[147] “The panic and confusion were fearful,” says one of themselves.
[148] The number of prisoners thus killed is said to have been about twenty.
[149] Yet Sir B. Frere, on the 30th June, writes: “The position of Wood’s and Pearson’s columns effectually checked the execution of an attempt at invasion.” These two columns, being some ninety miles apart and secure in their own positions only, would have been of little avail had the Zulu king desired to make “an attempt at invasion.” It needed no better strategists than Cetshwayo and his chiefs to have masked each of the posts at Kambula and Etshowe with some 5000 men, and then “the Zulus might march at will through the country.”
[150] Some officers who were with the advance column, and who afterwards visited Isandhlwana, say that they appear to have “tried to get the waggons together to form a laager,” but there was not time.
[151] With respect to this, Lord Chelmsford lays down a principle (relative to the border raids, but even more strongly applicable here) that if a force remains “on the passive defensive, without endeavouring by means of scouting in small bodies or by raiding in large ones, to discover what the enemy is doing in its immediate front, it deserves to be surprised and overpowered.”—(P. P. [C. 2318] p. 80).
[152] It is stated that on the previous evening there was no intention on the part of the Zulus to attack the camp upon the 22nd, which was not thought by them a propitious day, being that of the new moon. It is also said that the Zulu army came with pacific intentions, in order to give up Sihayo’s sons, and the cattle for the fine. In all probability they left the king with such orders—that is to say, to make terms if possible, but to fight if forced to it, and if the English intentions were plainly hostile. This hostility was thoroughly proved before the morning of the 22nd, when the departure of Lord Chelmsford’s force from the camp must have been a strong temptation to the Zulus to attack the latter.
Warning of the Zulu army moving against Nos. 1 and 3 Columns was received on the border, and communicated to Mr. Fannin, Border Agent, on January 20th. The warning stated that the whole Zulu army, over 35,000 strong (except about 4000 who remained with the king), was marched in two columns, the strongest against Colonel Glyn’s column, the other against Colonel Pearson; this was to take up its position on the 20th or 21st January at the royal kraal near Inyezane, and the first to approach Rorke’s Drift. The writer complains of the little and inadequate use made of the information, which might have been communicated from Fort Pearson to Rorke’s Drift in time to have averted the fearful disaster of the 22nd January.—(P. P. [C. 2308] pp. 69, 70).
[153] P. P. (C. 2318) p. 12.
[154] Had Lord Chelmsford been acquainted with this peculiarity of the Zulus, he might not have thought it necessary to hurry away from Isandhlwana on the 23rd. There was no fear of the same force attacking again for some days to come.
[155] P. P. (C. 2318) pp. 11-17.