That was quite a famous defeat for the British, so it kind of undermines your point.

Are you making reference to Roukes Drift? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Rorke%27s_Drift

That's what the film Zulu is based on. They followed on from one another, and on the same day, they're generally considered to be 2 separate actions though.

Also on the subject of British defeats, there's Gate Pah in New Zealand https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tauranga_campaign

And the 1st Afghan War. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Anglo-Afghan_War

Anyway I wasn't even thinking about what they did in battle, I was think about how they treated the civilians, how they treated them after the war, how they treated prisoners. The Boers got off lightly, they got some (all?) of their land back after a relatively short period, the Zulus didn't.

> They followed on from one another, and on the same day, they're generally considered to be 2 separate actions though.

Yes, that's point that it "took 2 goes".