotected group of people in the open now there's artillery slamming down the middle of you there's gatling guns you're just not gonna make it yeah Now, after this battle, the unit's commander, Colonel Pearson, had his army pull into a small mission fort near Esho.

His men began to dig in, and he received the last message any commander wants to get. Your supporting column, that being the one that was destroyed at Isla Wanda, was destroyed. This means that Pearson was on his own. Not only that, but if the Zulu army

got behind him, there'd be no one to come and save him, no escape route, and nothing between the Zulus and the British colony of Natal. Oh, fuck.

Now, as I have pointed out, the Zulu king had no intention to push towards Natal, but Pearson did not know that. Right. The problem was he had

a bunch of fucking idiot commanders who kept just doing things on his own. Pearson, of course, had no idea about any of the Splinter and Zulu command. He only knew what he was being told. And when Clemsford sent another message to

Pearson saying, all previous orders are cancelled. Your new order is to preserve your army by any means. This includes retreat. Now, that's not a message anybody wants to get. And Pearson looked around and saw he had a commanding fort on good terrain and great fortifications. If he packed up and marched out, much like at Rourke's Drift, he'd certainly get attacked in the open by an entire Zulu army that would outnumber him.

Pearson elected to stay. King Ketsueho knew he could not attack a show. And for once, his stupid-ass commanders agreed. And he got a handle on it. Really? Yeah. Instead, he elected to surround the fort and wait them out. That also blows.

It began a protracted siege. As the Zulus surrounded him, Pearson watched from behind his fortifications and was probably pretty comfortable with the situation at first. Then the rain started. Oh. A downpour churned their earthen positions

that made up a show into little more than a giant puddle of mud. Then they began to run out of food and water as the Zulus siege began to take effect. The Zulus stole the Britishulu siege began to take effect. Zulu stole the British cattle and burned the surrounding fields. So the ones that they didn't capture had nothing to eat. Soon their cattle didn't starve to death, would have to be let out of the fort under armed guard to find grass. Most of the fighting that took place during the siege of Eshow was actually over cows.

Far away from the actual fort. Literally hundreds of British soldiers died protecting grazing cows. What? Yeah. Like, and they tried to stagger the whole thing. Like,

well, we went to this patch of grass that wasn't burned yesterday, so we have to go this one next week. And like, occasionally they just ran out and would have to go to the same place twice, leading to just getting the shit shot out of them.

Yeah. It was just a prot shit shot out of them. Yeah. It was just a protracted series of ambushes. Fucking blows. This forced the British soldiers to sneak out in small groups at night and steal food from the surrounding villages in order to survive. This went on for a full three months. Three fucking months? Holy shit.

Before Clemsford was able to lead an army to relieve the attacking it took three months i mean it's clemsford if anything he has a fucking track record already uh of being slow and refusing to act yeah he's lying he's fine yeah yeah uh he finally led an army to the fort to relieve the starving cow guards. But not before Clemsford was forced to actually win a battle for once. Clemsford army was stuck in a muddy field waiting for it to dry so he could move his wagons

when they fell victim to another charging buffalo formation by thousands of Zulus. They keep using the same animal. That's their problem. You gotta switch it up. You know, it works. It's a very basic encirclement technique. The problem is, is they know about it.

And it wouldn't have worked in Isla Wanda if they had simply dug in. And that's why I said they just kept trying to do the same thing. But I would argue that this would actually work if the Zulus were armed armed as well as the British. Imagine the Zulus attempting an encirclement with modern rifles, artillery, and Gatling guns. All of them.

Yeah. I mean, obviously, not only did they outnumber the Brits, but they clearly were not lacking in courage either. Right. I mean. They didn't give a fuck. Yeah. You can have all of the complaints in the world

about somebody's logistic system, but if they pick up a spear and a wicker shield and charge into a Gatling gun, imagine how much

damage they could be if they were in a firing line full of other people and a bolt-action rifle. You know? The Brits only won due to overwhelming fire superiority and i know that sounds really dumb it's like well the so-and-so only won because

their army was better but they weren't the the british leadership showed multiple times that they were significantly more incompetent than even debula monzi who's a fucking idiot because i mean if debula monzi had supporting artillery ruck striff is done period because i mean they did the most damage they did with the few firearms that they had right if if he had a howitzer you're fucked the only reason they won is because of overwhelming technological superiority period right and that's it goes into this too because they caught Clemsford in the open.

