[Parts 1 - 3 in Lone Warrior 122] Part Four: Ascendency of the Zulu under Shaka But if Shaka had donned Dingiswayo's mantle, he had also inherited his problems. Not the least of these was the threat of Zwide and the Ndwandwe. As it happened, this particular difficulty was overcome by the rashness of the Ndwandwe chieftain. Seriously underestimating his new rival, Zwide invaded Shaka's territories a year after Dingiswayo's death. He did not catch the Zulu unprepared. The Zulu and the Ndwandwe forces met at Gqokli Hill, just south of the swift flowing Mfolozi river. The battle area had been chosen by Shaka, who concentrated his main force in a strong defensive position on the upper slopes of the hill. His reserves, both men and supplies, were hidden in a deep depression at the summit, completely encircled by the other troops. A smaller force was sent to detain the Ndwandwe at the Mfolozi river. Although greatly outnumbered, this force was able to hold the enemy by lining the river banks and clubbing the Ndwandwe warriors as they struggled against a fast and treacherous current. It was late afternoon before Zwide's exhausted and somewhat depleted army gained the southern bank and trudged towards the foot of Gqokli Hill, where they encamped for the night. When the Ndwandwe attempted to storm Gqokli the following morning they found themselves at a distinct disadvantage. The conical shape of the hill counted against them. The higher they climbed the narrower became their front; by the time they reached the wall of Zulu their advanced troops were so tightly bunched together that their movements were severely restricted. Armed only with throwing assegais and forced on by the press from below, they were neither prepared nor positioned to withstand a frontal attack. When Shaka's men descended on them, bellowing their war cries and flashing their deadly stabbing spears, the Ndwandwe put up a brave fight but could not prevent the inevitable massacre. The entire Ndwandwe force was thrust relentlessly downhill until Shaka --commanding from a convenient height -- called a halt. Slowly the Zulu warriors retired to their original lines, sending their wounded ahead to be tended at the summit, and pausing only to collect assegais from the hundreds of dead Ndwandwe littering the hillside. This strategic placing of his men enabled Shaka to counter several more Ndwandwe assaults. Time and again Zwide's force charged up the hill but, no matter how much they varied their tactics or what ruses they employed, each charge was effectively thrown back. Moreover, as both sides became progressively more exhausted and parched with thirst, Shaka was able to call on his hidden reserves while the enemy ranks were seriously depleted by Ndwandwe warriors deserting to refresh themselves at the distant Mfolozi river. For all that, the Zulu victory was by no means decisive...[amongst their losses the Ndwandwe numbered] no less than five of Zwide's sons, including the Ndwandwe heir. After regrouping, Zwide again sent his army into Zulu territory: This time Shaka adopted elusive tactics. Instructing his people to drive their cattle into the forests, to empty the grain pits in their kraals and to hide themselves, he marched his army ahead of the invaders, luring them further and further away from their base. Elementary as this 'scorched earth' device appears, it was novel to tribal warfare and proved remarkably effective. The Zulu army was well catered for by food-carrying herdboys, but the Ndwandwe ran dangerously short of rations as they advanced deeper and deeper into the deserted territory. For almost a week Shaka led the enemy a frustrating chase; occasionally allowing his troops to be glimpsed but never pausing long enough to be attacked. Finally the Ndwandwe gave up. Famished and exhausted, they camped in a dense forest and decided to retreat. Even then they were allowed no rest. Small parties of Zulu warriors, taking advantage of the darkness, crept into the camp and created havoc among their sleep-bemused enemy. Unable to distinguish friend from foe, the Ndwandwe attacked each other in the confused night fighting and as they did so the Zulu invaders slipped away practically unharmed. Very few of Zwide's men were marching-fit when their retreat began the following morning. Shaka shadowed the weary Ndwandwe for several miles and then launched his attack. In a battle which raged for two days, along the banks of the Mhlatuze river, the Ndwandwe were utterly defeated. Drooping from hunger and fatigue, they were easy prey for the disciplined Zulu warriors who, by repeated charges, reduced them to a state of panic. Once the army had been destroyed, Shaka despatched two regiments to the Ndwandwe capital with orders to capture Zwide and slaughter his women and children. The forces under Shaka's command had ... increased. Precise figures are difficult to arrive at but, with all fit men being conscripted into the Zulu regiments, Shaka could probably muster a fighting force anything up to 40,000 warriors. Added to this force were the non-combatant regiments of Zulu girls which were organised along parallel lines to those of the