Frederic Thesiger, 2nd Baron Chelmsford
General Frederic Augustus Thesiger, 2nd Baron Chelmsford, was a British Army officer who rose to prominence during the Anglo-Zulu War, when an expeditionary force under his command suffered a decisive defeat at the hands of a Zulu force at the Battle of Isandlwana in 1879. Despite this defeat, he was able to score several victories against the Zulus, culminating in the British victory at the Battle of Ulundi, which ended the war and partly restored his reputation in Britain.
Frederic Thesiger, c. 1870
Lord Chelmsford sketched by another officer at the Battle of Ulundi
Defeat at Isandlwana
Funerary monument, Brompton Cemetery, London
The Anglo-Zulu War was fought in 1879 between the British Empire and the Zulu Kingdom. The most famous battle of the War was the Defense of Rorke's Drift.
Following the passing of the British North America Act of 1867 forming a federation in Canada, Lord Carnarvon thought that a similar political effort, coupled with military campaigns, might lead to a ruling white minority over a black majority, which would provide a large pool of cheap labour for the British sugar plantations and mines, encompassing the African Kingdoms, tribal areas and Boer republics into South Africa. In 1874, Sir Bartle Frere was sent to South Africa as High Commissioner for the British Empire to effect such plans. Among the obstacles were the armed independent states of the South African Republic and the Kingdom of Zululand.
Bartle Frere
Photograph of Cetshwayo kaMpande, c. 1875
Hicks Beach
The Last Stand at Isandlwana, painting by Charles Edwin Fripp (1854–1906)