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This article goes well beyond it's stated scope of the "Anglo-Zulu War," and into Zulu command structure, the events long before and long after the war. These might be more profitably split up, making them reference-able from other articles. Zulu tactics, developed by Shaka, for example.
It would be more readable if shorter. Student7 ( talk) 00:38, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
Also, the lead is a bit breathless, establishing the setting a la television, then proceeding to the heart of the matter. This is great showmanship, but not very good encyclopedia. The lead should summarize the article, not lead into it! Student7 ( talk) 00:51, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
The (currently edit-protected) article has issues with regard to copy-edit, potential orginal research, sloppy referencing, and contains some statements that sound POV.
My overall impression is still very positive. 188.100.201.255 ( talk) 20:09, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
There is a huge contradiction in the Weapons section of the article. It states that the long spear was discarded, and then a couple sentences later states that it was not discarded. Very poor writing. 4 May 2010 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 164.107.158.125 ( talk) 18:54, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
The huge section 6, 'Anatomy and assessment of the Zulu army', was added by this guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Enriquecardova, who you can see has been blocked for abusing accounts.
Not only is is the section entirely without sources and reads like poor essay, it has also been taken word for word in a copy paste job from this site: http://www.martinfrost.ws/htmlfiles/jan2009/anglo-zulu-war.html
Not good.
In light of this, I am stating my aim here to do a systematic overhaul of this section (no. 6), clarifying statements, adding ref's, removing fallacies and trimming a lot of the article bloat. I will aim to keep the basic idea (a overview of the zulu way of war in relation to the Anglo-Zulu war) but cut it down into something that has value for the reader.
I will leave this for a few days to see any objections. Gaius Octavius Princeps ( talk) 03:12, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
I was intending to save the core of section 6 and find sources to back it up, but on further reading it really would be a pointless task. It is not well written at all, informs us very little and is mostly irrelevant to the war itself. Also considering that the section is entirely a copy-paste job added at a whim by a banned editor (and thus also a copyright violation), a deletion of the section would probably be the best option. I will remove the section as discussed. Gaius Octavius Princeps ( talk) 15:42, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
Added essay tag to section 'Assessment of Zulu performance against the British' - Needs fully referencing and rewritten fro it to remain Kernel Saunters ( talk) 14:15, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
The Anglo-Zulu War was fought in 1879 between the British Empire and the Zulu Empire. From complex beginnings, the war is notable for several particularly bloody battles, as well as for being a landmark in the timeline of colonialism in the region. The war ended the Zulu nation's independence.
In 1862, Umtonga, a brother of Cetshwayo, son of Zulu king Mpande, fled to the Utrecht district, and Cetshwayo assembled an army on that frontier. According to evidence later brought forward by the Boers, Cetshwayo offered the farmers a strip of land along the border if they would surrender his brother. The Boers complied on the condition that Umtonga's life was spared, and in 1861 Mpande signed a deed transferring this land to the Boers. The south boundary of the land added to Utrecht ran from Rorke's Drift on the Buff to a point on the Pongola River.
The boundary was beaconed in 1864, but when in 1865 Umtonga fled from Zululand to Natal, Cetshwayo, seeing that he had lost his part of the bargain (for he feared that Umtonga might be used to supplant him, as Mpande had been used to supplant Dingane), caused the beacon to be removed, and also claimed the land ceded by the Swazis to Lydenburg. The Zulus asserted that the Swazis were their vassals and therefore had no right to part with this territory. During the year a Boer Commando under Paul Kruger and an army under Cetshwayo were posted to defend the newly acquired Utrecht border. The Zulu forces took back their land north of the Pongola. Questions were also raised as to the validity of the documents signed by the Zulus concerning the Utrecht strip; in 1869 the services of the lieutenant-governor of Natal were accepted by both parties as arbitrator, but the attempt then made to settle disagreements proved unsuccessful.
