The Anglo-Zulu War has given us some of the most famous stories in British military history, thanks in large part to two well-known films about the conflict: Zulu and Zulu Dawn.

But it’s a war dominated by myth and misunderstanding. Some of those myths are relatively harmless. Others have fundamentally changed the way we understand what happened.

So let’s look at three of the biggest myths of the Anglo-Zulu War and try to separate historical fact from fiction.

I’ve already explored the historical inaccuracies of Zulu and Zulu Dawn elsewhere, so I won’t dwell on them here. Suffice to say:

  • Private Henry Hook was not a drunken malingerer. He was a damned good soldier.
  • John Langley Dalton was far from the rather effete character portrayed in Zulu. Many historians consider him one of the men most responsible for the successful defence of Rorke’s Drift.
  • The 24th Regiment of Foot was not predominantly Welsh, nor were its soldiers constantly bursting into song.
  • Colonel Pulleine almost certainly did not die cowardly writing a final letter in his tent.
  • Lord Chelmsford was not the sneering, unpleasant and unapproachable general portrayed in the film.

With those familiar myths out of the way, let’s get stuck into the deeper history.

My main sources include Ian Knight’s excellent books, Colonel Mike Snook’s How Can Man Die Better, and the collected works of the late historian and battlefield guide Pat Rundgren. See the end of this article for the full list.

Another important work is The Washing of the Spears by American author Donald Morris. It’s a tremendous read but is also responsible for perpetuating several myths. Enjoy it, but don’t take everything as gospel. Morris was writing decades ago and didn’t have access to many of the sources available to modern historians.

MYTH 1: The Firing Line Ran Out of Ammo

On 22 January 1879, the British camp beneath the mountain of Isandlwana was overwhelmed by the main Zulu army.

More than 1,300 men on the British side were killed.

Ever since, historians and enthusiasts have tried to explain how an army equipped with modern breech-loading rifles could have suffered such a catastrophic defeat.

One explanation has become particularly famous: the ammunition ran out.

Or, more specifically, the ammunition was available, but soldiers couldn’t get at it because the wooden ammunition boxes were screwed shut.

You may also have heard stories of desperate soldiers arriving at ammunition wagons, only to be turned away by stubborn quartermasters because they belonged to the wrong battalion.

But what really happened?

Before Lord Chelmsford marched half his force out of camp on the morning of 22 January, he left explicit instructions that the reserve ammunition of the 2nd Battalion, 24th Regiment, was to be held ready for his column if requested.

Early in the battle, when there was no obvious threat to the camp, Quartermaster Bloomfield quite properly kept his battalion’s reserve intact to comply with those orders.

However, as soon as the main Zulu attack developed and the danger became apparent, senior officers overruled those initial objections and ordered reserve ammunition to be distributed.

Officers including Captain Edward Essex and Lieutenant Horace Smith-Dorrien gathered men from around the camp, broke open ammunition boxes and sent cartridges to the firing line by hand and mule cart.

We know this because both men survived the battle and left accounts of their experiences.

Writing just four days after the disaster, Essex described his efforts:

“The two companies that had been moved from the hill were now getting short of ammunition, so I went to camp to bring up a fresh supply. I got such men as were not engaged – bandsmen, cooks etc to assist me and sent them up to the line under charge of an officer and I followed with more ammo in a mule cart.”

That unnamed officer was almost certainly the young Lieutenant Smith-Dorrien, whose account is remarkably similar.

Smith-Dorrien’s autobiography also describes distributing ammunition to the firing line, although he accused Quartermaster Bloomfield of initially refusing to release supplies.

There is a problem with that accusation, however. His autobiography was written decades later, and no such exchange appears in his more contemporary letters.

Modern archaeological investigations provide further evidence that ammunition reached the British firing line. Bent screws from ammunition boxes that had been forced open have been discovered along the original British positions.

What About the Infamous Ammunition Boxes?

