The Battle of Isandlwana was a battle in the Anglo-Zulu War in which a Zulu army defeated a mixed British and native force on 22 January 1879, attacking their camp by surprise beneath the mountain of Isandlwana. (Isandlwana is 10 miles east of the Tugela River in Zululand, South Africa.) The British were commanded by Brevet Lieutenant Colonel Henry Pulleine and Colonel Anthony Durnford. It was a major defeat — remaining the greatest British military defeat at the hands of native forces in history. 850 Europeans and around 450 Africans in British service died.
Later that day, the remaining Zulu forces (having trampled the British due to overwhelming numbers and terrible planning on the part of the British) moved on to Rorke’s Drift, where 4,000 of them attempted to take a small garrison, in a poor defensive position (bottom of a valley, wide walls) from 100 British soldiers. On top of having numbers that crushed a force five times that size hours before, the Zulus now had the Martini-Henry rifles taken off the British dead, giving them an even larger edge against the defenders of Rorke’s Drift.
Part of the brilliant defense was preparation for the first failure: Since the wall around the Drift was too wide to hold with so few soldiers:
…Chard ordered the construction of a second line of boxes through the middle in order to facilitate a withdrawal if the need arose. The buildings were fortified, with makeshift loopholes knocked in the walls and doors facing out of the perimeter barricaded with spare furniture.
The entire Wikipedia entry is fascinating, especially the recounting of a brave rescue from the hospital, where soldiers moved between rooms using pickaxes while the building burnt down around them.
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