History of South Africa podcast · Desmond Latham

Episode 262 - The Battle of Hlobane – Cowardice, Confusion and the Reckoning at Devil’s Pass

February 14, 2026·24 min

Ders Latham opens on another failed attempt to make peace. By mid-March 1879, Kejwa Kampande has sent indunas to Chelmsford, but the British have no appetite for compromise and the exchange is already sliding toward war. Middeldrift becomes the next checkpoint. On 22 March, two emissaries arrive there carrying the king's message, while Captain Frank Cherry of the 3rd Regiment, Natal Native Contingent, and border agent F.B. Finney stand guard over the crossing. The response is frigid. Johannes and Klaas are sent back with a reminder of the ultimatum terms that existed before the war began, which is not exactly an invitation to more talks. The campaign then widens. The British know the Zulu king has called a general muster at Ondini, and the episode starts arranging the columns and commanders that will converge on Llobani. Weatherly gets a vivid sketch. He is presented as a Canadian-born veteran with service in an Austrian regiment, the British Army, and the Indian Mutiny, plus a prodigious gift for name-dropping. His marriage is even stranger. Fanny Dooley comes in as a revolver-carrying, trouser-wearing force of nature who lashes out with a riding crop, then leaves him in South Africa for a confidence trickster and leaves Weatherly raising two sons alone. One of them is only fourteen. Weatherly raises the Border Horse and leads fifty men, including his boys, into the campaign as Buller begins moving toward the eastern slopes of Llobani on 27 March. Timing starts to go bad. Buller leaves Kambula at 8 a.m., stops south of the mountain, lights a string of fires as a ruse, and then slips north after dark while Weatherly and his men somehow become lost during the move. Russell arrives separately. He marches out of Kambula around 1 p.m., covers about twenty-five kilometers, and reaches a position west of Llobani by dusk, where Wood joins him at Bubberwack and trades grim thoughts with Pete Ace about who will look after whose children if they die. Dawn brings the assault. At 3 a.m. on 28 March, Buller and his men move out without Weatherly, Trooper Ernest Grandier is later captured alive and taken to Undini before being released unharmed, and Wood eventually keeps his promise to Pete Ace by recommending 36,000 acres of government land for Ace's nine children, a grant that comes only after pressure from Bartle Freer and Queen Victoria, by which point the British tide is turning and the Zulu kingdom is on very shaky ground.

As heard by us

Bad timing, confused movement, and terrain that leaves little room for error.

Battle of Shlobani reads as a study in bad timing, confused movement, and ground that punishes any misread. The episode is strongest when it slows down for Middeldrift, then follows the advance toward Llobani with Chelmsford, Buller, Wood, Russell, and Weatherly in view.

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Why you'd press play

A Zulu War march that goes sideways when Weatherly's men get lost before the Battle of Shlobani.

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