The idea that soldiers were desperately searching for screwdrivers while thousands of Zulu warriors charged towards them has become one of the most enduring stories of the battle.

But there was no great screwdriver bottleneck.

The ammunition boxes were secured by a single two-inch screw over a sliding wooden lid, with an inner tin liner protecting the cartridges.

Many NCOs and soldiers would have had access to screwdrivers, but they weren’t essential. Men could use heavy tools or rifle butts to split the lids and force the boxes open.

And what about the much-maligned Quartermaster Bloomfield?

He had joined the army at the age of eleven and worked his way through the non-commissioned ranks, from boy drummer to sergeant-major, before becoming a quartermaster.

Far from stubbornly guarding his ammunition, Bloomfield was killed by a bullet while standing on a wagon, actively loading ammunition boxes onto a mule cart for the front line.

A brave man indeed.

Did Anyone Actually Run Out of Ammunition?

Yes, but the circumstances matter.

Once the British infantry had been forced back towards the camp, surrounded and attacked from all sides, resupply became virtually impossible.

Some soldiers undoubtedly exhausted their cartridges and were forced to rely on their bayonets. By that stage, however, the battle was already as good as lost.

There was also a genuine ammunition problem among Colonel Anthony Durnford’s Natal Native Horse.

These mounted troops had been defending the Nyogane donga when their ammunition began running low, forcing them to withdraw. Their retreat contributed to the collapse of the wider British firing line.

Several factors explain their predicament.

Firstly, the African horsemen had been issued just 50 rounds each for their Swinburn-Henry carbines and Snider rifles, compared with the 70 rounds carried by the regular infantry of the 24th.

Secondly, they had been fighting for longer, having encountered the main Zulu army before the regular British units became fully engaged.

Finally, Durnford had been in such a hurry to locate the Zulus that he had failed to establish exactly where his men’s reserve ammunition and baggage wagons were positioned.

Consequently, when his troopers began running out of cartridges in the donga, nobody knew where to find their specific reserves.

This was a serious logistical failure, but it was not the same as the familiar story of British infantry being denied ammunition by stubborn quartermasters.

Verdict: Myth largely busted. Ammunition shortages played a part in the final stages of the battle, and Durnford’s mounted men faced genuine supply problems. But the suggestion that the main British firing line collapsed because ammunition boxes couldn’t be opened or quartermasters refused to issue cartridges is not supported by the evidence.

Myth 2: The Zulus Tortured and Mutilated British Drummer Boys

One of the darkest stories connected with Isandlwana concerns the fate of British drummer boys.

For generations, accounts have circulated of young boys being captured, tortured and mutilated by Zulu warriors.

Some descriptions are horrific.

Trooper Makin of the King’s Dragoon Guards visited the battlefield months after the fighting and described seeing the remains of what he believed were drummer boys, including bodies apparently hung from a wooden structure.

Other witnesses repeated similar claims. Victorian newspapers seized upon the stories, while paintings and later books helped cement the image in the public imagination.

Charles Fripp’s famous painting of Isandlwana clearly depicts a young boy among the British soldiers.

Even Donald Morris, in The Washing of the Spears, describes a twelve-year-old boy refusing to hand over his battalion’s ammunition to Simeon Kambule of the Natal Native Horse.

Surely that’s proof enough that children were fighting and dying at Isandlwana?

Well, not quite.

How Old Were the Drummer Boys?

The problem with this story is that the drummers at Isandlwana were not little boys.

The 1st Battalion of the 24th Regiment lost twelve men holding the rank of drummer.

The youngest was eighteen.

They were adult soldiers.

And despite the name, their battlefield role was no longer simply to stand around beating drums. Bugles were used to transmit orders, while drummers also performed a range of other military duties.

The British Army did still have soldiers officially classified as boys, however.

There were five such soldiers in the camp at Isandlwana. According to Ian Knight’s research, the youngest was Joseph McEwen, aged fifteen.

