Talk:Anglo-Zulu War

message: This article goes well beyond it's stated scope of the "Anglo-Zulu War," and into Zulu command structure, the events long before and long after the war. These might be more profitably split up, making them reference-able from other articles. Zulu tactics, developed by Shaka, for example.
It would be more readable if shorter. Student7 (talk) 00:38, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. Moving the section in question to the Zulu Army article- "Impi". What is in this article should be more narrowly focused on the Ango-Zulu war itself.Serbchingo (talk) 21:40, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Scope

message: Also, the lead is a bit breathless, establishing the setting a la television, then proceeding to the heart of the matter. This is great showmanship, but not very good encyclopedia. The lead should summarize the article, not lead into it! Student7 (talk) 00:51, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Lead

message: The (currently edit-protected) article has issues with regard to copy-edit, potential orginal research, sloppy referencing, and contains some statements that sound POV.
My overall impression is still very positive.
188.100.201.255 (talk) 20:09, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Could you be more specific on the problems? Please place comments where attention is needed if you don't want to fix them yourself. For example  will not appear in the text when saved. But other editors will see it in their watchlists and be able to take action as needed. Thanks. Student7 (talk) 22:19, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Issues with the article 

message: Separating these into two different lists is interesting. Also, non-standard. "References" are normally reserved for un-footnoted material. See, for example, WP:INCITE. Student7 (talk) 19:59, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: "Notes" vs "References"

message: as in "After considerable discussion and exchanges of views between Sir Bartle Frere and Sir Henry Bulwer..." (during war preparation, § "Ultimatum"). The one Henry Bulwer I found in WP en died childless in 1872...Thanks, Arapaima (talk) 07:47, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Henry Ernest Gascoyne Bulwer, I think.  Ghmyrtle (talk) 11:21, 26 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks Ghmyrtle, actually the dates fit OK. Arapaima (talk) 09:46, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Hello. Who was Sir Henry Bulwer ? 

message: In Background > British Empire:
:"Various interactions with these resulted in an expansionist policy." 
This means nothing, as far as I can see.  It is just the vaguest sort of justification for imperialist aggression.  A policy of expansion (generally in the form of invading and occupying neighbours) is inherent in the nature of empire.  Otherwise there could be no empire.
We have to distinguish between historical fact and the often ridiculously thin justifications given by proponents of imperialist expansion for what is usually a series of unjustifiable invasions.
The statement, as it stands, puts the cart before the horse.    Heavenlyblue (talk) 21:00, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps. But the fact is that the facts played out in favor of expansion. Kind of like the Sudan "retreat" by Gordon who was perhaps trying to precipitate an invasion. Nowdays, we would say, "let them sort it out." Which was some English statesmen and generals held. This opinion did not prevail in the short run. It resulted in an expansionist policy which was coming under criticism at home. I don't think it is justification per se. But rather how events played out. The American South used Lincoln's election as an excuse for withdrawal from the Union. This is just how it played out. I don't think it "justifies" it, particularly. It's just what happened. Student7 (talk) 01:36, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Various interactions 

message: i am currently translating this article to french and i found a problem in the dates:
:In 1862, Umtonga, a brother of Cetshwayo, and another son of Zulu king Mpande, fled to the Utrecht district, and Cetshwayo assembled an army on that frontier. According to claims later brought forward by the Boers, Cetshwayo offered the farmers a strip of land along the border if they would surrender his brother. The Boers complied on the condition that Umtonga's life was spared, and in 1861 Mpande signed a deed transferring this land to the Boers. The south boundary of the land added to Utrecht ran from Rorke's Drift on the Buffalo to a point on the Pongola River.
how can mpande sign a deed in 1861 if umtonga leaves in 1862?
i don't know well the subject and i don't have any idea where to look... it would be nice if someone better informed could sort this out.
also a ref is strange: [6] Knight (1992, 2002), p. 8.
i don't know to what book does this refers to.
--SyntaxTerror (talk) 19:05, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: 1862 is a typographical error. The source, Encyclopedia Britannica, 1911, Vol. 28, p. 1053 states 1861 for both dates. I changed the date in the article. Knight's 2004 book on page 8, by chance perhaps, has some text that has some, but not quite all, of the information in the two sentences in the text preceding footnote 6. Knight wrote several books on this subject so the writers of this article probably intended to refer to another book by Knight but forgot to put it into the references. Donner60 (talk) 02:15, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  thank you for the fast answer, i will just remove the footnote 6 in the french article as it is not a crutial information. some other notes needchanges to be clearer, i'll do it maybe when i'll have finished translating the article into french. --SyntaxTerror (talk) 09:13, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  datation problem / ref problem 