If Clemsford was stuck in the open in the mud waiting to dig out his supply wagons or whatever and they all had Matini Henrys themselves,

that's fucking shooting fish in a barrel. Yeah. And like, imagine the Zulus calling for fire. Fucking Zulu A-10s Coming down on motherfuckers That would fucking blow

Now that is an Empire Total War I will play It's a fantasy Empire Total War Sign me the fuck up I would play the shit out of it I just want the Zulus to have AK-47s and T-55s. But also be the Zulus. But still dress and be commanded the same.

I just want them to fucking only use one tactic, the buffalo. That's it. But imagine the horn of the buffalo with armor support and air support. That's just Blitzkrieg. I mean, at this point, as the Zulus are right now without fantasy, they should probably change up the animals every once in a while.

Guys, the buffalo isn't working. Like how the Chinese do it. Are you talking about the Chinese horoscope? Yeah, the calendar? Maybe change it up every once in a while like they do. Guys, that's the year of the pig. You know what you gotta do. That means at war we only can shit ourselves and roll around in the mud.

Shit on our balls. So, despite the fact that in this battle, that the Buffalo Formation worked exactly as it was intended to, meaning they encircled Clemsford. The Zulus are once again torn apart by entrenched and protected British weapons.

The only Zulu to actually get over the fortification was a 10-year-old boy who was captured and forced to be some kind of weird racist mascot for a British Royal Navy ship. What? Yeah. For the cost of just 11 British dead,

though some sources say that only two soldiers died. Over 1,000 Zulus were killed in just two hours. This 10-year-old? Yeah. He made it? He got to British lines and was immediately butt-stroked unconscious and captured. Oh, God, that's terrible. I mean,

fuck you Zulus for using child soldiers, but fuck you even harder for turning him into a mascot? On a naval ship? Yeah. Had to naval ship? Yeah. Had to completely blow his mind. Yeah, he's fucking culture shock. And one, he has to get sea legs now. Yeah, you know he doesn't have sea legs.

He just has spear legs. Right. Now, the day after the battle, Pearson's army was rescued. His show was abandoned and burned to the ground. The British tucked their tails between their legs and got the fuck out of Zulu land. They were not done, however. These guys fucking, Jesus.

The Zulu king knew that the British were going to invade again, so he attempted to negotiate peace terms, which Clemsford ignored. He slapped together another invasion force of around 20,000 soldiers to try again. That's a lot. Clemsford knew that he was about to get fired and replaced.

His replacement was actually Ariadne on a boat and on his way to South Africa. You got to go balls to the wall when you know you're getting replaced. He knew at this point he wasn't fighting for the Federation of South Africa or whatever he wanted to build. He was literally fighting for his future. He had to rescue some kind of glory out of the situation. His name. Yeah. Or otherwise he was going to be broken homeless.

Um, he, he knew the only way to read praying for that ship to get stuck in a storm or something. Yeah. Like, please let them sink. Just let the kamikaze blow it up or something.

I mean, like he was just hoping for something to be able to rescue some kind of shred of his reputation. This time during the march, Clemsford ensured that his army built actual fortifications whenever they stopped, and he sent scouts ahead to ensure they not trip over their own dicks and into another ambush led by thousands of Zulu warriors. I feel like every time they send scouts out,

they really don't do a good job. Like, hey, they're five minutes out. Huh? Where were you an hour ago? Yeah. Got tired. This is important that even though he did all this, it didn't matter.

Though after massive Zulu defeats from the previous invasion, the Zulu kingdom simply did not have much left in the tank. The Zulus pretty much just let the British invasion force slowly walk their way towards the capital of Yolundi, unopposed. That did not mean that the Brits were jumpy as hell. At one point, they opened fire on themselves and killed some engineers. The engineers had to be commanded by John Chard, who had survived Rourke's drift.