men. Sexual intercourse was strictly forbidden to these male and female regiments. They were expected to sublimate their natural instincts in military activities, exercises and dances. Occasionally they were allowed to indulge in the customary ukuhlobonga, but any accidental pregnancies resulting from the misuse of this indulgence cost the offending parties dear, often their lives. Not until a warrior was forty was he given permission to marry. The rule of Shaka was unique: he established an extensive African kingdom, governed by an army of enforced celibates, dedicated to war, and owing sole allegiance to an all-powerful monarch. Part Five: The Zulu Military System - Structure of the Zulu forces The Zulu military system has long been misunderstood, not least by the British in 1879. The image of a restless an aggressive Zulu military machine was first popularized by white settlers who felt themselves threatened by their Zulu neighbours, and has survived in popular literature until the present day. It is not commonly understood that the Zulu army was never a separate institution like the British army, but was integrated into the whole fabric of Zulu economic, political and social life. The ibutho system The military system was built upon the institution of age-set units called amabutho (singular - ibutho), which seem to have developed from the ancient practice among the Natal Nguni people of banding together youths of similar age in circumcision-sets. By the early nineteenth century, in the area later to be dominated by the Zulu kingdom, the practice of forming amabutho was changing its function from the preparation of youths for adult life, to that of bringing them more firmly under the authority of their elders and channelling their energies into serving their superiors militarily and economically. Shaka, the founder of the Zulu kingdom, had brought this amabutho system (or regimental system as it is conventionally termed), to its final form and it endured, with modifications, until the destruction of the Zulu state. In Cetshwayo's time, boys between the ages of fourteen and eighteen would gather at military kraals (amakhanda, singular - ikhanda) where they served for two to three years as cadets, herding cattle, working the fields and practising military skills. Once enough boys of an age-group were congregated at the various amakhanda around the country they would all be brought before the king, usually at the annual 'first-fruits' ceremony (umKhosi) held at his 'great place'. The king then formed them into an ibutho with orders to build a new ikhanda (often bearing the name the king had given the ibutho). Sometime, as with the uVe in 1875, the new ibutho was incorporated into an old ibutho - in that case the inGobamakhosi - whose strength the king had decided to maintain, and quartered with it in the old ibutho's existing ikhanda. Not all the amabutho were made up of elements from every district of the kingdom. The abaQulusi, for example, who had developed out of an ikhanda founded by Shaka, formed a separate ibutho composed only of men living in the district of north-western Zululand which they had come to dominated. Women were indirectly part of the military system in that they formed the major labour force in Zulu society and produced food to feed their male relatives serving in the army. Girls in Zululand were formed into amabutho for the purposes of marriage, and at intervals the king gave the members of a female ibutho leave to be married, but only to suitors from those male amabutho which had received royal permission to put on the headring (isicoco), a privilege usually not granted men until about the age of thirty-five or forty. Each man paid ilobolo of up to three cattle for his bride. There was apparently a considerably greater degree of flexibility in the ibutho system by Cetshwayo's time than in Shaka's day. Contemporary commentators stated that the possibility existed for putting on the isicoco and settling down to family life without having served the king, although not without being exposed to the scorn of the vast majority who continued to conform to the system. In 1879 there were twenty-seven amakhanda in Zululand, thirteen of them concentrated in the Mahlabathini plain, including Ulundi, Cetshwayo's 'great place'. The thirteen central amakhanda were occupied by unmarried amabutho for seven to eight months immediately after formation, and thereafter for only a few months a year, when they served the king; otherwise, they were used by all amabutho when they gathered during the annual national ceremonies. The remaining fourteen amakhanda were widely dispersed and formed regional centres of royal influence and mobilization points for local elements of the married amabutho. Young men gathered there as cadets before being formed into amabutho, and married men served there annually for short periods of two to five months, often with their wives. While serving at an ikhanda the members of an ibutho kept it in repair, attended the royal cattle attached to it and cultivated the king's land. Ostensibly maintained there at the king's expense, the men were actually dependent on