What could Col Pulliene have done? To secure the camp and all of its provisions, with the men and equipment available to him.

Hi Frank,
I concur, "united" is the key word here. It is on record that Durnford verbalised his intention of not staying in the camp ie reiterating his non permanence on the site.
But, even if he intended to stay, he arrived far too late in the day to start fortifying. By contrast, Pulleine had been there all day,.... doing nothing. Chelmsford knew the state of the camp before he left early that morning, and also DID NOTHING!
Yet, it was he, Chelmsford who warned the NMP at Helpmekkar a few days earlier saying that "we are facing a powerful enemy who will outnumber us 20:1
Criminal negilence would be my finding

barry

Durnford arrives at the camp as per his orders, gets the run down of what's been occurring, knows Pulleines orders are to defend the camp, see's nothing been done in away regarding defence, but still decides to leave. If we go along with his excuse to assist LC why was he going in the opposite direction to LC. Durnford with all his knowledge of the Zulu's way of fighting still took the decision to weaken the camp further.

A lot of legal obligations are being thrown about, if there was a legality issues, I'm sure those in power back home would have brought that to the table,against those officers present.

United does not mean integrated - it simply means coming together. When he left he relinquished that command - but while he was there, with his force, he is deemed to be in command. What he intended to do later is not relevant. I agree with the point that he had very little time compared to Pulleine. But I think we have also demonstrated that Pulleine made a number of quite reasonable decisions in the circumstances. Blame (if that is the right word) is shared.

Steve

Ray
I'm sure this has been mentioned many times by Martin , and others previously , in regards to as you say ' Durnford going in the opposite direction to LC ' , he was in fact riding to protect LC''s rear . If you go and look at a map , or diagram of Durnford's movements , you'll plainly see he ( Durnford ), was attempting to get between the sighted Zulu's on the left ridge of the camp ( N/ E ) and LC who was to Durnfords right front ( Sth - S/E ) looking down the plan from the proximity of the Conical Hill
90th

Which takes us back to the point being that Durnford had never received any orders ordering him to leave the camp, it was Durnfords interpretation of his order, that led to the camp being weaken further.
Pulleine may have been disappointed that Durnford had arrived but he was made aware of that, and handed over command to the senior officer. Durnford should have left fresh orders for Pulleine when he left, in line with the changes that had taken place in the absense of Glyn.
And I still maintain that Pulleine must have been throw off a little when Durnford left, causing him to refuse the two compaines and repeating his orders he had received. Durnford didn't really pull rank on Pulleine because Durnford has his own agenda.

90th wrote:

Ray
I'm sure this has been mentioned many times by Martin , and others previously , in regards to as you say ' Durnford going in the opposite direction to LC ' , he was in fact riding to protect LC''s rear . If you go and look at a map , or diagram of Durnford's  movements ,  you'll plainly see he ( Durnford ),  was attempting to get between the sighted Zulu's on the left ridge of the camp ( N/ E ) and LC who was to Durnfords right front ( Sth - S/E )  looking down the plan from the proximity of the Conical Hill
90th

I'm only going by one of Frank's posts on another thread, and I have no reason to disbelieve him.

rusteze wrote:

United does not mean integrated -

Steve

Bonjour
2 testimonies from Créalock and Clery seems to demonstrate that your interpretations is right.
Cheers
Frédéric

Well Ray , if you disbelieve me , and you wish to see with your own eyes , pull out one of the books you have , look it up yourself ! , I doubt you need to be spoon fed , if you have some books you can go and check it out for yourself
90th

Hi Frederic

It is clear. UNITED in marriage, UNITED in purpose, Manchester UNITED (sorry, perhaps not that one!).

Steve

90th wrote:

Well Ray , if you disbelieve me , and you wish to see with your own eyes ,  pull out one of the books you have ,  look it up yourself ! ,  I doubt you need to be spoon fed ,  if you have some books you can go and check it out for yourself
90th  

No need for replies like that, that's were the rot sets it.
I just happen to think Frank is very knowledgable on this subject. That my friend is my right.
If I have read Frank's post wrong, then I may revisit.

Ray
I don't think you read it wrongly , I seem to remember Frank posting that , Sorry if I came across rudely , its just infuriating that people don't look anything up , Frank is knowledgeable no doubting that , but he's the first to admit these are his thoughts and ideas , and not actually Gospel , did you look at a map ? .
90th

Ray, it is more than obvious that your mind is totally set against Col Durnford, and no matter how many times evidence is posted to show that you are wrong you still insist that it is you that is right.

