The Defence of Rorke's Drift The Defence of Rorke's Drift The Defence of Rorke's Drift is an 1880 painting by Elizabeth Thompson, Lady Butler depicting the 1879 Battle of Rorke's Drift which took place during the Anglo-Zulu War of 1877 to 1879. The battle and the men who fought in it were made famous in the 1964 film "Zulu". The Battle of Rorke's Drift caused a wave of patriotic fever in the United Kingdom and the surviving participants, especially the officers, were feted on their return in October 1879, first going to Windsor Castle to meet Queen Victoria before posing for Elizabeth Thompson at Portsmouth
South African Wars (1879–1915) the direct control of the appointed British Governor. It had a more restrictive political system than the neighbouring Cape Colony and its small (mostly British) white population had an uneasy relationship with the powerful independent Zulu Kingdom on their northern border. The Anglo-Zulu War (1879) led to the later annexation of Zululand to Natal in 1897. At the close of the South African Wars, the colony became part of the 1910 Union, and is now known as Kwazulu-Natal, a province of South Africa. The land of indigenous Khoi Khoi and Sotho people, Basutoland was positioned between the Cape Colony, Orange