A song about the Last Stand of the Shangani Patrol, which took place during the night of the 3rd to the 4th of December, 1893, during the First Matabele War.
After their crushing defeat at the Battle of Bembezi on the 1st of November, the Matabele fled northwards. They were pursued by forces of the British South African Company under the command of Major Forbes.
Forbes sent a patrol of 37 men under the command of Major Allan Wilson to scout on the other side of the Shangani River for the Matabele. The Shangani Patrol had an American tracker called Frederick Burnham, who had served as a tracker to the Apache Wars, amongst their number.
On the night of the 3rd of December, 1893 the Shangani Patrol were ambushed by 3,000 Matabele warriors. They assembled their horses in a circle and sang "God Save the Queen", before fighting to the last man. 34 of the 37 men fell, including Allan Wilson. Frederick Burnham survived, and in 1896 would serve with Robert Baden-Powell, the father of the Scouting Movement, during the Second Matabele War. The 37 men of the Shangani Patrol took down around 500 Matabele warriors during their stand.
In 1894, the Matabele were finally defeated, and the First Matabele War was a decisive victory for the BSAC. Cecil Rhodes would later establish Northern and Southern Rhodesia.
The stand has been called Britain's equivalent of the Battle of Little Bighorn or the Battle of the Alamo. It immediately entered into the national consciousness of Britain and Rhodesia. The 3rd of December became a public holiday in Rhodesia in 1895, which continued in 1920, when Shangani Day became a national non-work day.