message: By the time the ultimatum was presented, the two infractions by Sihayo’s sons and the roughing up of Smith and Deighton were only part of the justification used, as several matters had arisen in the meantime. One of these was Cetshwayo’s apparent breaking of promises he had given to the then Mr Theophilus Shepstone at the king’s 'coronation' in 1872. This farcical piece of theatre had been agreed to by Cetshwayo simply to satisfy the wishes of Shepstone and meant nothing to the Zulu people. Indeed, his real Zulu installation had taken place several weeks earlier when he had been acclaimed by his izinduna.[29]
can someone correct this sentence please?
--SyntaxTerror (talk) 14:22, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Syntax Terror: I have only a passing interest in this subject but I noticed your questions and thought I might be able to answer at least some of them with just a little research. It turns out that the paragraph in which the sentence you quote is taken, is copied entirely from a web site http://www.martinfrost.ws/htmlfiles/jan2009/anglo-zulu-war.html which is discussed above in detail I will not repeat. This site appears somewhat POV and seems to have copied material from other sources, including Encyclopedia Brittanica, 1911. For these reasons, as well as for clarity, it certainly seems this should be rewritten. I wanted to tell you that despite some efforts by other editors, some of this copied and POV material still exists in this article. It is no excuse for the poor writing, but the material you quote is taken exactly from that web site. Donner60 (talk) 00:41, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  strange sentence 

message: The article states "Following a campaign by which Lord Carnarvon had successfully brought about federation in Canada, it was thought that similar combined military and political campaigns might succeed ... (in Africa)"  What military campaigns in Canada?--Richardson mcphillips (talk) 00:38, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  military campaigns in Canada? 

message: The British Empire was not a political entity, merely being the colonies of the UK.
For Example, the sentence 
'In 1874, Sir Henry Bartle Frere was sent to South Africa as High Commissioner for the British Empire to bring the plans into being.' 
is incorrect. High Commissioners were representatives of the UK government in Westminster, not 'the Empire'. 
'By the 1870s the British Empire had colonies in southern Africa bordering on various Boer settlements, native African kingdoms such as the Zulus, and numerous indigenous tribal areas and states.'
This too is incorrect. European empires in this time period were simply the sum of all colonies and possessions of the mother nation, not entities in themselves. As such it was the UK that had colonies in southern Africa, not 'the Empire'. 
These points are evident in the fact that the British cabinet had a seperate minister 'for the colonies' and each colony had it's own colonial government, as the British government itself ultimately represented the United Kingdom alone, even if it had sovereignty and control over others.--Allthestrongbowintheworld (talk) 18:03, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: No one got anything to say? No counter-argument? Nothing at all???????????????????????????--Allthestrongbowintheworld (talk) 20:50, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: British Empire is common usage (similar to Byzantine Empire & others) by authors and historians to described this empire, like German Empire etc., has a wiki article to explain it, as can be seen from link, had a queen styled 'Empress of India'. There is an  animated map here: Territorial evolution of the British Empire. Are you suggesting that all this should be changed? Is it really a necessary change?Tttom1 (talk) 22:34, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not advocating completely wiping the usuage of the word, I'm saying it's used wrongly too often in wikipedia. If obviously depends on the context of what is being explained. It was the empire of the United Kingdom with each colony a clear, seperate and distinct jusidiction, not a single sovereign entity on it's own, like ancient empires of Rome and Byzantine. The fact that there was a title 'Empress of India' is case in point of what I was saying, otherwise there would have been one single 'Empress of the British Empire'. My problem is not saying 'British Empire', but when people start reflecting what were actions solely of the UK government for the sake of the United Kingdom as somehow a federal act of 'The Empire'.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Allthestrongbowintheworld (talk • contribs) 08:50, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

