Oscarberg

The Oscarberg is the name given by Reverend Otto Witt to a large hill 350 yards to the southeast (and rear) of the two buildings which formed the station at the 1879 Battle of Rorke's Drift. The Zulus called the hill Shiyane, or "The Eyebrow."

When the trading post at Rorke's Drift, which had been built in 1845, was sold to the Norwegian Missionary Society in 1878, Swedish missionary Witt renamed the Shiyane as the "Oscarberg" (or sometimes "Oskarsberg") after the reigning King Oscar II of the United Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway.

The hill was used by Zulu gunmen who fired down on the defenders during The Battle of Rorke's Drift. Neither the marksmanship nor the antiquated firearms were part of the basic training for the Zulu troops^[1], so resulting casualties were not as significant as they might have been.

The Oscarberg is portrayed in the famous painting of the battle, The Defence of Rorke's Drift (1880), by Alphonse Marie de Neuville.

References

1. ^ Knight, Ian, Rorke's Drift 1879, "Pinned Like Rats in a Hole"; Osprey Campaign Series #41, Osprey Publishing 1996,ISBN 1 855 32 506 3, p.33, 38, 39.