That’s certainly far too young by modern standards to be exposed to the horrors of battle, although nineteenth-century attitudes towards military service were rather different.

But these lads were not the tiny children of eleven or twelve who appear in some versions of the story.

Of course, Victorian military records should always be treated with a little caution. Young recruits sometimes lied about their ages to enlist.

Nevertheless, the popular image of ranks of small drummer boys being slaughtered at Isandlwana simply isn’t supported by the surviving records.

What About the Mutilation Stories?

The aftermath of Isandlwana was horrific.

Many British bodies had been stripped of clothing and equipment. Others had been cut open or stabbed repeatedly.

To British soldiers returning to the battlefield, the scene appeared to provide evidence of terrible torture and cruelty.

But there is an important cultural context.

Zulu warriors followed traditions and rituals associated with killing an enemy.

The abdomen of a dead opponent might be opened, traditionally understood as releasing the dead man’s spirit.

A particularly brave enemy might be stabbed by several warriors, while clothing and equipment could be removed and taken.

None of this makes the scene any less disturbing, but it does change our understanding of what happened.

There is no strong evidence that young British soldiers were deliberately singled out for torture, nor is there convincing evidence of organised torture of prisoners.

Zulu armies generally did not take prisoners during battles such as Isandlwana. Men who were caught were killed.

Captain Penn Symons of the 24th later addressed the atrocity stories directly:

“No single case of torture was proved against the Zulus. The wild stories current at the time and repeated in the English papers were quite untrue.”

Men certainly died horribly at Isandlwana, and their bodies were treated in ways that horrified the Victorian soldiers who subsequently returned to the battlefield.

But the familiar story of helpless little drummer boys being deliberately tortured belongs much more to the mythology that developed after the battle than to the historical record.

Verdict: Largely a myth. Young soldiers were present at Isandlwana, and the treatment of the dead was undoubtedly gruesome. But the dramatic stories of small drummer boys being singled out for torture are not supported by convincing evidence.

Myth 3: Were Zulu Warriors High on Drugs at Isandlwana?

Another popular explanation for the British defeat at Isandlwana concerns drugs.

I’ve often heard claims that Zulu warriors were pumped full of powerful hallucinogens, making them fearless, aggressive and almost impervious to pain.

It’s an easy explanation, isn’t it?

Our stubborn redcoats were only beaten because their opponents had been transformed into drug-fuelled killing machines.

But is there any truth to it?

This is a tricky subject because traditional Zulu medicine certainly played an important role in preparing warriors for battle.

The question is whether those medicines actually produced the extraordinary physical and psychological effects sometimes claimed.

The Evidence for Drugs

An article published by the American broadcaster PBS, drawing on its documentary about Isandlwana, makes some striking claims about traditional medicines used by Zulu warriors.

According to the article, cannabis-based snuff could contain high concentrations of THC, while other substances allegedly included the Bushman Poison Bulb and hallucinogenic mushrooms.

The suggestion is that these substances could reduce pain, alter perception and even make warriors believe they were impervious to British bullets.

It certainly sounds convincing.

But we need to distinguish between the existence of traditional medicines, their possible chemical properties and evidence that thousands of Zulu warriors actually consumed them before the battle.

These are three very different questions.

How the Zulu Army Was Prepared for War

Traditional medicine, known as muti, remains widely used in South Africa today.

Before the Zulu army left the royal capital at Ulundi, warriors underwent a complex ritual overseen by traditional doctors known as izinyanga.

As Ian Knight explains in his excellent book The Anatomy of the Zulu Army, the ceremony involved warriors swallowing traditional medicines and then regurgitating them into a specially prepared hole.

The purpose was to cast out impurities and spiritually bind the warriors together.

Another ceremony involved strips of meat cut from a black bull, which were eaten by the assembled warriors.

These were important rituals, but they took place well before the battle of Isandlwana.

On the day itself, it is unlikely that the izinyanga accompanying the army had sufficient time to conduct the usual preparations.

