This issue of National Review goes to press on January 2223, the 125th anniversary of the battle of Rorke's Drift, one of the most remarkable episodes in military history.(The Week)(Brief Article)

* This issue of National Review goes to press on January 2223, the 125th anniversary of the battle of Rorke's Drift, one of the most remarkable episodes in military history. At this small, unprotected South African missionary station, in a battle lasting 16 hours, 80 British infantrymen, firing ordinary rifles from behind a makeshift wall of biscuit boxes and mealie bags, repulsed an assault by 4,000 Zulu warriors. The story has been told many times, notably in the 1964 movie Zulu, and also by our own Victor Davis Hanson in his book Carnage and Culture. This astonishing victory of Western arms was, as Hanson makes clear, brought about not by any innate difference in the courage, vigor, or individual abilities of the two ...