They fired on themselves? Happened a couple times. Like, one person's walking at the line? Zulu! Yeah. Yeah. Now, here comes a... Guy picks up a tree branch.

Spear! Yeah. Dude, I'm just building a tent! Yeah. Here's a fun bit of history that I did not expect to stumble upon when I started reading upon the Anglo-Zulu War. Though a group of British scouts was ambushed, it led to the death of Imperial Prince Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, head of the House of Bonaparte and the only child of Napoleon III.

What? So, by all accounts, the Imperial Prince was a fucking terrible soldier who routinely disregarded orders and was just kind of a dick all the time. He wanted to seek combat so badly that he ran off one too many times

and Clemsford had actually ordered a lieutenant named Jehiel Carey to be his babysitter with strict orders to not let the Imperial Prince seek combat. After that, he was ordered into scouting missions that his commander knew was free of Zulu forces. Just like, yeah, go patrol that wood line, Napoleon. Too easy, sir. I got you.

And it's like, wait, isn't this behind our line? He probably didn't know. He's probably like, fuck yeah. He had no idea. Action. One time his commander sent him out to where he thought it to be safe only to get ambushed. He sounds Bonaparte this guy sounds like like he just dabs all the time he's like

yes sir I got you like. Yeah he definitely said lit a lot. Yeah he just sounds like cause he sounds stuck up. Now a lot of people are probably wondering how the fuck the the house of Bonaparte's leader ended up in the British Army. I am as well. So when his dad was deposed, he and his mother ran to England where he kept his title mostly at the enjoyment of the British royal family. Like, ha ha, look, we have the leader of the House of Bonaparte, kind of just being our bitch,

who then became an officer in the British Army for mostly decoration. Right. And then when he demanded he see action, he was sent to South Africa with explicit orders to never let him see combat, which he then was so incompetent, he managed to see combat anyway. I wonder how you do that.

Well, his commander, who was sending him out to places he assumed to be clear, did that again, and this time it was not clear. Oh, wait a second. The map was upside down. Shit. Sent him in the wrong direction. Even in the middle of that ambush, the Imperial Prince managed to be incompetent. He managed to get ran over by his own horse

and then stabbed to death. By his horse? The horse is like, I'm on your side, Zulu! Yeah. The horse is definitely a fucking bourbon house fucking loyalist. Long live King Louis! He louis just tabby with a

spear and the zulus are like what the fuck the zoo is like we had no point of this some game of throne shit in africa now uh this actually started something of a conspiracy theory back in france so how the fuck do you do that? It is important to note that with the Prince Imperial, the House Bonaparte had a fair amount of loyalists back in France, hoping for the restoration of the House of Bonaparte.

Now with his death, it started something of a conspiracy theory amongst Bonapartists that the prince had been killed for the purpose of stopping the restoration of the Bonaparte Empire. I thought it was a conspiracy on horses. Yeah, that's why horse is a normal part of the French tie. To this day, they're just trying to eat

that motherfucker's family. They just continue to try to run him over. You know, I have to, but I'm really glad I found that whole little thing. I was like, how the fuck did louis napoleon straight up spear cool that's normal zulu war no it wouldn't matter i think at any point that which is explicitly why the the british government did not want him to see combat as they knew it had really bad political implications if something happened to him right because the bonapartist

faction was sizable until he died. Because he was the last male heir of the throne. And the last direct family member. And not to mention the Brits have tried multiple times to get rid of those fucking Corsican assholes. Isn't their best interest for all the Bonapartists

to be dead? I'm not entirely sure how the fuck he got ran over. Probably, he probably tried to, like, grab his horse who was spooked by all the gunfire and screaming warriors, and they just trampled right over him. I feel like he tried to do some cool, like, cowboy shit. Like an action movie to throw his leg over

