"As we under Heaven are supreme head,
So, under him, that great supremacy,
Where we do reign, we will alone uphold."
THE WEB THICKENING
It must be remembered that between the Zulus and the Boers no boundary line had ever been fixed, and that for over a dozen years the Zulu chiefs had repeatedly implored the British Governor in Natal for advice and help in their dealings with these aggressors. It had been part of the Dutch policy—if policy it may be called—to force the Zulu gradually to edge further and further from the rich pasture lands sloping eastward of the Drakensberg Mountains, and spreading to right and left into the north and west of Zululand. Little notice had been taken of their petitions, and the Zulus had determined to take the law into their own hands. Cetchwayo, therefore, when the news of our annexation of the Transvaal reached him, was like a wild beast baulked of its prey. He was anxious for an occasion for his young warriors "to wash their spears" in the gore of his enemies, and was naturally disappointed to find them under the protection of the white man. The Natal Government attempted to soothe him—to promote peace. He remained sullen and simmered. He vented his spleen by putting several young women to death for having refused to marry his soldiers. On being remonstrated with by the Natal Government, he expressed himself with engaging candour. His own words, without comment, describe the character with which we had to deal.
"Did I ever tell Mr. Shepstone," his Majesty cried, "that I would not kill? Did Mr. Shepstone tell the white people I made such an arrangement? Because if he did he deceived them. I do kill; but I do not consider that I have done anything yet in the way of killing. Why do the white people start at nothing? I have not yet begun. I have yet to kill. It is the custom of our nation, and I will not depart from it. Why does the Governor of Natal speak to me about my laws? I shall not agree to any laws or rules from Natal, and by so doing throw the large kraal which I govern into the water. My people will not listen unless they are killed, and while wishing to be friends with the English I do not agree to give my people over to be governed by laws sent to me by them. Have I not asked the English to allow me to wash my spears since the death of my father, Upandi, and they have kept playing with me all the time, treating me as a child?" ... A good deal more followed in this strain. Since his accession the gallant Cetchwayo had decided to "wash his spears" in the blood of his neighbours, and whatever the British might have to say in the matter, wash them he would. It was obvious, therefore, that a ruffian of this kind, backed by a bloodthirsty following, was a permanent danger to our Colony of Natal and to its white inhabitants. Something must be done to remove the disquiet caused by the utterances of the savage. Sir Henry Bulwer (the Governor of Natal)—to conciliate the king and to allay his fears lest his territory, like that of the Boers, should be annexed—proposed that a commission should investigate the rival claims of Boers and Zulus on border questions, and settle them by arbitration. But what Sir H. Bulwer proposed Sir Bartle Frere, High Commissioner in South Africa, disapproved. He felt that Cetchwayo and his host would be a standing menace to the borders of Natal. Nevertheless he agreed to a discussion of the vexed boundary question between Boer and Zulu, in which the commissioners declared unanimously against the claims of the former. Certain land only to west of the Blood River, held by the Boers and unchallenged by the Zulus, was confirmed to the Dutch settlers in their occupation of the same. But to this decision Sir Bartle Frere considered it expedient to add some saving clauses. These demanded, first, that Cetchwayo should adhere to the guarantees he had given and not permit indiscriminate shedding of blood; second, that he should institute from his existing military system the form of tribal quotas; third, that he should accept the presence of a British Resident; fourth, that he should protect the missionaries and their converts; and lastly, that he should surrender certain criminals and pay certain fines. His Zulu Majesty was given thirty days to consider the subject. Instead of considering he flouted it. The result was war.
THE ZULU WAR
According to the opinion of Sir Bartle Frere there was, and for a long time had been, a growing desire on the part of the great chiefs to make this war into a simultaneous rising of Kaffirdom against white civilisation. A spirit of mutiny had been in the air since the terrible events in India in 1857, and there was a general conviction among the native tribes that the authority of Great Britain would eventually be overthrown. Now the most powerful of all the native tribes in South Africa were the Zulus, whose military organisation had long been celebrated, and who had earned a great reputation since the days of Gaika, and more especially in the time that followed when Chaka, who was a born warrior, brought the gigantic army into a state of marvellous efficiency.
