Anglo-Zulu War regret. The ensuing Battle of Isandlwana was the greatest victory that the Zulu kingdom would enjoy during the war. The British centre column was wrecked and its camp annihilated with heavy casualties as well as the loss of all its supplies, ammunition and transport. The defeat left Chelmsford no choice but to hastily retreat out of Zululand. In the battle's aftermath, a party of some 4,000 Zulu reserves mounted an unauthorised raid on the nearby British army border post of Rorke's Drift and were driven off after 10 hours of ferocious fighting. While the British central column under Chelmsford's command
Jan Smuts in the South African Republic of the Witwatersrand were far in the future, they were also under attack from several of the Native tribes, particularly from the Zulus. The British government judged it an opportune moment to add it to the Empire. The annexation itself proceeded with little difficulty and the British army were able to destroy the Zulus as a military power in the 1879 Zulu war. However, in 1880 the Boers, led by Kruger, arose, inflicting a number of relatively minor defeats upon the British army, culminating in the British defeat at the battle of Majuba; so ended what later became known as