Can someone explain about Anglo-Zulu War ?

Answer 1

The Anglo-Zulu War was fought in 1879 between Britain and the Zulus, and signalled the end of the Zulus as an independent nation. It had complex beginnings, some bad decisions and bloody battles that caused the British to engage earlier than they intended, but played out a common story of colonialism.

Background
Disputes as to the causes of the war which broke out on January 11, 1879 concerned, chiefly, the occupied territory which in 1854 was proclaimed the republic of Utrecht, and the Boers who had settled there, who had that year obtained a deed of cession from king Mpande. In 1860 a Boer commission was appointed to survey and mark the boundary, and to obtain from the Zulus, if possible, a road to the sea at St Lucia Bay. However the commission achieved nothing.

In 1861, Umtonga, a brother of Cetshwayo, son of Zulu king Mpande, fled to the Utrecht district, and Cetshwayo assembled an army on that frontier. According to evidence later brought forward by the Boers, Cetshwayo offered the farmers a strip of land along the border if they would surrender his brother. The Boers complied on the condition that Umtonga's life was spared, and in 1861 Mpande signed a deed transferring this land to the Boers. The southern boundary of the land added to Utrecht ran from Rorke's Drift on the Buffalo to a point on the Pongola River.

The boundary was beaconed in 1864, but when in 1865 Umtonga fled from Zululand to Natal, Cetshwayo, seeing that he had lost his part of the bargain (for he feared that Umtonga might be used to supplant him, as Mpande had been used to supplant Dingane), caused the beacon to be removed, and also claimed the land ceded by the Swazis to Lydenburg. The Zulus asserted that the Swazis were their vassals and therefore had no right to part with this territory. During the year a Boer commando under Paul Kruger and an army under Cetshwayo were posted to defend the newly acquired Utrecht border. The Zulu forces took back their land north of the Pongola. Questions were also raised as to the validity of the documents signed by the Zulus concerning the Utrecht strip; in 1869 the services of the lieutenant-governor of Natal were accepted by both parties as arbitrator, but the attempt then made to settle disagreements proved unsuccessful.

Such was the political background when Cetshwayo became absolute ruler of the Zulus upon his father's death in 1873. As ruler, Cetshwayo set about reviving the military methods of his uncle Shaka as far as possible, and even succeeded in equipping his regiments with firearms. It is believed that he caused the Xhosa people in the Transkei to revolt, and he aided Sikukuni in his struggle with the Transvaal. His rule over his own people was tyrannous. For example, Bishop Schreuder (of the Norwegian Missionary Society) described Cetshwayo as "an able man, but for cold, selfish pride, cruelty and untruthfulness, worse than any of his predecessors."

In September 1876 the massacre of a large number of girls (who had married men of their own age instead of men from an older regiment, as ordered by Cetshwayo) provoked a strong protest from the government of Natal, the occupying governments were usually inclined to look patronisingly upon the affairs of the subjected African nations. The tension between Cetshwayo and the Transvaal over border disputes continued, and when in 1877 Britain annexed the Transvaal, the new occupiers of the country inherited these problems.

Answer 2

Hmm.. Fought in 1879, British commanded by Lord Chelmsford, Zulus by King Cetswayo. Early Zulu victory at Isandalwha, 300 brits massacred. Regrouped at Rorke's Drift. Several other inconclusive battles until the British took Ulundi, the Zulu Capital. King Cetswayo captured some months later. The British went to war mainly because they wanted the Zulu lands. The spin doctors said the war was to prevent King Cetsawayo arbitrarily executing his own people. That might nail you a C-. Cheers.