Zulu War Controversy: More from the Morning Post

Description:An article in the same newspaper on 5th June 1879 indicates controversy over the Government’s handling of the Zulu War, particularly with regard to the organisation of military and medical supplies and the deployment of boy soldiers.

The article, featured above, indicates that the Minister for War was aware of the dangers caused by ‘the youth and consequent want of stamina, of the troops, which he had been compelled, under the short-service system, to send to the seat of war’.

The reporter suggests that the suffering experienced by English troops:

‘is the natural outcome of a large and inexperienced organisation… suddenly sending troops to what had hitherto been regarded as a happy and salubrious hunting ground, that they would be brought face to face not only with a big war, instead of an easy victory over naked savages, but also the most virulent forms of disease which a hard campaign and a treacherous climate can inflict on unseasoned troops’.