First Boer War in the open at the Battle of Isandlwana. Shortly after the main battle, a British outpost at Rorke's Drift on the Zululand-Natal border, withstood a second Zulu attack with great losses to the Zulus with the British fighting defensively in and around the stone buildings of a small trading store which had been hastily fortified. After reinforcements arrived, the British won a series of skirmishes and eventually conquered the Zulu capital at Ulundi on 4 July 1879. This war to all intents and purposes signalled the end of the independent Zulu nation. The British consolidated their power over Natal, the
South African Wars (1879–1915) On 11 December 1878, Frere's representative Sir Theophilus Shepstone informed the Zulu leader that he could either turn in the two men who led this raid into Natal and disarm his army, or face war. The disarmament conditions were deliberately impossible to fulfill, Cetshwayo refused them, and the British attacked the Zulu on 22 January 1879. The British attacked with only 1700 troops while the Zulu brought 24,000. The battle was almost a complete massacre of the British with only sixty Europeans surviving. Cetshwayo and his army were eventually defeated at oNdini on 4 July 1879. He escaped but was