- Short war film dramatizing the final engagement of the Shangani Patrol and the death of Major Allan Wilson and his men in Rhodesia in 1893.
- In 1899, Frank E. Fillis brought his circus and stage show Savage South Africa along with Zulu performers to the Empress Theatre at Earls Courte, London, England, as part of the Greater Britain Exhibition. Twice-daily the actors dramatically played out famous battles from both Matabele wars of 1893-4 and 1896-7. The grand finally of the show, Major Wilson's Last Stand, was filmed and sold to movies houses around the world. Major Wilson's Last Stand was a re-enactment of the most famous battle in these wars, the Shangani Patrol, in which 34 soldiers in the service of the British South Africa Company were ambushed and annihilated by more than 3,000 Matabele warriors. Headed by Major Allan Wilson, the patrol was attacked just north of the Shangani River in Matabeleland in Rhodesia (today Zimbabwe). Only two American scouts, Frederick Russell Burnham and Pete Ingram, and an Australia trooper named Will Gooding, survived. This dramatic last stand achieved a prominent place in the British public imagination and, subsequently, in Rhodesian national history, roughly mirroring events such as the Alamo massacre or Custer's Last Stand in the United States.
The studio's original description is as follows: "Major Wilson and his brave men are seen in laager in order to snatch a brief rest after a long forced march. They are suddenly awakened by the shouts of the savages, who surround them on all sides. The expected reinforcements alas arrived too late. The Major calls upon his men to show the enemy how a handful of British soldiers can play a losing game as well as a winning one. He bids them to stand shoulder to shoulder, and fight and die for their Queen. The horses are seen to fall, and from the rampart of dead horses, the heroic band fight to the last round of revolver ammunition. The Major, who is the last to fall, crawls to the top of the head of dead men, savages and horses, and makes every one of the few remaining cartridges find its mark until his life is cut short by the thrust of an assegai in the hands of a savage, who attacks him from behind. Before he falls however, he fires his last bullet into the fleeing carcass of the savage, who drops dead. The Major also expires, and death like silence prevails. The most awe-inspiring cinematograph picture ever produced." From: Authur C. Brookes, ed. (December 1899). "Films". The Photographic Dealer and Optical and Scientific Apparatus Trades Journal (London, England) VII (43): 147.
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