food supplied from their own homesteads by their women. There was dancing and singing daily which was an effective part of military exercises. Sometimes the king would call up a limited number of amabutho for special tasks - building him a new homestead, participating in great hunts, supplying him with exotic foodstuffs (for example, bananas from the coast), or collecting tribute from outlying peoples such as the Tonga. Apart from making up the army in time of war, the amabutho served as a police force, collecting fines from offenders against the king or destroying their homesteads. The cattle and commodities which the amabutho accumulated for the king on their forays or as a result of their labour at the amakhanda, provided a vital source of royal power. By redistributing a portion of his wealth as rewards to royal functionaries and favoured amabutho, the king was able constantly to consolidate his position and ensure the loyalty of his subjects. In sum, the ibutho system formed the basis of the king's power and authority. Through it he exerted a firm control over the men and women of his kingdom and harnessed their productive and military potential to the service of the Zulu state. Internal Formation The ibutho was made up of a number of sections (amaviyo, singular - iviyo). Each iviyo seems to have consisted of men of the same age-group drawn from a particular locality, who had been formed into an iviyo during their days as cadets at one of the district amakhanda. The strength of an iviyo naturally varied, but was usually between forty and sixty men. There was no fixed number of amaviyo constituting and ibutho, which might be anything between a few hundred of a few thousand men strong. Variations in the size of amabutho seems to have depended on the degree of royal favour enjoyed by a particular ibutho: the inGobamakhosi, for example, which Cetshwayo particularly patronized, was the largest in the army. Each ibutho was commanded by an induna (plural - izinduna), with his second-in-command and two wing officers, all of them older and more experienced than the men they led. The junior officers, at least two to each iviyo, had been chosen by their contemporaries in their days as cadets. One iviyo was always assigned the special duty of acting as the bodyguard to the induna. Dress and Weapons Officers wore no special badges of military rank, though their status could be easily inferred as certain ornaments were reserved by the king for men of high position. The festival attire of the amabutho which distinguished them one from another (as did their songs and war-cries) was intricate and lavish, the head-dress being particularly striking. On active service, however, most of this was laid aside, and usually nothing except lion cover, weapons and shield was retained, though there is evidence that abbreviated head-dresses and other decorative items were sometimes worn, particularly by men of higher status. By the 1870's not only had shields shrunk to two-thirds of the man-height size stipulated by Shaka, but the uniformity of shield colours, which had once distinguished the different amabutho, was also falling away. The only remaining distinctive feature was the predominantly white shield of the married amabutho, and the basically black or reddish of the unmarried. Hide for the shields were supplied by the king, as were the more rare valuable items of dress. Each warrior was armed with a stabbing-spear, and by Cetshwayo's day normally also carried a number of throwing-spears and a knobkierrie. The spears were made by blacksmiths in the regions of the Nkandla forest and the Black Mfolozi and distributed by the king to his amabutho. Part Six: The Zulu on Campaign This, possibly final, contribution deals with the Zulu on campaign and the functioning of the regiments on the battlefield. Any players with ideas for converting the Zulu into an Ancients army are invited to submit their ideas and lists. At the outset of a campaign the army commander was informed of the main objectives by the king and his council of indunas at the royal village, and given whatever useful information the council had gathered from traders or spies. After that it was up to the commander, and there might be very little further communication between the king and his men until they returned. (Shaka, having despatched his entire army to the north against the Ndwandwe in 1828, knew nothing of their progress for months, and was in fact assassinated without having heard of the failure of their mission.) On the march an impi (army) lived on whatever food it had brought, or took from the villages that it passed. Any vessels taken and used for eating or drinking were methodically broken afterwards as a precaution against witchcraft. Temporary shelters of reeds or grass were erected at night, and in hill country (where it can be very cold after sunset) the men slept in a sitting position under the inadequate protection of a skin cloak (kaross) or curled up on their shields. Passwords and countersigns were used. Most of the army's equipment such as mats, cooking-pots, bags of cheese and calabashes of beer were carried by udibi, boys