Zulu: The Heroism and Tragedy of the Zulu War | Saul David

For all his investigator’s demeanour, however, David does allow a number of jarring personal judgments to creep in; most are harmless expressions of opinion, but a few seem to cross the line. He observes, for example, that Lieutenant Chard might have shared his celebratory bottle of beer with Commissary Dalton, the officer who convinced Chard to defend the depot in the first place, ‘... [but] he did not. Dalton had come up from the ranks; he also knew too much.’ This might be true, but it sounds sinister and furthermore is unsupported by any evidence David presents. More serious is his speculation that Chelmsford purposely delayed burying the dead at Isandlwana because of ‘the danger that a full-scale burial party would find incriminating documents’ that would undermine his hastily created cover-up. Given the context, it’s not an unreasonable thought, but no evidence for it is provided, either. There’s more than enough to damn Chelmsford without adding hunches to the case against him.

David concludes by focusing on the aftermath of the war. Its enlisted heroes went the way of most war veterans: to continued service or to invalided and impoverished retirement, and ultimately to private deaths from old age, or disease, or suicide. By contrast, despite being accused by Disraeli of invading Zululand ‘avec un coeur léger’, and criticised by the adjutant-general for five specific errors that led to Isandlwana, Lord Chelmsford never lost the support of Queen Victoria, who promoted him to full general. In the end, Chelmsford went the way of most generals: he died in 1905, aged 78, ‘playing billiards in his club’.