“Ye may talk o’ gin and beer
When yer quartered safe out ‘ere.
And, yer sent ta penny fights and Aldershot it.
But when it comes ta slaughter
Ye’ll do yer work on water
And lick the bloomin’ boots of ‘im what’s got it.”
From Piet – Homage to Boer ‘Soldiers’”
(Regular of the Line)
“I DO not love my Empire’s foes,
Nor call ’em angels; still,?
What is the sense of ’atin’ those
’Oom you are paid to kill??
So, barrin’ all that foreign lot
Which only joined for spite,?
Myself, I’d just as soon as not
Respect the man I fight.”
From “Fuzzy Wuzzy”
“‘E rushes at the smoke when we let drive,
An’, before we know, ‘e’s ‘ackin’ at our ‘ead;
‘E’s all ‘ot sand an’ ginger when alive,
An’ ‘e’s generally shammin’ when ‘e’s dead.
‘E’s a daisy, ‘e’s a ducky, ‘e’s a lamb!
‘E’s a injia-rubber idiot on the spree,
‘E’s the on’y thing that doesn’t give a damn
For a Regiment o’ British Infantree!
So ‘ere’s to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, at your ‘ome in the Soudan;
You’re a pore benighted ‘eathen but a first-class fightin’ man;
An’ ‘ere’s to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, with your ‘ayrick ‘ead of ‘air —
You big black boundin’ beggar — for you broke a British square!”
Don
Reading Gunga Din, I could here are Vietnam veteran sergeants saying in effect
Now in Nam’s sunny clime,
Where I used to spend my time
A-servin’ Lyndon Johnson,
Undoubtedly his lyrics cleaned up for family hour but they are the authentic voice.
Last December was \Kipling’s 150th Birthday.
Hank, for those on the sharp end of the stick the military experience tends to resonate the same in many ways, no matter the time and place. When I was in Army ROTC in the Seventies, I heard many a war story about Vietnam from a Major who had served with the Rangers over there. He married a Vietnamese lady and fell in love with the people and their culture.
To read Lt Chard’s account, we find that the movie very accurately conveys the sense that they were better off than they might have first thought with the desertions that occurred before the Zulus engaged.
.
Fine movie!
Good advice for all in these difficult times, from the Colour Sergeant:
“Look to your front!”
and “Nobody told you to stop working.”
“Look to your front!”
and “Nobody told you to stop working.”
Words to live by!
Dieu et mon droit. Things are rarely as bad as they seem nor as good.
Despair is a sin against Hope.
“An’ a Zulu impi dished us up in style:” from “Fuzzy Wuzzy” (in the Sudan Fuzzy Wuzzy broke a British square!) by Rudyad Kipling.
Less than 24 hours before the Rourke’s Drift fight, a main column of Brit regulars and auxilliaries were massacred at Isandlhwana. The reports show that the regulars were spread too thin and could not be sufficiently supplied with cartidges to keep at bay the cold steel wielded by (relatively) huge numbers of brave athletes.
That was worse than the Litte Big Horn.
I have the excellent book, The Washing of the Spears, which details the war.
The generals finally figured out how to beat the Zulu mobile assegai men. Years later, the Boers (“The Boers knocked us silly at a mile,” again Kipling) similarly roughed up the vaunted sassenach regulars.
“The Three Feathers ” is also a good Brit (Khartoum/Omdurman) war movie.
The uniforms are wrong. The soldiers are dressed as if for a parade and Chard and Bromhead look as if they have just stepped out of a military tailor’s circa 1900. Rank badges were different in 1879, and worn on the collar. On campaign the sun helmets were stained brown with tea and had no plate, and the soldiers would be wearing a red serge “frock”. Most were bearded – a photograph of Chard shows him looking like an Old Testament prophet. Officers tended to wear blue patrol jackets, but at Rorke’s Drift Chard was wearing a short RE shell jacket and Bromhead an ordinary soldier’s tunic.
Some 1960s sentiments and assumptions strike a false note. The soldiers would not have been horrified by the slaughter, in fact they went out after the battle and cheerfully despatched the wounded Zulus with bullet or bayonet. Surgeon Reynolds’s outburst: “Damn you Chard! Damn all you butchers!” would not have been uttered in that or any other war. Both Chard and Bromhead were regarded as mediocre officers; the latter was almost totally deaf and was described as “a capital fellow in everything except soldiering”. The real hero of Rorke’s Drift was Acting Assistant Commissary James Dalton, aged 45 in 1879. It was he who persuaded Chard not to abandon the post and who organized the defence. He was, incidentally, a Catholic.
There are similarities between Isandhlwana and Little Big Horn. Both Chelmsford and Custer underestimated the number of their opponents; both divided their forces. However, the greatest defeat inflicted on a European army by native troops was at Adowa in 1896 where a large Italian force was routed by the Ethiopians. Italian casualties were 11,500 (including 7,000 killed). By the way, Mr Shaw, the Scots and Irish who made up a large part of the British regular army would not have appreciated being referred to as “sassenachs”.