44 TUE TWENTY-SECOND WAR : THE ZULU WAR. 



had committed some petty larceny in Natal. (2) Pay a fine of 

 500 head of cattle. (3) To disband his army. (4) To agree never 

 to call out his troops for War, except with the permission of the British 

 Government. (5) To permit every man on coming of age to 

 marry. (6) To secure a fair trial to all oifenders. (7) To allow the 

 Missionaries to return. (8) To receive a British Resident at his 

 Capital. 



Compliance with these eight demands was to be made within 

 thirty days. 



Had the Zulus seen their way to accede to some of these- demands, 

 no doubt it would have been a gain to civihsation, but surely it 

 was unreasonable to expect them to do so in thirty days ! 



No nation or people, civilised or uncivilised, could be expected to 

 surrender their Independence, or change their form of Government in 

 Thirty Days ! 



The King of the Zulus, at the expiration of twenty days, asked for 

 further time to meet these eight demands, but the request was refused, 

 and this refusal was the accelerating cause of the War, for it became 

 inevitable, and accordingly on the 12th January, 1879, 'he British 

 forces crossed the Tugela, and the cruel invasion of Zululand, and 

 an exterminating War against the Zulus commenced. 



A more deplorable War, a War more discreditable to England, a 

 professedly civilised and Christian nation, can scarcely be imagined; 

 and for this War, and the policy which led up to it, the Government 

 of Lord Beaconsfield paid the penalty, by their well-merited over- 

 throw and expulsion from Power in 1880. 



It bore its own bitter fruits, the bloody disaster at Isandula ; the 

 terrible sacrifice of human life on both sides, the Zulus alone, 

 estimated at upwards of 20,000, and its consequent results, the reign 

 of terror and of blood in Zululand ; and last but not least the military 

 escapade and sad death of the youthful Napoleon, pierced by the 

 assegais of a people who had never done him, or threatened to do 

 him any harm ; these and many other sickening details brand that 

 War as the most unrighteous, the most inglorious War that defames 

 the honor, and disgraces the Arms of England. 