while it was running? Or, like, hang off the side of it. Like, ha, I'll use my horse's cover and shoot at you. Yeah. No, it didn't work out. He lost grip strength went under he's like oh my my stomach and it just got stabbed oh my spleen yeah and his sword was actually delivered to King Kitschwayho himself really yeah now after that King Kitschwayho sent another message asking for peace,

and Clemsford sent his demands, which included all sorts of things he knew the king simply could not do, like bring him thousands of pounds of ivory within days. What? Bring me a ranch packet and fish tank rocks. What? Oh, God god bring me the McNugget sauce what now he gets way how

tried to win him over again by sending him Louis Napoleon sword like look bro my bad he said to his body like hey dude look at all the hoof marks he literally killed himself look at all the hoof marks on him. He literally killed himself. Yeah, look at all the hoof marks. With this spear in his stomach wide open. So, of course, this was all rejected because the king couldn't meet

with that sweet, sweet elephant tusk. When Clemsford finally ordered his army to... Without it. I don't make him out of fucking wood. I don't know. When Clemsford made his march on the catapult he purposely did so in the open a large square formation to simply prove that the british could defeat the zulu in open combat which is something they really had not done

because if you think about it all their victories had been behind fortifications and he was trying to save his own ass so he had them march in square formation yeah this reminds me of like the battle of the psalm we're like no no no don't run just walk yeah just walk shoulder to shoulder nothing bad will happen this will be fine college bands go out onto the field yeah kind of like that that's what i see like that but somehow more flamboyant oh um so of, the entire Zulu force, which was hiding in the nearby tall grass, immediately surprised

the dumbass army and surrounded them with about 15,000 warriors. Oh, fuck, that's a lot. Now, this is when, if the Zulu did not have such an aversion to guns, they would have almost certainly have won the battle. As they charged the British square,

they were cut down by ranks of disciplined soldiers firing on command. This gave the British enough time to deploy their Gatling guns and artillery at close range and began to pump canister shot into the Zulu formations. Ooh, canister. In just 30 minutes, the entire Zulu army would break and be destroyed

while only 10 British soldiers had died. This is a total war game that I'm listening to right now. This is a total war game set on easy with the cheat modes on. Are you listing off a total war game right now? Yeah, this actually never happened. Oh, this is you. Yeah. Actually, the UK doesn't exist.

Ket Sweho fled his capital and went on the run as his kingdom fell behind him. The formerly proud independent Zulu kingdom was divided into 13 different districts that would give the British puppet chiefs to ensure they would never again stand against them. Ketsueho was finally captured and sent away to a prison in Robben Island

for the crime of being king of his own country or something. Now Robben Island for the crime of being king of his own country or something. Yeah. Now, Robben Island is important because- You didn't meet our demands. It is the same place that Nelson Mandela was later imprisoned. Something of a trend of racism by white people in South Africa.

Yeah. He sat in prison for only a few years before being released in 1883 and was allowed to become a fake king in the land where he used to be a real king, which honestly sounds like a bigger fuck you than losing the war. To make matters even worse, a family member named Usabupi hired some white guys from a

nearby farm to kill him. He escaped, though wounded. Now powerless, he moved to Eshoeh, of all places, where he died of a heart attack a year later. Now you're probably wondering where the and what happened to the disgraced Lord Clemsford. Yeah, did

he get fired? He was promoted honored as a Knight of the Grand Cross of Bath Knight's Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Ardor and made the gold stick in waiting during ceremonial events i had to look that up the gold stick of waiting the gold stick and waiting is a really really

dumb term for like a ceremonial bodyguard really but they have to fucking church it up because it's england uh he died from seizing out while playing a game of pool when he was 78 in 1905. Old fucker. Yep. The only real punishment. That's probably all he did in the bar. So, uh, let me tell you about this time in the Zulu Wars. Someone's like, you mean that one where you got your shit pushed in? Yeah, in the way back. Who said that?

Get my gold stick. My name's Lieutenant Bromhead. I'm here to fuck your shit up. Now, the only real punishment that Clemsford ever faced from being an absolute fucking moron was never being allowed to do war again. The poor baby. He wasn't allowed to do war again.

