Skip to main content

The Defence of Rorke's Drift - Corporal Christian Ferdinand Schiess

Corporal Christian Ferdinand Schiess



Natal Native Contingent

"During the battle of Rorke's Drift, Lieutenant Chard had observed Schiess taking aim at some of the enemy. He bayoneted a Zulu who had fired at him at almost point blank range, then shot another and bayoneted a third. Despite being wounded he continued fighting. Frederick Schiess was the first man serving with a locally raised force to be awarded the Victoria Cross."

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Books About Rorke's Drift and Isandlwana Battles

After 12 years of navigating the battlefields of Rorke's Drift and Isandlwana it was time to start updating and revamping our information. First in line has been our List of books on the Battles and we were amazed how that list has grown over the years. We are also sure that our guests, past and present would benefit from this update and what better way to do this than through our blog. Over the next few weeks I will give you lists of the books, a few at a time with a little bit of background of each one. This is of course so that you can start your own collection of books, or start a reading marathon or even use the subject for a book club. For your convenience I am linking each one of the books to the place that you can buy it online, most of which will be Amazon and if its not available on Amazon I will try to track down where it's at. First on our list is   The Horns of the Buffalo by John Wilcox   a fiction novel and the write up on Amazon describes the book...

The Anglo-Zulu War of 1879 - Queen Victoria

In our series of Who’s Who in the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879 and hopefully introducing some of the players to the readers of our blog I have decided that it is prudent to start at the top and introduce those of our readers who do not know all the in’s and out’s of the Wars. We should therefore start with the two Monarchs who, although they did not take an active part in the battles of Isandlwana and Rorke’s Drift themselves were certainly instrumental in the shaping of the events that took place. We start with Queen Victoria, whose reign lasted from 1837 to 1901. Strangely enough, at birth she was only the fifth in the line of succession yet at age 18 she was crowned the Queen of the British Empire. Until recently she was the longest reigning British Monarch but that, of course, has now been eclipsed by Queen Elizabeth II. She married Prince Albert of Saxe-Colburg & Gotha in 1840 and had nine children. Famously Prince Alfred died in 1861 which set off a new fashion trend...