Rorke’s Drift

Wordsworth Military Library series

The defense of Rorke’s Drift has gone down in history as one of the grandest heroic actions of British colonial wars. About a hundred men defeated an enemy force 30 or 40 times their size, and 11 of the defenders were awarded Britain’s highest military decoration, the Victoria Cross. The action has been immortalized in the film Zulu.

Michael Glover shows how this event was exploited for political ends, and why an event of little military consequence found its way into the National Hagiography of Battles.