Fuzzy Wuzzy

The word Fuzzy-Wuzzy has various meanings. Firstly it was a name given to Sudanese soldiers by the British. Secondly it is the name of a bear in a children's poem. Thirdly it is the name of a war gaming strategy.

It is also often used as a derogatory term to describe black people, reffering to their hair.

udanese natives; a poem by Rudyard Kipling (1890)

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The Beja people were one of two broad multi-tribal groupings supporting the Mahdi, and were divided into three tribes. One of these, the Hadendoa, was nomadic along Sudan's Red Sea coast and provided a large number of cavalry and "jihādiyya" (referring to mounted infantry units). They were armed with swords and spears and some of them carried breech-loaded rifles which had been captured from the Egyptian forces, and some of them had acquired military experience in the Egyptian army.

Kipling's poem "Fuzzy Wuzzy" praises the Hadendoa for their martial prowess, because "for all the odds agin' you, Fuzzy-Wuz, you broke the square." This could refer to either or both historical battles between the British and Mahdist forces where British infantry squares were broken. The first was at the Battle of Tamai, on March 13 1884, and the second was on January 17 1885 during the Battle of Abu Klea. Kipling's narrator, an infantry soldier, speaks in admiring terms of the Fuzzy Wuzzies, praising their bravery which, although insufficient to defeat the British, did at least enable them to boast of having "broken the square"—an achievement which few other British foes could claim. The poem takes a satirical look at the British soldiers of the time who percieved themselves as invincible.

Fuzzy Wuzzy Fallacy

The Fuzzy Wuzzy Fallacy is a name for a wargaming theory coined by Richard Hamblen in the September 1976 edition of Avalon Hill's "The General Magazine", loosely based on historical records of battles between the British and the Sudanese Mahdi. The Fuzzy Wuzzy Fallacy states that a single soldier with 2× firepower or attack strength is not equal to two soldiers with 1× firepower or attack strength. Instead, the soldier with 2× firepower is actually worth $sqrt\{2\}$ of the 1× soldier, if either soldier can be killed in a single hit. This is another form of Lanchester's law.

As a result, tactics and strategy designed around this theory emphasize greater numbers and time, which the speed and mobility of the units in action can effect.

Children's song

"Fuzzy Wuzzy" is a song written in 1944 by Al Hoffman, Milton Drake and Jerry Livingston. Its chorus is a well-known rhyme::"Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear":"Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair":"If Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair":"He wasn't Fuzzy, was he?"

Papuan natives

* The Fuzzy wuzzy angels were native Papuans with similar hair who assisted Australian soldiers during World War II.

A plant

* "Kalanchoe tomentosa" var. "fievetii", a tropical plant of the "Kalanchoe" genus, is commonly known as "Fuzzy Wuzzy".

External links

* [http://www.kipling.org.uk/rg_fuzzywuzzy1.htm Historical background to the Kipling poem]
* [http://www.kipling.org.uk/rg_fuzzywuzzy_notes.htm Kipling.org] line-by-line explanation of references