Motion picture: Zulu, 1964.
Directed by Cy Endfield.
Historically known as the battle at Rorke’s Drift, the movie Zulu depicts the real life stand of a small garrison of British soldiers, who dug in and defended their tiny encampment from 4,000 Zulu warriors right after the British defeat at Isandlwana on the 22nd of January, 1879 (Zulu Dawn). For close to two days, the entrenched defenders, bore the brunt of the Zulu attack till fatigued by hunger and the arrival of a relief column made the Zulus lift the siege.
Rorke’s Drift was the second major engagement between the British and the Zulus, in the Anglo-Zulu wars with the former emerging victorious. Eleven soldiers from the garrison went on to receive the Victoria Cross for gallantry against overwhelming odds, including the controversial decoration of its two commanding officers, Lieutenant John Chard of the Royal Engineers and Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead of the 24th regiment of foot.
As sequence of events go, Zulu is the second movie to watch, though the film was released twelve years before Zulu Dawn in 1964. Starring a young Michael Caine as Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead and Stanley Baker as Lieutenant John Chard, the film received positive reviews but is also known for its historical inaccuracies.