Read this.

"It could never have been intended and doubtless never was intended to put an officer in command of another column over Lt Col Pulleine's head for a portion of a day. Colonel Durnford's move up to join the generals 'co-operate' is in the generals own words was entirely in accord with his previous orders".

(War Office Ref 4901-31/10.)

Gary is right, Durnford was not going in the opposite direction (Frank and I have discussed this in earlier posts), he left the camp in the same direction that LC had taken, he then veered off to get between LC and the reported zulu's, why don't you read the other posts before jumping in with both feet, you only find yourself in the deep end with no life ring.

I would also suggest that you get some good books by different authors and do some reading on the subject, rather than accepting a certain authors bias version of events. Also do some of your own online research to get a good perspective of the AZW and iSandlwana, it pays to get unbiased versions of events as you can then see for yourself that the faults that led up to the disaster were not Col Durnford's, and that the people who were at fault covered their backsides and dumped the blame elsewhere.

Seek and ye shall find.

The independence of Durnfords command is surely beyond doubt!
from many extracts this is just one, from Ian Knight's. The Sun
Turned Black..give it up Ray! there's a good chap.

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Ray/Gary et al
I really do publish my own thoughts, ideas. maps and discourse. Most of them, but not all, are backed with solid source data, I don't consider Ian Knight, Adrian Greaves etc as solid source data, there writings are generally their own interpretations of the data available. So whereas the information published is in general based on solid data the opinions are purely their own. And that's no indictment on Ian, a brilliant man. Authors, Historians are a different breed.
As the disclaimers normally say, all thoughts and errors are mine, particularly the errors.
You stay with your opinions Ray, Martin, Steve, Gary, Frederic etc they are as good as anyone elses

Cheers one and all

rusteze wrote:

Hi Frederic

It is clear. UNITED in marriage, UNITED in purpose, Manchester UNITED (sorry, perhaps not that one!).

Steve

All together: 1, 2,3:"ooh!, aah! Cantonaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!"
Sorry, i am 

I was going to edit the above, then thought what the heck, then I remembered La Rochefoucauld" "Our want of trust justifies the deceit of others"

"I don't consider Ian Knight, Adrian Greaves etc as solid source data".......

Well to say that blows me away is a massive understatement!!!.
Those of us who are members of the AZWHS are eternally grateful
for not least the 38 journals published up to date. i have all the hard
copies,16..and being a member can download and print off the remainder
at my leisure.. I don't think i can adequately express the enormous
contribution Ian Knight has made to the understanding of the AZW adding
context and meaning to all aspects of the campaign. yes all contributions
are valid, Knight and Greaves not solid source data..Hmmm the mind
doth boggle over!

xhosa2000 wrote:

"I don't consider Ian Knight, Adrian Greaves etc as solid source data".......

Well to say that blows me away is a massive understatement!!!.
Those of us who are members of the AZWHS are eternally grateful
for not least the 38 journals published up to date. i have all the hard
copies,16..and being a member can download and print off the remainder
at my leisure.. I don't think i can adequately express the enormous
contribution Ian Knight has made to the understanding of the AZW adding
context and meaning to all aspects of the campaign. yes all contributions
are valid, Knight and Greaves not solid source data..Hmmm the mind
doth boggle over!      

Quite. Are we back to primary sources only?

I don't think your reading what Frank said. Those authors works plainly do not just consist of solid source data - they express judgements and opinions based, so far as they are able, on source data. What is wrong with that? Where is that in error? Why are you blown away? It says nothing about the contribution they made one way or another.

"I remembered La Rochefoucauld" - respect !

Steve

rusteze wrote:

United does not mean integrated - it simply means coming together. When he left he relinquished that command - but while he was there, with his force, he is deemed to be in command. What he intended to do later is not relevant.  I agree with the point that he had very little time compared to Pulleine. But I think we have also demonstrated that Pulleine made a number of quite reasonable decisions in the circumstances. Blame (if that is the right word) is shared.

Steve

Steve maybe this will make things a little clearer.

(War Office Ref 4901-31/10)
"It could never have been intended and doubtles never was intended to put an officer in command of another column over Lt Col Pulleine's head for a portion of a day. Col Durnford's move up to join the Generals 'co-operate', is, in the Generals own words, was entirely in accord with his previous orders".

So LC is admitting that Durnford was indeed following his orders to co-operate in the pre-planned attack on the Matyana's along with Bengough.

