It follows English soldier Preston Fanshall from the British defeat at the Battle of Isandlwana to Rorke's Drift where he participates in the successful defence of that post.

Moxter's black servant, Goba, travels to Ulundi and intervenes to protect her from the advances of German villain Carl Schneider who has allied with the Zulu.

The film shows the British defeat at the Battle of Hlobane and the arrival of reinforcements, including Napoléon, the French Prince Imperial.

The prince becomes a central character for a portion of the film and is shown, in a lavish flashback, meeting Queen Victoria and Empress Eugénie at Windsor Castle.

It was begun after AFP employee Harold M. Shaw was refused permission by the Rhodesian authorities to shoot a biopic of Cecil Rhodes.

Filming began in January 1918 with Schlesinger as director; he handed the role to Albrecht and then to Dick Cruikshanks, who received the formal credit.

Symbol of Sacrifice has also been noted for its themes of British-Boer cooperation, intended by Shaw to promote support for the Allies in the First World War.

On the British side a Boer farmer's daughter, Marie Moxter, is in a relationship with English soldier Preston Fanshall but desired by the villain, the German Carl Schneider.

On the Zulu side a woman, Melissa, is in a similar predicament with her love, a warrior named Tambookie, and Dabomba, a villainous witchdoctor.

The film also shows the doomed attempted escape of Lieutenants Teignmouth Melvill and Nevill Coghill from the battle with the Queen's Colour of the 24th Regiment of Foot.

[4][7] The film goes on to show the arrival of British reinforcements, including Napoléon, the French Prince Imperial who is shown being welcomed by a crowd in Pietermaritzburg.

It includes a flashback of his meeting his godmother Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle before his departure for the front and being given a locket by his mother, Empress Eugénie, containing her portrait.

The climatic scene of the proposed film was to be Rhodes negotiating the surrender of the Northern Ndebele people during the Second Matabele War.

The Rhodesian authorities considered that the war was too recent in history and a film might cause increased tensions between the black population and the white minority rulers.

[12] F. Horace Rose, editor of the Natal Witness, was keen to write a screenplay on the 1879 Anglo-Zulu War and got in touch with Shaw.

[12] It is thought that elements of slapstick comedy in the film, such as scenes showing coffee being spilled and jam-covered bread being thrown, came from Shaw.

Shaw was also disappointed by Schlesinger's insistence that he work full time on Symbol of Sacrifice, barring him from several smaller AFP projects.

The screenplay specified that Melissa should be played by an actress "not too black nor of too decided negro features", presumably to increase her acceptability to white audiences.

[11] Almost the entire film was shot in Transvaal for its close proximity to AFP's Johannesburg studios and to avoid inflaming tensions in kwaZulu-Natal which was still recovering from the 1906 Zulu-led Bambatha Rebellion.

[5][15] The drownings, which happened on a Sunday, were mentioned in a South African House of Assembly debate as part of an argument against filming taking place on the Christian Sabbath.

Stone recalled that the British actors were forced to defend themselves by swinging their rifle butts and that blood was drawn on both sides in the clash.

[7] The procession in the film features an elaborate military parade and vast crowds of civilians shot from a high angle and in wide-shot.

[20] During publicity for the film AFP put forward a man claiming to be named Jones and a Victoria Cross-winning veteran from Rorke's Drift.

[4] Shaw's influence gave the film a pro-Allied stance and it was regarded in contemporary press coverage as reinvigorating South African support for the First World War.

[7] Zulu War historian Ian Knight notes that the equipment and clothing shown in the surviving film is remarkably accurate for the period.

Rorke's Drift veterans commented that the set used for those scenes more closely resembled the Durban Club than the real battlefield and Richard Wyatt Vause, an Isandlwana survivor, stated that the battle was nothing like that shown in the film.