Such was the political background when Cetshwayo became absolute ruler of the Zulus upon his father's death in 1873. As ruler, Cetshwayo set about reviving the military methods of his uncle Shaka as far as possible, and even succeeded in equipping his regiments with firearms. It is believed that he caused the Xhosa people in the Transkei to revolt, and he aided Sikukuni in his struggle with the Transvaal. The activities of the missionaries were unwelcome to Cetshwayo. Though he did not harm the missionaries themselves, several converts were killed. The missionaries, for their part, were a source of hostile reports. For example, Bishop Schreuder (of the Norwegian Missionary Society) described Cetshwayo as "an able man, but for cold, selfish pride, cruelty and untruthfulness, worse than any of his predecessors."[citation needed]
In 1874 Lord Carnarvon, who had successfully brought about federation in Canada, thought that a similar scheme might work in South Africa. Sir Bartle Frere was sent to South Africa as High Commissioner to bring it about. One of the obstacles to such a scheme was the presence of the independent states of the South African Republic and the Kingdom of Zululand.
In September 1876 the massacre of a large number of girls (who had married men of their own age instead of men from an older regiment, as ordered by Cetshwayo) provoked a strong protest from the government of Natal, and the occupying governments were usually inclined to look patronisingly upon the affairs of the subjugated African nations. The tension between Cetshwayo and the Transvaal over border disputes continued. Sir Theophilus Shepstone, whom Cetshwayo regarded as his friend, had supported him in the border dispute, but in 1877 he led a small force into the Transvaal and persuaded the Boers to give up their independence. Shepstone became Administrator of the Transvaal, and in that role saw the border dispute from the other side. Tttom1 ( talk) 03:58, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
Separating these into two different lists is interesting. Also, non-standard. "References" are normally reserved for un-footnoted material. See, for example, WP:INCITE. Student7 ( talk) 19:59, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
as in "After considerable discussion and exchanges of views between Sir Bartle Frere and Sir Henry Bulwer..." (during war preparation, § "Ultimatum"). The one Henry Bulwer I found in WP en died childless in 1872...Thanks, Arapaima ( talk) 07:47, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
In Background > British Empire:
This means nothing, as far as I can see. It is just the vaguest sort of justification for imperialist aggression. A policy of expansion (generally in the form of invading and occupying neighbours) is inherent in the nature of empire. Otherwise there could be no empire.
We have to distinguish between historical fact and the often ridiculously thin justifications given by proponents of imperialist expansion for what is usually a series of unjustifiable invasions.
The statement, as it stands, puts the cart before the horse. Heavenlyblue ( talk) 21:00, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
No, there is a very real and deliberate white-washing of Wikipedia by the British and their supporters. They refuse to let the truth come out when it comes to their supposed empire's shameful history. It's evident in countless entries related to any of the places the British had no right to be in the first place. 24rhhtr7 ( talk) 02:31, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
The German Wiki article is citing the losses as following:
refer to Lord Chelmsford’s Official Account of the Battle of Ulundi, dat. 6. July 1879; printed in appendig C by Norris-Newman (2006), page 307–313, hier S. 312: „The loss of the Zulus killed in action since the commencement of hostilities in January, has been placed at not less than 10,000 men, and I am inclined to believe this estimate is not too great.“ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2003:C4:3F33:E600:50D1:E495:C6CD:7D14 ( talk) 12:32, 18 October 2020 (UTC)
i am currently translating this article to french and i found a problem in the dates:
how can mpande sign a deed in 1861 if umtonga leaves in 1862?
i don't know well the subject and i don't have any idea where to look... it would be nice if someone better informed could sort this out.
also a ref is strange: [6] Knight (1992, 2002), p. 8.
i don't know to what book does this refers to.
-- SyntaxTerror ( talk) 19:05, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
By the time the ultimatum was presented, the two infractions by Sihayo’s sons and the roughing up of Smith and Deighton were only part of the justification used, as several matters had arisen in the meantime. One of these was Cetshwayo’s apparent breaking of promises he had given to the then Mr Theophilus Shepstone at the king’s 'coronation' in 1872. This farcical piece of theatre had been agreed to by Cetshwayo simply to satisfy the wishes of Shepstone and meant nothing to the Zulu people. Indeed, his real Zulu installation had taken place several weeks earlier when he had been acclaimed by his izinduna.[29]
can someone correct this sentence please?