What a pity that no one thought of telling Durnford that those pre-planned orders had changed.

So when Durnford gets the order of the 22nd saying to move up to the camp, and also saying that Bengough should also move, and that the general will be about 10 miles away, Durnford would be of the opinion that the attack against the Matyana's is now under way, and would not know any different until speaking with Pulleine on his arrival at the camp. This would explain why Durnford said to Pulleine that he would not be staying at the camp, as he would still be under the impression that the move against the Matyana's was going ahead, because no one thought to let him know any different.

I don't consider Ian Knight, Adrian Greaves etc as solid source data...


What part of that did i fail to understand!. i was addressing the
post..where is my vast body of work..i have none..where is yours?
where is Frank's.. its you who is not reading between the lines mate.

I really do publish my own thoughts, ideas. maps and discourse. Most of them, but not all, are backed with solid source data, I don't consider Ian Knight, Adrian Greaves etc as solid source data.......


Whats that all about...." most of them, but not all, are backed with solid source data.
but apparently not Greaves or Knight.

eaton
Primary sources are everything. Without analysing those we become like sheep treading the TWOTS path.
Slavish acceptance of the 'authors' is one way, having your own opinion is another.
Sod it Im really going to get some stick for this lot.............

Martin/Ray
Without raking history can I just clarify the comments on Durnford heading in a different direction?
At the time the reasons being proffered on the forum for Durnford leaving the camp were that he was going to support Chelmsford. I then commented that if so he was going in the wrong direction. That debate was subsequently change to read: 'he was trying to intercept the impi heading for Chelmsfords rear.' To that I had no objection. ( If a bunch of Zulu were really interested in exploring a lordly Rear who am I to object )

Cheers my friends

Martin

Yes, I agree with that. But all they are saying is it wasn't intended, not that it didn't happen! What they are in effect saying is " we didn't think of that". Just imagine for a moment that Durnford had taken his mounted men out to cover the right flank beyond Pope's G company as I set out in the other thread. Would he then be in comand of the defence as senior officer? I think he would. Now in practice that is what he ended up doing. His earlier order about operating against the Matyanas with Chelmsford was history within an hour of his leaving.

Steve

Xhosa
I do have my own thoughts, I stress my own thoughts, some are merely that, others I support with source material. All are put on the forum for debate, they aren't published and I don't attempt to offer them as cast in stone, I make no claims, except for originality and the wish to explore. Its a fun thing.
Just as much as its a fun thing for you to offer argument based on others writings.

Les
You see criticism where it doesn't exist. The word your missing is solid. Their works are not solid source data, they are, as you say, backed by it. Having a vast body of work has nothing to do with it. Is Jackson less authoritative because he developed a single publication?

Steve

Lets leave that where it belongs then.. Steve please leave it out!
frank's a big boy, and yes i do read all posts, no matter how long.
and finally, yes it can be fun, the diversity is one of the best things
about the forum.. but bold assertions will be challenged, and its
right and proper that they should be. no offence meant to anyone.

And Steve i do not see things as you do.. the two mentioned have
done more to enhance our understanding than we three in particular
will ever do. Your Jackson analogy is a meaningless comparison. he
cannot be compared with others, his opus was ' Isandhlwana..... '.
i'm taking the others in the round, ie, bigger picture.

Xhosa if it wasn't for those authors, there would be no point you be here, as most of what you post is their work anyway.

Steve, Frank ignore him, he feels left out, because your discussion is out of his league.

Let's move on to more fruitful discussions.
Steve

Mr M. Cooper wrote:

Ray, it is more than obvious that your mind is totally set against Col Durnford, and no matter how many times evidence is posted to show that you are wrong you still insist that it is you that is right.

Read this.

"It could never have been intended and doubtless never was intended to put an officer in command of another column over Lt Col Pulleine's head for a portion of a day. Colonel Durnford's move up to join the generals 'co-operate' is in the generals own words was entirely in accord with his previous orders".

(War Office Ref 4901-31/10.)

Gary is right, Durnford was not going in the opposite direction (Frank and I have discussed this in earlier posts), he left the camp in the same direction that LC had taken, he then veered off to get between LC and the reported zulu's, why don't you read the other posts before jumping in with both feet, you only find yourself in the deep end with no life ring.

