Spears and shields beat rifles and artillery at Isandlwana

On 22 January 1879, around 20,000 Zulu warriors armed mainly with spears and cowhide shields overwhelmed a 1,700-strong British invasion column camped at Isandlwana, killing over half of them. It remains one of the worst defeats a colonial army suffered against a technologically weaker indigenous force. Britain avenged the loss six months later, but its aura of invincibility had already been broken in an afternoon.

— Donald R. Morris, The Washing of the Spears — Simon and Schuster, 1965
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