(2.) HUNTING SCENE.
(See [page 135].)
It is easy to see how this custom of holding a review almost immediately after the battle, and causing either reward or punishment to come swiftly upon the soldiers, must have added to the efficiency of the armies, especially when the system was carried out by a man like its originator Tchaka, an astute, sanguinary, determined, and pitiless despot. Under the two successive reigns of Dingan and Panda, and especially under the latter, the efficiency of the Zulu army—the eaters of men—has notably diminished, this result being probably owing to the neighborhood of the English colony at Natal, in which the Zulu warriors can find a refuge when they fear that their lives are endangered. Formerly, the men had no possible refuge, so that a Kaffir was utterly in the power of his chief, and the army was therefore more of a machine than it is at present.
Reviews such as have been described are not only held in war time, but frequently take place in times of peace. It has been mentioned that the king of the Zulu tribe has twenty-six war-kraals, or garrison towns, and he generally contrives to visit each of them in the course of the year. Each time that he honors the kraal by his presence the troops are turned out, and a review is held, though not always accompanied by the lavish distribution of rewards and punishment which distinguishes those which are held after battle.
The vicissitudes of Kaffir warfare are really remarkable from a military point of view. Originally, the only idea which the Kaffirs had of warfare was a desultory kind of skirmishing, in which each man fought “for his own hand,” and did not reckon on receiving any support from his comrades, each of whom was engaged in fight on his own account. In fact, war was little more than a succession of duels, and, if a warrior succeeded in killing the particular enemy to whom he was opposed, he immediately sought another. But the idea of large bodies of men acting in concert, and being directed by one mind, was one that had not occurred to the Kaffirs until the time of Tchaka.
When that monarch introduced a system and a discipline into warfare, the result was at once apparent. Individual skirmishers had no chance against large bodies of men, mutually supporting each other, moving as if actuated by one mind, and, under the guidance of a single leader, advancing with a swift but steady impetuosity that the undisciplined soldiers of the enemy could not resist. Discipline could not be turned against the Zulus, for Tchaka left the conquered tribes no time to organize themselves into armies, even if they had possessed leaders who were capable of that task. His troops swept over the country like an army of locusts, consuming everything on their way, and either exterminating the various tribes, or incorporating them in some capacity or other among the Zulus.
In truth, his great policy was to extend the Zulu tribe, and from a mere tribe to raise them into a nation. His object was, therefore, not so much to destroy as to absorb, and, although he did occasionally extirpate a tribe that would not accept his conditions, it was for the purpose of striking terror into others, and proving to them the futility of resistance. Those that had accepted his offers he incorporated with his own army, and subjected to the same discipline, but took care to draught them off into different regiments, so that they could not combine in a successful revolt. The result of this simple but far-seeing policy was, that in a few years the Zulu tribe, originally small, had, beside its regular regiments on duty, some twelve or fifteen thousand men always ready for any sudden expedition, and at the end of five or six years the Zulu king was paramount over the whole of Southern Africa, the only check upon him being the European colonies. These he evidently intended to sweep away, but was murdered before he could bring his scheme to maturity. Tchaka’s system was followed by Moselekatze in the north of Kaffirland, who contrived to manage so well that the bulk of his army belonged to Bechuanan and other tribes, some of whose customs he adopted.
The military system of Tchaka prevailed, as must be the case when there is no very great inequality between the opposing forces, and discipline is all on one side. But, when discipline is opposed to discipline, and the advantage of weapons lies on the side of the latter, the consequences are disastrous to the former. Thus it has been with the Kaffir tribes. The close ranks of warriors, armed with shield and spear, were irresistible when opposed to men similarly armed, but without any regular discipline, but, when they came to match themselves against fire-arms, they found that their system was of little value.
The shield could resist the assagai well enough, but against the bullet it was powerless, and though the stabbing-assagai was a terrible weapon when the foe was at close quarters, it was of no use against an enemy who could deal destruction at the distance of several hundred yards. Moreover, the close and compact ranks, which were so efficacious against the irregular warriors of the country, became an absolute element of weakness when the soldiers were exposed to heavy volleys from the distant enemy. Therefore, the whole course of battle was changed when the Zulus fought against the white man and his fire-arms, and they found themselves obliged to revert to the old system of skirmishing, though the skirmishers fought under the commands of the chief, instead of each man acting independently, as had formerly been the case.
We remember how similar changes have taken place in our European armies, when the heavy columns that used to be so resistless were shattered by the fire of single ranks, and how the very massiveness of the column rendered it a better mark for the enemy’s fire, and caused almost every shot to take effect.
Tchaka was not always successful, for he forgot that cunning is often superior to force, and that the enemy’s spears are not the most dangerous weapons in his armory. The last expedition that Tchaka organized was a singularly unsuccessful one. He had first sent an army against a tribe which had long held out against him, and which had the advantage of a military position so strong that even the trained Zulu warriors, who knew that failure was death, could not succeed in taking it. Fortunately for Tchaka, some Europeans were at the time in his kraal, and he obliged them to fight on his behalf. The enemy had, up to that time, never seen nor heard of fire-arms; and when they saw their comrades falling without being visibly struck, they immediately yielded, thinking that the spirits of their forefathers were angry with them, and spat fire out of their mouths. This, indeed, was the result which had been anticipated by the bearers of the fire-arms in question, for they thought that, if the enemy were intimidated by the strange weapons, great loss of life would be saved on both sides. The battle being over, the conquered tribe were subsidized as tributaries, according to Tchaka’s custom, and all their cattle given up.