I would also suggest that you get some good books by different authors and do some reading on the subject, rather than accepting a certain authors bias version of events. Also do some of your own online research to get a good perspective of the AZW and iSandlwana, it pays to get unbiased versions of events as you can then see for yourself that the faults that led up to the disaster were not Col Durnford's, and that the people who were at fault covered their backsides and dumped the blame elsewhere.

Seek and ye shall find.

Martin why do you always feel that members are on one side or another.
You constantly bleep on about Durnford being blameless. Possibly every member on this forum knows Durnford was a brave man, but he made mistakes and his actions need to be taken into account his actions along with others account towards the loss of the camp.

Of course Durnford made mistakes - he got himself killed, after all, but even had he remained in the camp, would the outcome have been different?

Xhosa if it wasn't for those authors, there would be no point you be here, as most of what you post is their work anyway.

Steve, Frank ignore him, he feels left out, because your discussion is out of his league....john.

Very laconic, very succinct, you have so much to teach me, thank you john.

rusteze wrote:

Let's move on to more fruitful discussions.
Steve

eaton wrote:

Of course Durnford made mistakes - he got himself killed, after all, but even had he remained in the camp, would the outcome have been different?

Now, that we will never know?

If Raw hadn't fired on the Zulu would the battle have taken place on the 22nd

Durnford sent Raw out to scout, so Raw's actions would be the same even if Dunford had remained in the camp.

My question wasn't relating to if Durnford had stay in the camp?

It was relating to Raws action!

There seems to be disagreement over what the Zulus were doing, doesn't there?
They were certainly on the move before his encounter, so would they have attacked anyway?
Did Durnford encounter the left horn before or after Raw's shots? If the former, then Raw's action merely precipitated the attack.

Frank Allewell wrote:

I do have my own thoughts, I stress my own thoughts, some are merely that, others I support with source material. All are put on the forum for debate, they aren't published and I don't attempt to offer them as cast in stone, I make no claims, except for originality and the wish to explore.

Frank,
It's for that I enjoy to study your posts!
For a more conventional view, i have my books.
Mate, changes nothing!

Respect.

Frēdéric

eaton wrote:

There seems to be disagreement over what the Zulus were doing, doesn't there?
They were certainly on the move before his encounter, so would they have attacked anyway?
Did Durnford encounter the left horn before or after Raw's shots?  If the former, then Raw's action merely precipitated the attack.

I think your find Raw fired first. Why you would want to fire on an extremely large army beats me.

Hi Steve.

Durnford would not have known about LC changing his mind about the Matyana's until he arrived at the camp and spoke with Pulleine, and if Crealock had not interfered when Clery was going to write LC's order to Durnford, then Durnford would have no doubt had a better understanding of the situation, but through Crealock poking his nose in, the order that LC had intended to write to Durnford became confused through Crealock insisting that he should do it. But LC should really have read through it before it was sent, this would have ensured that LC could be sure that Durnford understood what he meant, however, LC didn't read it, and Crealock made a pig's ear of it and confused the issue.

When Durnford arrived at the camp, with him being senior officer he would be deemed to be in command, and anything he suggested would no doubt be taken as being an order. He would have realised that things had changed after speaking with Pulleine, and that LC was now undertaking a different task, and with Pulleine telling him that there was a lot of zulu activity in the area, no doubt Durnford would want to know what was afoot. He sent out scouts and lookouts and patrols, he was informed of zulu's heading in LC'd direction, so what does he do about that, he did what any decent officer would do, he went to find out what they were up to and try to cut them off before they could out flank or attack LC.

If only Pulleine had done some preperations with defences in the hours before Durnford arrived, who knows what the outcome might have been.

Ray63 wrote:

eaton wrote:

There seems to be disagreement over what the Zulus were doing, doesn't there?
They were certainly on the move before his encounter, so would they have attacked anyway?
Did Durnford encounter the left horn before or after Raw's shots?  If the former, then Raw's action merely precipitated the attack.

I think your find Raw fired first. Why you would want to fire on an extremely large army beats me.  

Absolutely. I though the role of a scouting party was to observe the enemy and report back, not indulge in fisticuffs,

Martin
I agree that Pulleine could have made better preparations, but what he did do was not wrong. As far as Durnford is concerned, we have discussed before that there may be a missing order - I don't discount that possibility as it would explain rather better how he seemed to be so sure of what he was required to do when he arrived at Isandhlwana. He was more certain than you would expect if he had heard nothing from Chelmsford since Crealock's order. As you say, he changed his immediate objective when he thought a Zulu force was heading towards Chelmsford. I think there are things we do not know.

