Benjamin Pogrund
The Anglo-Zulu War: The War Correspondents by John Laband and Ian Knight (Jonathan Ball, R89,99)
During the war in Vietnam an American reporter found himself stranded in a forward position with a platoon of US soldiers. As night came the officer in charge ordered his men to dig foxholes: an attack was expected. He gave the reporter a rifle and told him to be ready to use it.
The reporter’s protest that he was a journalist, not a soldier, drew the angry reply: ”When the fucking Vietcong come storming through here they’re not going to stop to ask if you’re a fucking reporter. They’ll kill you with all of us.”
The reporter took the rifle and climbed into a foxhole. No attack came, but he spent the night, frightened and miserable, pondering the ethics of his profession.
His experience was a long way from the enthusiastic British correspondent in South Africa in 1879 who reported sitting on top of a wagon during a battle and ”steadily taking pot-shots” at the attacking Zulu fighters.
The moral doubt of the American in Vietnam did not exist in the second half of the last century when war reporting was in its infancy. Professional reporting of conflict had begun in earnest during the Crimean War of the 1850s and soon became a growth industry because of the dozens of British colonial wars of that era and the appetite for news about them among the rapidly growing number of newspaper and magazine readers.
The men who specialised in writing about war were not shy to report critically about the way in which campaigns were conducted. Yet their presence was welcomed because their reports, much like those of many modern war correspondents, were usually intended to fuel and satisfy the patriotic fervour and pride of the readers at home
The full-time reporters, known as ”special correspondents”, were a swashbuckling elite who projected a sense of romanticism with their semi-military uniforms and wide- brimmed hats. They were complemented by local writers who often remained anonymous because they were serving army officers.
A few of the reporting stars came to South Africa when it became clear that war against the Zulus was inevitable: Britain instructed Sir Bartle Frere, its high commissioner, to bring about a confederation of the region’s white-ruled countries under the British crown; Frere viewed the Zulu kingdom as an obstacle and was determined to crush it as a military threat.
He contrived a pretext for invasion and on January 12 1879 British and colonial forces, a mixture of whites and blacks, crossed the Tugela River – described by a correspondent as ”the frontier which divides the civilised domains of Queen Victoria from the savage domains of King Cetywayo [Cetshwayo]”. In the same vein of justification of the imperialist venture the report spoke of men ”gathered there to vindicate the just cause of an offended civilisation, and to assert the outraged authority of the British crown”.
The British leaders and the settlers thought it was going to be a pushover, with soldiers and militias armed with the latest rifles and backed by artillery and the new deadly Gatling machine-guns ranged against Zulu warriors carrying assegais and shields. The Zulus did have guns – perhaps as many as 20 000 – but these were outdated and largely ineffective.
Once across the frontier, few Zulus were seen and complacency set in. A few days later, on January 22, came the shock of Isandlwana, when the Zulus wiped out 1 300 of the invaders. Journalists rushed from Britain to cover a conflict in which British military pride was suddenly at stake. With them came the ”special artists” whose graphic drawings from the field on occasion also presented their own efforts in an heroic light.
It was only a matter of time before superior weapons won: Zulu power was destroyed at Ulundi on July 4 1879, and the kingdom was dismembered. Cetshwayo was tracked down and captured.
Recalling these seminal events in South African history through the eyes and words of the correspondents gives them a human scale. The reports are mainly one-sided, prejudiced and arrogant, but they are vivid and give a feeling of what it was like from day to day.
The correspondents’ reports are linked by a text provided by John Laband and Ian Knight. It is helpful and informative in setting the context of the times but could have benefited from the editing skills of a modern journalist to deal with ponderous language, repetition and inconsistencies.
The two authors also seem to suffer from some personal insecurity. Laband carries the title of professor on the cover as though he needs to be given extra weight. Knight’s name features frequently in credits for the book’s many fine contemporaneous drawings and photographs – as though he were responsible for them instead of just being the collector.
Blemishes apart, however, this book is a lively contribution to knowing our history.
Benjamin Pogrund is a former deputy editor of the Rand Daily Mail. His book on that newspaper will be published later this year