-- SyntaxTerror ( talk) 14:22, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
this sentence at the end of the ultimatum section seems to be POV and needs a source:
-- SyntaxTerror ( talk) 17:41, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
The article states "Following a campaign by which Lord Carnarvon had successfully brought about federation in Canada, it was thought that similar combined military and political campaigns might succeed ... (in Africa)" What military campaigns in Canada?-- Richardson mcphillips ( talk) 00:38, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
The British Empire was not a political entity, merely being the colonies of the UK. For Example, the sentence 'In 1874, Sir Henry Bartle Frere was sent to South Africa as High Commissioner for the British Empire to bring the plans into being.' is incorrect. High Commissioners were representatives of the UK government in Westminster, not 'the Empire'.
'By the 1870s the British Empire had colonies in southern Africa bordering on various Boer settlements, native African kingdoms such as the Zulus, and numerous indigenous tribal areas and states.' This too is incorrect. European empires in this time period were simply the sum of all colonies and possessions of the mother nation, not entities in themselves. As such it was the UK that had colonies in southern Africa, not 'the Empire'.
These points are evident in the fact that the British cabinet had a seperate minister 'for the colonies' and each colony had it's own colonial government, as the British government itself ultimately represented the United Kingdom alone, even if it had sovereignty and control over others.-- Allthestrongbowintheworld ( talk) 18:03, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
Does anyone have any figures on civilian casualties during the war? Zulu raids into Natal certainly killed some, mostly African civilians to my knowledge, while British invading forces must surely have killed some Zulu civilians? Jdorney ( talk) 01:40, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
This has to be one of the worst and most garbled opening sentences for any major article I've seen on Wikipedia:
The Anglo-Zulu War resulted from the second attempt in southern Africa of a successful policy with the ( federation of Canada) that was believed by the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies Lord Carnarvon applicable and necessary for the entire Cape region to consolidate the administrative and political systems of the African kingdoms, tribal areas and Boer republics in southern Africa in order to protect and advance British Empire interests and secure the role the Cape had in the Imperial political and economic interests in the southern hemisphere from Africa to Australia.
"federation of Canada"?? Paul B ( talk) 20:31, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
The second phrase of the article spills doubts over the whole article's credibility :
How is this Lord Carnarvon connected in any way with the Canadian federation? Nowhere is this individual mentioned in serious articles treating about the Canadian federation. That Lord was NOT amongst the fathers of the Canadian federation. So please, either remove this fantasy, or provide serious and verifiable sources (myself I haven't been able to find such source on the Web. So maybe that someone else will succeed, but I doubt it since it doesn't seem to be true, in regards to all historical sources I've read about this). Thanks in advance for correcting the article, -- HawkFest ( talk) 21:39, 15 May 2014 (UTC)
The entire article here really needs some major work, but the most salient issue to my eyes is the frequent use of non-neutral POV language. Whatever one thinks of the Sir Henry Bartle Frere or British imperialism in general, there is a standard of neutrality that is required on Wikipedia. Sometimes the bias is suggestive; sometimes it is blatant. See in particular the section "Boundary commission and ultimatum." Examples: "This farcical piece of theatre" and "these incidents were flimsy grounds." Likewise, assertions are made without any source being cited, and it is not like sources can't be found to support most of these assertions, albeit in somewhat different language (see for example the assertion beginning "Frere has been accused of chicanery by taking deliberate advantage of the length of time..."). It's impossible to read this entire section as anything other than (a poorly researched) indictment of Frere's course of action, rather than a neutral recounting of the episode. Recall what Wikipedia demands for for Neutral POV: "representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic."
Alexander1926 ( talk) 15:09, 13 December 2014 (UTC)Alexander1926
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