Battlefield
Tours of South Africa with the
Anglo-Boer-Zulu
Battlefields and Military History of British
Africa colonial era. The early
Dutch pioneers
who in 1838 confronted the mighty Zulu empire under King Dingaan
at the Battle of
Blood River. In January 1879
the
British first invasion under the command
of
Lord Chelmsford crossed the Buffalo's River
at "kwa Jim's" mission station of
Rorkes Drift into Zululand leading
to the biggest single defeat of a modern British army against
the spears of the Zulu impi at the battle of
Isandhlwana,
a few hours later 11 VC's where won at the mission station at
Rorkes Drift and the 2 VC's at
Fugitives Drift the
first to be awarded posthumously. On the 1 June 1879 Chelmsford
started his second invasion of Zululand with yet another set back,
the
Prince Imperial (Napoleon) of France was
killed in a Zulu skirmish while on patrol, due to his previous
set backs Chelmsford doubled his efforts to reach the Zulu capital
of
Ulundi without further incidents. On the 4
July 1879 the mighty Zulu empire of the old order had been defeated
within an hour of giving battle. Although there was the "
Transvaal
war" of 1880/1 which lasted 3 months, the British
managed to take a rest for 18 years before the second South African
war broke out against the Boers.
In the words of Rudyard Kipling the Anglo
Boer war of 1899 - 1902 "taught the British
no end a lesson". In October 1899 the Boer forces
where mobilized and assembled at Sandspruit on the Transvaal
border and the British colony of Natal with a bold plan to strike
at the seaports of Durban and Cape
Town, if the plan had succeeded it would have caught
the main British forces still at sea and unable to land hopefully
returning the British to the negotiating table. It wasn't to
be and war lasted for a further 30 months costing the British
tax payer £220 million. Some of the famous towns like
the siege towns of Ladysmith, Mafekeng & Kimberley,
and people with a young Winston L S Churchill
and his train ambush, Gandhi who offered to
help with his ambulance brigade known as the "body
snatchers" and Conan Doyle who
wrote his account of the war during the time in South
Africa. The peace accord was finally signed at the
British
HQ of Melrose House in Pretoria on 31 May
1902.
We have tours to KwaZulu-Natal, the old Western
& Eastern Transvaal
and the Northern Cape,
with the Siege Towns of Ladysmith, Mafekeng of
Baden Powell, the diamond fields of Kimberley with the Magersfontein Battlefield of the Highland
Regiments, and the Free State Capital of Bloemfontein
with Sannaspos, Queens Fort and the vrou memorial with the final
resting place of Emily Hobhouse.
African Battlefields
is a South African based
specialist operator located in Pretoria, we supply
you with a one stop operation from collecting you at the airport
or Hotel using luxury transport, quality accommodation on and
near the battlefields and "Walking the Battlefields" to re-live the history of some of the most well preserved Battlefields
available from the
British Africa colonial conflicts of
the 19th century.
We have all year round escorted travel, tours & safaris
to South Africa's Battlefields of the British,
the Boers & the Zulu's and can offer you a complete
South Africa Travel Service with transfers,
tours and accommodations while in Southern Africa. All tours
and travel services are personally organized and conducted by
the owner, a South
African registered Battlefields guide.
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