Steve

I don't suppose it would have helped at all, but I believe he was not in his camp when the message was received, so was unable to question the messenger about what was going on at Isandlwana

Mr M. Cooper wrote:

Hi Steve.

Durnford would not have known about LC changing his mind about the Matyana's until he arrived at the camp and spoke with Pulleine, and if Crealock had not interfered when Clery was going to write LC's order to Durnford, then Durnford would have no doubt had a better understanding of the situation, but through Crealock poking his nose in, the order that LC had intended to write to Durnford became confused through Crealock insisting that he should do it. But LC should really have read through it before it was sent, this would have ensured that LC could be sure that Durnford understood what he meant, however, LC didn't read it, and Crealock made a pig's ear of it and confused the issue.

When Durnford arrived at the camp, with him being senior officer he would be deemed to be in command, and anything he suggested would no doubt be taken as being an order. He would have realised that things had changed after speaking with Pulleine, and that LC was now undertaking a different task, and with Pulleine telling him that there was a lot of zulu activity in the area, no doubt Durnford would want to know what was afoot. He sent out scouts and lookouts and patrols, he was informed of zulu's heading in LC'd direction, so what does he do about that, he did what any decent officer would do, he went to find out what they were up to and try to cut them off before they could out flank or attack LC.

If only Pulleine had done some preperations with defences in the hours before Durnford arrived, who knows what the outcome might have been.

Martin you have stated the above before, in other discussions,read the replies you received and you will be up to where we are with this debate. Sooner or later your be wading in with the pincer movement. Whatever orders Durnford received prior to Isandlwana had nothing to do with those Durmford received early 22nd, the game had changed.

Gents, The title of this thread is ' What could Col Pulliene have done? To secure the camp and all of its provisions, with the men and equipment available to him.'

Any chance we could get back to that?

Lead on Waterloo, lead on!!!!!!

Well, as I recall we were at one time actually discussing what Pulliene could have done that would have been practicable. We were divide on whether or not Pulleine given his lack of experience could have made use of a redoubt or an entrenchment. A few members were of the opinion that the ground would not lend itself to entrenchment but it was decided that there would have been enough loose rocks, boulders available that a redoubt could have been constructed. I had suggested that had the wagons been laagered within a redoubt then they may have been able to withstand the attack, others believed that regardless of any defences the outcome would have been the same. We also had some out of the box thinking on the subject, one member felt that the top of the mountain could have provided a small refuge of safety. The whole top of the mountain debate steered everyone onto the fact that the men would not have been able to climb up there with enough ammunition to do any real good.

I still believe that building an adequate defensive structure could perhaps have changed the outcome. My reason for believing that is rather than having an over extended firing line which eventually ended up as small pockets of men fighting for their lives, a redoubt would have offered a place to fall back to and from a redoubt the men would have been able to lay down heavy, well aimed concentrated fire, and all of this would have happen behind a defensive wall which would have provided a difficult obstacle, the tents could have been laid out in front of the redoubt to slow down the attack. A redoubt worked at Rorke's Drift so why not Isandlwana.

The laagering of the wagons was suggested sometime back, but it was poo pooed because it would have taken to long, which I find hard to believe when you had wagoners and 1300+ men to man handle if required, along with the Oxen and horses.

Ray, you appear to be doing a Crealock, ie; how long have you been called Steve?

But to answer you, Durnford's prior orders had everything to do with the order of the 22nd, and if Crealock had not have poked his nose in when LC was dictating that order to Clery, then Durnford might have been given the correct order rather than the one that Crealock made a pig's ear of. Durnford did not know that the game had changed until he arrived at the camp and spoke to Pulleine.

Waterloo is right, this thread is supposed to be about Pulleine, not supporting or opposing Col Durnford.

So, to get back onto topic, I do believe that Pulleine had hours from the first reports of zulu's in the area to do something about defending the camp. There were empty wagons, there were rocks galore, there were dongas, all these could and should have been made use of, however, Pulleine did very little about it.

So if the wagons were laagered and they were chained as the Boers did then each man could have been put to work on building a redoubt, one man would be responsible for building his section, the redoubt wouldn't have to be massive, just enough to provide protection. I reckon, when I was in my twenties and recalling my work as a ground worker I could have shifted enough concrete breeze blocks in an hour and stacked them to shoulder height, those men were tough cookies, they would have been able to shift a number of rocks to build their section of the redoubt without breaking a sweat.