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Shangani Patrol Memorial

Zimbabwe

Shangani Patrol Memorial

The Shangani Patrol (or Wilson's Patrol) was a 37-soldier unit of the British South Africa Company that in 1893 was ambushed and annihilated by over 3,000 Matabele warriors in pre-Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), during the First Matabele War. Headed by Major Allan Wilson, the patrol was attacked j

ust north of the Shangani River in Matabeleland, Rhodesia. Its dramatic last stand, sometimes called "Wilson's Last Stand", achieved a prominent place in the British public imagination and, subsequently, in Rhodesian history, similarly to events such as the Battle of the Little Bighorn and the Battle of the Alamo in the United States. The patrol comprised elements of the Mashonaland Mounted Police and the Bechuanaland Border Police. Scouting ahead of Major Patrick Forbes's column attempting the capture of the Matabele King Lobengula (following his flight from his capital Bulawayo a month before), it crossed the Shangani late on 3 December 1893. It moved on Lobengula the next morning, but was ambushed by a host of Matabele riflemen and warriors near the king's wagon. Surrounded and outnumbered about a hundred-fold, the patrol made a last stand as three of its number broke out and rode back...

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