Yep. Oh. Yep. He was simply never given command of soldiers again. That was the only thing that ever happened to him. Meanwhile, Ketsueho and the zulus were just torn to shit subjugated and turned to slaves for the most part yeah sent to the same island morgan freeman was at nelson mandela yep god damn it now because this episode ended horribly and the british winning yet again

why don't we do this what our whole podcast yeah uh Now, because this episode ended horribly and the British winning yet again... Why do we do this? What? Our whole podcast? Yeah. Uh... We don't ever have anything good to say. Oh, wait.

No, wait. We have listener Q&A. Never mind. Now we do have something good to say. I'll just say this is the story of my life. I have written two full books and published 70 podcasts now. 71 podcasts now. And I have yet to have anything good to say.

That's alright. The listener Q&A will bring it back. Okay. By far my favorite part of the episode now. Our Patreon supporter Q&A or questions from the Legion comes from Tanner. Q&L. Who asks what current leader would benefit most from having their own personal magician? Q&A or questions from the Legion comes from Tanner. Q&L. Who

asks, what current leader would benefit most from having their own personal magician? This of course harkens back to our Iraq Wars series. Holy shit, yeah. Fuck, a lot of them are like, a lot of them I feel like would clap their hands in kitty at it.

I'm gonna go with Zelensky, the current president of Ukraine, because a wizard is the only way he's ever going to control that entire country again. Thanks, Russia. I'd like to say somebody can't. He's bound by certain laws of his current job.

Yeah. Kim Jong-un could probably use a wizard. Oh, dude, he totally could. Because, like, it totally could. Because like, that's the only way that he'll ever not be considered a joke is if he has like, it's like the scene from Aladdin

where he's like, I wish I was the most powerful sorcerer in the world. I'm telling you, all they do is like fucking snake in the peanut jar like type shit. And they're like,

Al-Khazan, like, blah. So you don't think that Saddam's magician actually had real powers? Actually, you know what a really good answer for this question is? Who could probably really use a magician like circa 2003? Saddam Hussein.

Things didn't pan out that good for him. This fucker told me to hide under the bed and it didn't work. Or Iraq as a whole. Sorry for that, y'all. Way to end the podcast like that. We apologize for our horrible disease nation. Anyway, thank you for tuning into the show.

We could use one off to the side right here. We could use a vice president magician to try to unfuck everything that happened. Yeah, he could sit here and fuck it. A magician of labor relations. Like how Joe Rogan has Who does he fucking have? Jamie? A bunch of racists?

That too With the guy who always Hey look up this Look up chimp dicks Yeah Wait so you want our sidekick To be an all powerful wizard? I want him to be a wizard

Be like hey do a trick I'm gonna end world hunger No no no no Just a card trick Yeah Fuck fine I'll do a trick. I'm going to end world hunger. No, no, no, no. Just a card trick. Yeah. Fuck. Fine. I'll do a card trick.

It's the wrong one. Go fuck yourself. All right. Cool. Because this is the guy we could afford. He's not Harry Potter. It's Harry Potter if he went to DeVry University of Wizards. We got him at the gas station.

Oh, God. So thank you for tuning into the Anglo-Zulu war series if you think what we do is worth a buck you can throw it to us on Patreon for just a buck you can get one extra episode a month where we talk about military

history in the form of pop culture you can get our regular episodes early you can get access to our communal discord the hell of a way to die boys. You can actually ask us questions at which we'll answer on air and apparently just not do

anything with the wizards. But if you donate more than that, you can get even more bonus episodes, even more bonus content. You can get free books, free swag, and other shit. i don't know free swag swag yeah uh swag bitch god damn it he's back from the dead i know that guy too i don't know him know him but i used to like fuck i saw him on tosh and all this he's he's

florida man distilled into skin. But anyway, thank you for tuning in. If you don't want to do any of that, you don't feel like giving us money, of which I do not blame you, you can rate and review us on iTunes and it helps us greatly. Until then, don't get stabbed with a Zulu spear.

Don't get washed with one. Yeah. I would advise against it. Wash your spears.