Zulu Conquered

The first Britons to reach Zululand were a handful of shipwrecked traders. They found themselves completely at the mercy of a nation whose name would become a byword for ferocity and courage. The castaways were fearful of their lives but, to their surprise, were well treated and prospered.

At the time, the Indian Ocean shoreline of the Zulu kingdom extended for almost 400 miles, whilst its inland frontiers reached as far as the Drakensberg mountains. Fifty years later the kingdom had diminished by half, followed by a threat that it would shortly cease to exist.

And so it was, in December 1878, as Cetshwayo ka Mpande, the Zulu king, contemplated the British ultimatum with which he knew it would be impossible to comply, he pondered on the past and with bitterness mused: 'first came the traders, then came the missionaries and then came the red soldiers'.

But British traders, missionaries and her red soldier army had been invidiously advancing into Zululand for decades, their every encounter and demand bringing the red soldiers closer to the Zulu army of 40 000 disciplined warriors – 'the bravest of a brave nation'.

Zulu Conquered, with more than 130 vivid illustrations, describes the adventure, treachery and rampage that ensued between Zulu, Boer and Briton during the sixty years separating the arrival of the first white man to the destruction of the Zulu army, the death of King Cetshwayo and, finally, the devastation of Zululand.

Ron Lock is the co-author of the internationally acclaimed Zulu Victory: The Epic of Isandlwana and the Cover-Up, and Zulu Vanquished: The Destruction of the Zulu Kingdom. He lives in Kwa-Zulu Natal and enjoys access to all the historical battlefields of the area.

---

Some books that may interest you

The Desert Air War 1940-1943 By: Anthony Tucker-Jones	Destroyer Leader By: Peter C Smith	Larkhill's Wartime Locators By: Massimo Mangilli-Climpson
Billericay in the Great War By: Ken Porter, Stephen Wynn	The Nisibis War By: John S Harrel	A Postcard History of the Passenger Liner By: Christopher Deakes
Women at War in the Classical World By: Paul Chrystal	Voices From the Past: The Zeebrugge Raid 1918 By: Paul Kendall	History of the Glider Pilot Regiment By: Claude Smith