The Zulus had not originally intended to fight on 22 January, which was considered an inauspicious day.

Indeed, contemporary Zulu accounts blamed the heavy casualties suffered at Isandlwana and Rorke’s Drift partly on the fact that the regiments had not been properly doctored, including the usual sprinkling with medicines and exposure to medicinal fumes.

This raises an obvious question.

If there wasn’t time for the normal rituals, was there really an opportunity for thousands of warriors to consume enough hallucinogenic drugs to transform their behaviour?

We simply don’t know.

The warriors would certainly have carried their snuff, and cannabis may have been mixed into it.

But even if it contained high levels of THC, would that really have turned them into fearless fighting machines incapable of feeling pain?

I’m not convinced.

What About Magic Mushrooms?

Then there is the claim that Zulu warriors consumed hallucinogenic mushrooms.

Such mushrooms have a long history of human use, but the frequently mentioned fly agaric seems an unlikely candidate.

Rather than transforming men into fearless warriors, fly agaric can cause nausea, confusion and drowsiness. Hardly ideal qualities for somebody preparing to charge a line of British soldiers armed with Martini-Henry rifles.

The late Pat Rundgren examined this subject in an interesting article about the alleged use of magic mushrooms by Zulu warriors.

There is also a geographical problem.

Fly agaric is originally associated with the Northern Hemisphere and grows in association with certain trees, including pines and oaks.

In South Africa, it is largely associated with areas where these introduced trees have become established.

Given the historical distribution of these trees, the suggestion that Zulu warriors were routinely consuming fly agaric in Zululand in 1879 seems highly questionable.

Unless, of course, the Zulus had somehow managed to establish vast pine forests without anyone noticing.

The Real Power of Traditional Medicine

Perhaps the explanation is rather simpler.

There is little doubt that Zulu warriors used snuff and protective medicines, and that traditional rituals played a crucial part in preparing the army for battle.

In the excitement of an impi preparing to fight, these practices may well have heightened the mood and aggression of the assembled warriors.

But the greatest power of the medicines was probably psychological.

They reinforced the belief that warriors were spiritually protected, bound to their comrades and destined to defeat their enemies.

These beliefs were reinforced by the extraordinary discipline and cohesion of the Zulu military system.

Then there were the traditional war cries, known as amahubo, which helped build collective emotion and fighting spirit.

Imagine thousands of warriors chanting together, working themselves into a state of intense excitement before charging towards an enemy armed with modern rifles.

That alone would have been an extraordinarily powerful experience.

We should also remember that the Zulu army was a highly organised military force with experienced commanders, established tactics and a formidable tradition of battlefield success.

Its victory at Isandlwana does not require a pharmaceutical explanation.

Verdict: Not entirely busted, but certainly unproven. Traditional medicines played an important role in Zulu military culture, and some may have contained psychoactive substances. However, the claim that drugs transformed the warriors at Isandlwana into fearless killing machines goes well beyond the available evidence.

Perhaps we should take that particular story with a pinch of snuff. I mean salt.

Conclusion: Separating Myth from Reality

The Anglo-Zulu War remains one of the most fascinating and controversial conflicts in British military history.

Part of its enduring appeal lies in the extraordinary stories that emerged from battles such as Isandlwana and Rorke’s Drift.

But those stories have been shaped by Victorian journalism, popular histories, films and generations of retelling.

The supposed failure to distribute ammunition, the slaughter of helpless drummer boys and the image of drug-crazed Zulu warriors all offer simple explanations for complicated events.

The truth is considerably more interesting.

The British defeat at Isandlwana was the result of a combination of military decisions, tactical circumstances and the determination and effectiveness of the Zulu army.

Understanding what happened means looking beyond familiar legends and returning to the contemporary accounts, archaeological evidence and the work of modern historians.

And there are plenty more myths surrounding the Anglo-Zulu War that deserve the same treatment.

I’d be interested to hear which ones you think we should tackle next.

Sources and Further Reading (affiliate links included)

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