text: It is true that the European colonial empires pose a special issue of nomenclature, given that most were not formally structured politically as "empires." There are exceptions, of course - the First (1804-1814, 1815) and Second French Empires (1851-1870), the Russian Empire (to 1918), and The German Empire (1870-1918). Britain is a special case because, while it was consistently a kingdom (and constitutional monarchy) throughout this entire period, the reigning monarch was also styled as Emperor or Empress of the Indian Raj after 1876 - but that was in reference to the Empire of India, not the Empire of Britain. Otherwise, when the term "Empire" is used in connection with British colonial possessions abroad (a usage which goes back to the 1690's), it's more an informal gloss on the operation of British settlements abroad than its actual political structure. On the whole, however, I don't have a problem with the term  used as a general gloss, making a general reference (like in topic headers). However, that said, more concrete references to offices and acts may require something more specific. For example, in the opening introduction: "Sir Henry Bartle Frere was sent to South Africa as High Commissioner for the British Empire..." Well, no, Sir Henry was not High Commissioner for some entity called "the British Empire," but rather for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland - though one could simply shorten it to "Great Britain," if one wanted to. But most of the other usages of "British Empire" in this article seem defensible to me. Alexander1926 (talk) 15:27, 13 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  It was the UK, not the British Empire 

message: Does anyone have any figures on civilian casualties during the war? Zulu raids into Natal certainly killed some, mostly African civilians to my knowledge, while British invading forces must surely have killed some Zulu civilians? Jdorney (talk) 01:40, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: It almost goes without saying that there is no accurate count of Zulu civilian casualties, which ultimately must be quite high given the British scorched earth policy of burning kraals, storehouses, crops, killing cattle, etc. In comparison, any casualties on the Empire side of Europeans - however slight  - is probably available in detail. Contemporary estimate by British sources of Zulus are not to be entirely trusted, given most of the self-serving estimates of military losses.Tttom1 (talk) 22:45, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Well ok, but even if it's a range, do we have any figures at all for Zulu victims of British and allied troops? As far as I'm aware, most of the civilians the Zulus killed were Africans rather than Europeans - particularly in raids on homesteads on the 'northern front', around Hlobane if I recall. I'll see if I can find any estimates of numbers. Jdorney (talk) 18:17, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Civilian casualties? 

message: This has to be one of the worst and most garbled opening sentences for any major article I've seen on Wikipedia:
"federation of Canada"?? Paul B (talk) 20:31, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, I see they are a mere day's old "improvement" by an IP. Paul B (talk) 20:46, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Opening sentence

message: The second phrase of the article spills doubts over the whole article's credibility :
:« Following Lord Carnarvon's successful introduction of federation in Canada »
How is this Lord Carnarvon connected in any way with the Canadian federation? Nowhere is this individual mentioned in serious articles treating about the Canadian federation. That Lord was NOT amongst the fathers of the Canadian federation. So please, either remove this fantasy, or provide serious and verifiable sources (myself I haven't been able to find such source on the Web. So maybe that someone else will succeed, but I doubt it since it doesn't seem to be true, in regards to all historical sources I've read about this). Thanks in advance for correcting the article, --HawkFest (talk) 21:39, 15 May 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Seems to say so in Carnarvon's article. Other articles too, though not in North American Act. However, he was Secretary for Colonies, so it would seem likely. Who did introduce the federation if it wasn't Carnarvon? And who better than the Colonies secretary to (then) introduce it to South Africa? There may be some gaps in Wikipedia, but I don't see the profit of rm it in favor of nothing. Student7 (talk) 21:16, 20 May 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Historical error? Canadian federation instigated by Lord Carnarvon, WTF? 

message: The entire article here really needs some major work, but the most salient issue to my eyes is the frequent use of non-neutral POV language. Whatever one thinks of the Sir Henry Bartle Frere or British imperialism in general, there is a standard of neutrality that is required on Wikipedia. Sometimes the bias is suggestive; sometimes it is blatant. See in particular the section "Boundary commission and ultimatum." Examples: "This farcical piece of theatre" and "these incidents were flimsy grounds." Likewise, assertions are made without any source being cited, and it is not like sources can't be found to support most of these assertions, albeit in somewhat different language (see for example the assertion beginning "Frere has been accused of chicanery by taking deliberate advantage of the length of time..."). It's impossible to read this entire section as anything other than (a poorly researched) indictment of Frere's course of action, rather than a neutral recounting of the episode. Recall what Wikipedia demands for for Neutral POV: "representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." 
Alexander1926 (talk) 15:09, 13 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  General Tone and Neutral POV 

message: — Assignment last updated by Sky1405 (talk) 20:33, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: Wiki Education assignment: English Composition 1102