Publisher's cloth binding with gilt titles to spine.
xxi + 348pp. Illustrated with plates (all present).
Binding sound. Contents clean with occasional light foxing.
Short contemporary gift inscription on front endpaper, "M. M. Leuchars, 1937, from Cramond". Lady Mary Marion Leuchars was the wife of Colonel Sir George Leuchars, KCMG, DSO, a South African politician and military officer who died in 1924. He was a minister in General Louis Botha's First Cabinet from 1911 to 1912, when he resigned to protest against J.B.M. Hertzog's anti-imperial and anti-British sentiments. Sir George Leuchars' action was one of the causes which led to the rise of the Nationalist party, and more remotely to the amalgamation of the Unionists with General Smuts. Lady Leuchars died 1964 at the age of 105. Her Victorian home in Greytown, Natal Midlands, is now a guest house. (Portrait of Colonel Sir George Leuchars can be found in A History of the Zulu Rebellion 1906 and of Dinuzulu's Arrest, Trial and Expatriation by J. Stuart. See listing in this auction)
'The present generation, South African born not excepted, knows very little about the Zulu War of 1879. The majority of people domiciled in the Union of South Africa have a hazy idea that once upon a time there was a war between the Zulus and Imperial and Colonial troops and that the British suffered a terrible reverse at a place in Zululand called Isandhlwana and on that same never-to-be-forgotten day another battle was fought at Rorke's Drift, just within the border of Natal, which resulted in a wonderful victory for the English forces, albeit outnumbered in the ratio of forty to one.
A true story of this fateful campaign, in its correct chronological sequence, has never yet been written. For a period exceeding fifty years the idea of compiling this story has obsessed the writer.' - from the Preface
The author was neither present nor took part in the Zulu campaign but explains in the preface that he had a unique opportunity to gather information about the war from numerous people involved on both the British and Zulu sides. The author emigrated from England to Natal with his parents and siblings right at the time of the Zulu campaign in order to farm on what was described to them as a fertile land. He describes Pietermaritzburg as deserted upon their arrival as every man that could be spared was on campaign, and vividly recalls witnessing the return of two cavalry regiments from the Zulu War "bronzed of face, their uniforms in tatters, they rode in dead silence through Church street." Over time he interviewed numerous veterans, old warriors in their kraals, a survivor of Isandhlwana, and even had the opportunity to discuss the war with such celebrities as Chief John Dunn and the Zulu King's brother, Dubulamanzi.
An uncommon title.
- Binding Condition: Very Good
- Overall Condition: Very Good
