The Defence of Rorke's Drift having fought in the battle from Lady Butler's sketch of him taken at Portsmouth among the other survivors; his name has subsequently been added to the roll of those who fought at 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
Military history of Africa was also an inter-African conflict during the Ndwandwe-Zulu War (1817–1819) and the Mfecane (185–1835) with the triumph of the Zulu. The Boers and Zulus confronted each other at the Battle of Italeni (1838) and the Battle of Blood River (1838), resulting in the defeat of the Zulu, although the Zulu state continued to survive until the conclusion of the Anglo-Zulu War (1879). The British fought and were defeated by the Boers during the Boer republics during the First Boer War (1880–1881) but won the Second Boer War (1899–1902). Largely under British influence, an autonomous Union of South Africa developed into