STORY of THE ZULU CAMPAIGN

The Story of the Zulu Campaign by Major Ashe and Capt. the Hon. E. V. Wyatt-Edgell is the cavalryman’s history of the Anglo-Zulu War.In informed detail, not to be found elsewhere, it describes the duties and activities of irregular horse and cavalry during the Zulu campaign.The book also deals, from the professional soldier’s view point, with the more mundane but necessary activities of an army on campaign such as patrolling, bringing up supplies, and building forts and depots.This perspective more accurately reflects the daily concerns of the British in Zululand than those narratives which concentrate on the spectacular but infrequent set battle-pieces.This is what gives the book its especial significance, and places it apart from other contemporary accounts of the campaign.Although held in most major libraries, The story of the Zulu Campaign is otherwise rare.This facsimile reprint is taken from the original edition of 1880. Major Waller Ashe was in fact the sole author, although it would probably be more accurate to describe him as the co-ordinator.Not himself a participant in the campaign, he used a variety of sources when putting together his history.Some were the generally available accounts published in newspapers or the British Parliamentary Papers, but the more significant were the journals, notes and sketches which officers serving in Zululand – many of whom were old comrades – had sent him.Foremost among these correspondents were the fellow cavalryman Captain Wyatt-Edgell who, from his arrival in Durban on 7 April 1879 until his death at the Battle of Ulundi on 4 July, kept Ashe fully acquainted with events.It was in recognition of Wyatt-Edgell’s vital contribution that Ashe published the book in 1880 under both their names.