The Battle of Rourke’s Drift
A ‘drift’ is South African parlance for a ‘ford’, or a point at which a river is crossed. The river was the Buffalo River, and Rourke’s Drift, the site of a Swedish mission station seconded by the British Army as a supply depot and hospital. It was defended by a small garrison of 150 mixed imperial and colonial troops. As panicked survivors of Isandlwana began to arrive in the late afternoon, it became clear that a large Zulu advance force was hot on their heels, and would be on the scene within hours, probably sooner.
The senior officer present was Assistant Commissary James Dalton of the Commissariat and Transport Department, and his immediate subordinates were Lieutenants John Chard and Gonville Bromhead. A decision had to be made, and made quickly. Should the garrison abandon the position and run, or should it stand and fight? A small force, traveling in the open, and burdened with the sick and wounded, would be overrun before evening, and judging by what had taken place at Isandlwana, there would be no survivors.
There was nothing for it but to fight. The garrison quickly set about fortifying the position with biscuit boxes, corn sacks and crates of tinned meat. By 16h30, an hour and a half after the last shot was fired at Isandlwana, the first Zulu arrived on the scene.
They did not arrive in force, and in fact, their mobilization gathered over hours. Nonetheless, several thousand men bore down on the lightly fortified camp. Some were armed with captured firearms, but the majority were traditionally armed. In one of the great epics of war, the Zulu mounted their traditional set-piece charges against this small force of men armed with Henri-Martinis. In the first wave, many were shot down at point-blank range, but many others reached the wall, and were beaten off in hand to hand fighting using swords and bayonets.
As fighting along the perimeter raged, the thatched roof of the hospital was torched, and a smaller battle raged in the tight corridors of the building as the Zulu attempted to break-in. They were fought off largely with bayonets as the surviving injured hacked through the walls and made their way through into the barricaded yard. As night fell, the British withdrew to the center of the yard were a final defensive position had been established. After twelve hours of solid combat, the Zulu eventually broke off the attack. Seventeen British soldiers and four-hundred Zulu lay dead on the battlefield.
The heroism of the moment offset somewhat the blunder of Isandlwana, and eleven Victoria Crosses were awarded, the highest ever in a single action. The Zulu were broken, however, and while the war limped on for a few more actions, the deed was done. Cetshwayo was exiled, and the Zulu ceased to be an independent nation.