This Memorable Day
Peter Gutmann
pgut001 at cs.auckland.ac.nz
Wed Nov 10 19:24:22 PST 2004
ken <bbrow07 at students.bbk.ac.uk> writes:
>James A. Donald wrote:
>> So far the Pentagon has
>> shattered the enemy while suffering casualties of about a thousand,
>> which is roughly the same number of casualties as the British empire
>> suffered doing regime change on the Zulu empire - an empire of a
>> quarter of a million semi naked savages mostly armed with spears.
>
>Be fair. They had a trained and disciplined army. Most of whom
>would obey orders to the death. That's worth a hell of a lot in
>battle.
You also had to look at what they were up against. Witness the complete
massacre at Isandlwana (the classic Zulu bull-and-horns overran the
British camp because the troops were too far away from their ammunition
to resupply, no doubt copying Elphinstone's tactic in Afghanistan) vs.
post-Isandlwana use of Gatling batteries and massed field artillery
(some of which was converted Naval artillery), e.g. Ulundi, where
post-battle reports were of piles of Zulu dead mown down by Gatlings.
The British only thought that the Zulus were just semi-naked savages
until Isandlwana.
Peter.
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