A few words regarding the career of this great chieftain may be found interesting, for to him is accorded the credit of the indubitably warlike and brave disposition of his countrymen. This man, who has been at times called the Attila and the Napoleon of South Africa, was born in 1783. He became chief officer to Dingiswayo, a man of remarkable ability, who studied European military systems and modelled on their principle a highly efficient army. Chaka, heir to a chieftainship of the Amazulu tribe (the Zulus proper), took the fancy of Dingiswayo, who elevated him first to a post of high command, and eventually to the vacant Zulu chieftainship. On the death in battle of Dingiswayo, Chaka assumed the command of both tribes, to which he gave his name. The already excellent army he proceeded to improve till it became one of the most efficient military organisations ever originated in an uncivilised country. The whole kingdom was ordered on a military footing, and expanded so wondrously that the original two tribes at first commanded by Chaka became an hundred, each tribe having been defeated in warfare and incorporated in the Zulu nationality. His policy, unlike that of Cetchwayo later on, was not to destroy but to subdue, and thus he soon ruled with undisputed sway over a complete empire covering the desolated regions of Natal, Zululand, and the modern Boer States. His methods of military training were entirely Spartan; his discipline was a discipline of iron. Disobedience was met with the penalty of death. To tread out a roaring bush-fire, or capture alive a wild beast, were some of the tasks imposed as daily training for his would-be warriors. An order was an order, and this, however dangerous or seemingly impossible, had to be obeyed by individual or regiment on pain of the most horrible forms of death. It may easily be imagined that this stern regime was calculated to create a military following of the most brave and adventurous order. Naturally enough, all the other Kaffir tribes looked to the Zulus as their leaders and champions in the contest. Captain Hamilton Parr tells a tale of an old Galeka warrior who said to a native magistrate, "Yes, you have beaten us—you have beaten us well; but there," pointing eastward, "there are the Amazulu warriors. Can you beat them? They say not. Go and try. Don't trouble any more about us, but go and beat them and we shall be quiet enough." This anecdote serves to describe the general sentiment of disdain for British authority which Sir Bartle Frere detected almost immediately after his arrival among the natives, and to account in a measure for what has been declared to be his high-handed policy. He was convinced that we could never expect peace among the chiefs until we had satisfied them who was master. A lesson was necessary to show that the British Government could govern and meant to govern, and that lesson he felt must be taught sooner or later. For a long time Cetchwayo had been instigating rebellion and preparing for war. As may be seen from Lord Carnarvon's letter of the 24th of January 1878 to Sir Bartle Frere, the Government was fully conscious of the existing necessity to protect the Transvaal and to maintain British prestige in South Africa. The despatch runs: "It seems certain that the Zulu king has derived from his messengers the unfortunate idea that the Kaffirs are able to cope with the Colony on more than equal terms, and this belief has, as was inevitable, produced a very threatening change in his language and conduct towards the Transvaal Government. It is only too probable that a savage chief such as Cetchwayo, supported by a powerful army already excited by the recent successes of a neighbouring tribe over the late Government of the Transvaal, may now become fired with the idea of victory over her Majesty's forces, and that a deliberate attempt upon her Majesty's territories may ensue. Should this unfortunately happen, you must understand that at whatever sacrifice it is imperatively necessary that her Majesty's forces in Natal and the Transvaal must be reinforced by the immediate despatch of the military and naval contingents now operating in the Cape, or such portion of them as may be required. This is necessary not only for the safety of the Transvaal, for the defence of which her Majesty's Government are immediately concerned, but also in the interest of the Cape, since a defeat of the Zulu king would act more powerfully than any other means in disheartening the native races of South Africa."
On this subject Sir H. Bulwer wrote: "There has been for the last eight or nine months a danger of collision with the Zulus at any moment." And in November 1878 he said: "The system of government in the Zulu country is so bad that any improvement seems hopeless. We should, if necessary, be justified in deposing Cetchwayo."
Consequently, Sir Bartle Frere was not surprised when all efforts to reduce Cetchwayo to yield to British demand failed. As time went by it became clear that enforcement of these demands must be placed in the hands of Lord Chelmsford and the military authorities, and accordingly, on the 10th of January 1879, the Commander-in-Chief of the forces of South Africa crossed the frontier.
As the frontier extended for some two hundred miles, to assume a purely defensive attitude would have been impossible. Our forces so placed would not have been sufficiently strong to resist an attack made at their own time and place by a horde of some ten to twenty thousand Zulus. Lord Chelmsford had no alternative, therefore, but to invade Zululand.