In January 1879 British troops and colonial forces invaded the Zulu Kingdom, and during the course of the next six months engaged Zulu units in a series of pitched battles and severe skirmishes.' Information on these engagements, as perceived by the British, is extensively available not only in contemporary sources such as official civil and military correspondence, letters, newspapers and memoirs, but also in the host of secondary works, which although originally basing themselves on the primary material. Have tended increasingly to feed off each other. Most modern accounts inherit a failing which was blatantly apparent in the prilnary sources: they still relegate the Zulu r61e in the war to one of providing the savage backcloth against which the feats of imperial arms can be highlighted. Scant attention is paid to Zulu strategy, let alone to identifying which Zulu unit was involved in a particular engagement, their numbers, precise order of battle, commanders or casualties.