Ian Knight

Waged across an inhospitable terrain which varied from open African savannah to broken mountain country and arid semi-desert, the Anglo-Boer wars of 1880–81 and 1899–1902 pitted the British Army and its allies against the Boers' commandos. The nature of warfare across these campaigns was shaped by the realities of the terrain and by Boer fighting techniques. Independent and individualistic, the...

Expert ananlyis and first-hand accounts of combat during the Anglo-Zulu war in 1879: Nyezane, iSandlwana, and Khambula. As seen in the movie Zulu, starring Michael Caine, Zulu discipline and courage overcame British firepower at iSandlwana, and almost at Rorke's Drift. Featuring specially commissioned artwork, expert analysis and carefully chosen first-hand accounts, this absorbing study trac...

Their lifestyle of hunting for sport and profit honed the Boers' skills of field-craft, horsemanship, and marksmanship, making them a formidable force in the field and well suited to guerrilla operations. This book describes the life and combat experiences of a typical Boer in this key period. Using meticulously researched analysis and comment, and the experiences of a composite character, Johanne...

Between 1845 and 1872, various groups of Maori were involved in a series of wars of resistance against British settlers. The Maori had a fierce and long-established warrior tradition and subduing them took a lengthy British Army commitment, only surpassed in the Victorian period by that on the North-West Frontier of India. Warfare had been endemic in pre-colonial New Zealand and Maori groups maint...

The Zulu War of 1879 remains one of the best known British colonial wars and included two battles whose names reverberate through history. At Isandlwana the Zulus inflicted a crushing defeat on the British; the gallant British defence at Rorke's Drift followed and re-established British prestige. Yet as this book shows, there was more to the war than this. Six months of brutal fighting follow...

Zulu military organisation was extremely sophisticated. Warriors were organised into regiments with some form of basic uniform and shields were state-manufactured and owned. Yet, in spite of this sophistication, much of the Zulu's military outlook was extremely primitive: firearms were ill understood, and between 1816 and 1906 the Zulu's maintained their primary reliance on hand-to-hand fighting. ...