about twelve years old and sometimes younger who accompanied the regiments wherever they went, and who normally expected to join the regiment to which they were attached when they came of age. The udibi marched to left and right of the main body of the army, sometimes as far as three miles away in open country, and thus made useful scouts as well as a supply train. Fanatically loyal to their regiments, they fought among themselves at every available opportunity over fancied insults, and were even known to haunt the field itself at the height of battle on the pretext of supplying their men with water, but actually snatching a spear or two in the hope of winning a little premature glory for themselves. In hostile territory ten companies, about 500 men, would be detached from the main body and ordered forward ten or twelve miles as an advance guard. Scouts, izinhloli, in twos and threes were sent ahead of the advance guard, and the presence of the enemy was immediately communicated to the main body by runner. The Zulu were probably the most mobile foot-soldiers in the world. Shaka had seen the delaying effect of the ox-hide sandals worn by the Mthethwa and their enemies, and had insisted on his own regiment discarding them to go permanently barefoot. There is a well-known account of how he swiftly 'hardened' the feet of his first Zulu regiments by mustering them on a thorn strewn parade ground, calling for a hard-stamping war-dance, and ordering his executioners to kill any man who flinched or complained. His troops never reverted to footwear, and their mobility became legendary -- they were used to covering an astonishing fifty miles (80km!) a day, and launching an attack almost immediately at a flat run. The common impression that they disliked attacking at night is not supported by the record. In Shaka's time they did so more than once, and at Rorke's Drift continued the assault on the station till almost dawn. Another erroneous belief -- that the Zulu preferred to wait for the rising of the morning star before attacking -- is quickly disproved by a little knowledge of astronomy. They undoubtedly regarded the first days of the new moon as good times for a campaign, but they might have been less sanguine at Isandlwana had they known that a partial eclipse of the sun was taking place unseen beyond the cloud-cover during their assault. The Zulu did not often use boats, and were limited to crossing rivers at convenient fords. They occasionally made rough rafts of burnt trunks lashed together, but as a rule even quite dangerous torrents were crossed en masse with arms linked -- as was done near Rorke's Drift in 1879, when the Buffalo River was swollen by recent rains. Drawn up for battle, the impi formed the crescent shaped formation. The positions of individual regiments in the crescent varied according to decisions made by senior commanders after reconnoitring the field, but generally the horns were formed from young agile ('black') regiments, whilst the most experienced ('white') regiments formed the chest. To these Shaka added 'loins' -- a reserve of men ready to reinforce the chest if necessary, who were kept sitting to conserve their strength, and with their backs to the enemy to avoid undue excitement, as their commanders kept an eye on the situation. An important reason for placing the young men in the horns -- apart from their agility -- was that unmarried men were considered to be less vulnerable magically, and possessed of more battlepower. Even when a black regiment occupied the extreme left or right wing there might be some older men in the ranks, and they were accordingly kept to the side of that regiment nearest the centre. In a regiment of the chest, the youngest men occupied its left and right flanks. So well drilled in these arrangements were the Zulu that even when called out on parade at their barracks each man instinctively went straight to his place according to his age and marital status. The following gives some Regiments with their shield colours: amaWombe or umBelebele, named after HQ, white uDubinhlangu or inTontela, uJubingqwanga, black uFasimba, 'Haze,' black umGumanqa, 'Watching for vagabonds,'-- uDlangezwa, 'Unfeeling devourers,'-- iziNyosi, 'Bees,' White, one black spot uDloko or uGqikazi, Savage, Red, one white spot uBhewula, Wild men, Black, white spots inDlondlo, 'Poisonous snakes,' Red-and-white The predominance of black regiments seems obvious, however it might be that white regiments were bigger and more numerous. Any ideas on a possible Ancients Zulu army list are eagerly awaited! Carl Holliday, SA WARGAMER, Email: dupek@acc.co.za. Bibliography: Laband, JPC and Thompson, PS. 1983. Field Guide to the War in Zululand and the Defence of Natal 1879. University of Natal Press: Pietermaritzburgh McBride, A. 1976. The Zulu War. Men-at-Arms series 57, Osprey Publishing Limited: London pub Roberts, B. 1974. The Zulu Kings. Hamish Hamilton: London pub. Back to Table of Contents -- Lone Warrior #123 Back to Lone Warrior List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1998 by Solo Wargamers Association. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com