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How Did The British Conquest Of South Africa

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During the British Conquest of South Africa the English used their superiority to defeat overwhelming armies and kingdoms. Six months throughout 1879 the British army had to fight through entire kingdoms in a new and hostile environment. As a result, the british army had decimated and destroyed societies throughout South Africa exploiting their methods and resources. The successful conquest of South Africa was caused by the British exploiting their advanced technology, the british also had defensive and offensive military tactics which were extremely effective, the British also contained great transportation tools that weren't native to South Africa such as war horses and wagons. Due to the advancement in technology and development the British …show more content…

During the age of technological advancement in the British Military they contained a high advantage over the forces such as the Zulus. The English created advanced guns which were accurate and deadly. “The British military used these guns to an advantage as they used this technology to decimate the local forces. They also had the advantage of the arrival of the automatic weapon as they used this to take out groups of men. Guns saved many English lives as they were quick and effective weapons. The British guns helped them survive battles which seemed like they would likely have been defeated. During the battle of Rorke’s Drift this was shown as the British were heavily outnumber thirty to one but managed to hold them off and to defeat the Zulus as they retreated”(British Battles). Although they contained all this weaponry these cases of defeat have shown that they were overwhelmed or used all of their ammunition such as in the last stands during the british defeat in Isandlwana”(Brittanica). As a result, the use of guns during this conquest has been highly valuable as they used these to defend …show more content…

One example of these tactics in use was placed in the battle of Rorke’s Drift. “Within this battle a total of 139 British Soldiers managed to hold off 4,500 zulu warriors. The soldiers created a perimeter of sandbags and boxes connecting them to nearby buildings throughout the camp. These buildings were important as some buildings contained wounded men and were also used to take out groups of zulus at once in these compact spaces. Over time the Zulu’s overran this stage of defence as the first building was put on fire and the zulu’s overran a sandbag wall. As the british were well prepared for this they had a wall made out of barrels in the middle of the complex where they set up taking their positions once more fighting for their lives. Again the zulu’s had overran the british pushing them to form a small circle in the complex created a last stand until the Zulu’s finally retreated” (British Battles). “Due to this strategy the british managed to fight in Rorke’s drift for a total of 12 hours” (Britannica) As this strategy was used with two different defence lines the British managed to hold of waves of Zulu’s twice as if they formed a compact square the result of this battle might have been different. Another example of british tactics that helped them survive battle of Khambula. “The British created two main fortifications out of sandbags and wagons as the Zulu

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