Medal. Fourteen medals without clasp were awarded to nurses who served in Natal during the Anglo-Zulu War. A War Office committee, appointed to consider their claim, had previously ruled against granting medals, there being no precedent to award campaign medals to women. However, after a number of nurses received the Egypt Medal for their services during the 1882 Anglo-Egyptian War, the committee's decision was reversed. This was therefore the earliest campaign in which women received a British campaign medal. Campaigns The campaigns were the Gaika-Gcaleka War from 26 September 1877 to 28 June 1878, the action against Chief Pokwane from 21 to 28 January 1878, the Griqua War from 24 April to 13 November 1878, the action against Chief Sekhukhune in late 1878, the Anglo-Zulu War from 11 January to 1 September 1879, the action against the uprising in Basutoland under Chief Moirosi from 25 March to 20 November 1879 and the second action against Chief Sekhukhune from 11 November to 2 December 1879. Zululand King Cetshwayo kaMpande became King of the Zulus in 1873, but had been their effective ruler since 1856. Cetshwayo perceived the British as a threat to his rule and embarked upon a programme to equip his army with muskets, while inciting revolts among other tribes all along the British and Boer borders with the Zulus. Actions to counter these revolts and attacks escalated and led to reinforcements being sent from Britain over the course of 1878 to quell Cetshwayo and his uprisings. Gaika-Gcaleka War The Gaika-Gcaleka War was a series of punitive campaigns which resulted from the attacks of the Gcaleka and Gaika tribes on a protected people, the Fengu. The campaigns against the insurgent Gcaleka and Gaika lasted some eight months and were carried out by local Colonial Forces as well as contingents of both the British Army and the Royal Navy serving ashore. The Gaika-Gcaleka War, which became known as the Ninth Cape Frontier War, ended with the annexation of the Transkei, homeland of the Gcaleka peoples, to the Cape of Good Hope. Sekhukhune Wars Once the Gaika-Gcaleka War was settled, those forces not embroiled in the developing conflict in Zululand were employed against a Basuto tribe in the northern Transvaal, the Bapedi of Chief Sekhukhune, whose raids had begun to affect tribes under British protection. After an initial sally against his fortress at Thaba Ya Leolo in late 1878 had proved ineffective,