Mr ARCHIBALD FORBES AND THE ZULU WAR

As this intriguing little book shows, there is nothing new about tensions between the media and military in the coverage of wars. Archibald Forbes was a Private soldier who re-invented himself as the Premier war correspondent of the late Victorian Age. Working for the ‘Daily News’ he covered the Franco-Prussian War, the Russo-Turkish War, sundry wars in the Balkans and India – and the Zulu War of 1879. His coverage was extremely critical of the British commander, Lord Chelmsford, whose ineptness, in Forbes’ eyes, had helped lead to the disaster of Isandlhwana whan a British force was wiped out by the Zulus. This book, written by a tactics instructor at Sandhurst officer training college, is a robust defence of Chelmsford’s conduct of the campaign. It must be said, however, that most modern historians have tended to echo Forbes’ critique of the hapless Chelmsford.