Chapter 374: Lively South Africa
"Zulu warriors are coming! Quick, gather everyone!"
"Oooh…"
No one knew how many times this had happened this month. General Andries of the Transvaal Republic let out an angry roar.
This time, it was yet another small detachment from the Zulu Kingdom attacking. They also carried firearms, just like the Ndebele, and launched raids on the Boers.
By the time the Boers finally managed to assemble, a horn sounded on the opposite side, and the Zulu troops—well-trained—began to retreat.
All Andries could do was watch them go. No one dared give the order to pursue, because they knew how cunning these Zulu warriors were. Surely a trap awaited them.
Life was getting harder and harder for the Boers, mainly because their national defense pressure was mounting day by day. The small Zulu Kingdom was becoming ever more provocative, and with the British nearby, the Boers found it increasingly difficult to deal a serious blow to the Zulu. Their engagements became more and more conservative.
The hatred between the Boers and the Zulu started almost the moment they met. In truth, neither side were the original inhabitants of this land: the Boers had migrated north, while the Zulu had moved south. Inevitably, these two forces clashed in the Natal region.
The original people of Natal were the Ndebele, who had been thoroughly defeated by East Africa. The Ndebele and the Zulu share the same ancestral roots, but when the Zulu Kingdom invaded, the two peoples fought a bloody war for control of Natal.
Initially, the outcome was unclear—until the northward-migrating Boers delivered a fatal blow to the Ndebele.
The Boers moving north had to face the Ndebele, who were neighbors of the Cape Colony, yet their offensive went very smoothly. Shortly after war broke out, they teamed up with tribes hostile to the Ndebele and launched a daring raid on its capital. They captured many elderly, women, children, and a large number of livestock—cattle and horses.
At the time, the Ndebele king was locked in battle against the Zulu. Crippled by this sudden strike, he decided to lead his entire people—old and young—across the Limpopo River to the north to escape the threat of both Zulu and Boer forces.
This was how the Matabele Kingdom in Zimbabwe was founded. Compared to the Zulu and the Boers, the Ndebele were certainly the unluckiest. Just as their Matabele Kingdom began to flourish, it encountered the southward expansion of the East African Kingdom, which delivered a final blow, turning the entire Ndebele people into prisoners.
After the Ndebele withdrew, Boer colonists founded the first settlement in the Natal region on the land they left behind. They appointed a governor and a militia commander, among other posts.
Retief, the Governor of Natal, wrote a letter to Dingane, King of the Zulu, asking him to allow Boer farms on land near the Zulu border. Dingane replied that if Retief could help the Zulu recover 700 cattle stolen by nomads, he would grant the Boers' request.
So, Retief did as he promised and helped the Zulu King retrieve the lost cattle. In return, Dingane indeed signed a land settlement treaty in his capital, Mgungundlovu, with the governor. But during the celebratory feast, King Dingane suddenly turned on them. He ordered his guards to disarm Retief and his men, and they were all killed with short spears.
Right after that, the Zulu's main field army—already poised for battle—launched a full-scale attack against the newly arrived Boer colony, which had yet to establish a firm footing. All the Boer farms and forts were destroyed, and several camps were attacked at night. Even Durban Port, their only outlet to the sea, fell. About five hundred women, children, and elderly were killed, leaving the remaining survivors frightened and holed up in their encampments, afraid to come out and fight.
In this desperate moment, the Boer farmers wrote to the Cape Colony militia commander, Pretorius, asking him to take the lead in resisting the Zulu Kingdom and to bring Boer militia from the Cape to aid Natal.
Just then, a civil war broke out in the Zulu Kingdom. Mpande, Dingane's half-brother, fearing Dingane would kill him, led 17,000 soldiers to set up his own faction. This suited Pretorius perfectly: he could focus entirely on dealing with Dingane while supporting Mpande as an ally.
They met in a decisive battle at the Ncome River. Pretorius's men brought one old naval cannon and one land-based cannon, repeatedly firing grapeshot to repel each wave of Zulu attacks.
Some Zulu warriors tried to skirt the Ncome River and attack the Boer wagons from behind, but they too were met with continuous gunfire from the colonists' troops.
Because Boer farmers hunted for meat themselves, practically every man was an excellent shot. Even the servants who followed them were highly proficient with firearms.
Moreover, the firearms' range was about twice that of the Zulu spears, so Zulu warriors charging in waves were gunned down in large numbers in the Ncome River.
By late afternoon, the Boers' ammunition was nearly depleted. Seeing no other option, Pretorius led 300 Boer cavalry in a counter-charge against the Zulu.
Exhausted from hours of fighting, the Zulu warriors couldn't withstand the Boers' ferocious charge and were scattered, unable to form another effective assault.
Many more Zulu fighters were driven into the Ncome River and killed, their blood dyeing the waters red. It was this event that became historically known as the "Battle of Blood River."
In the end, 3,000 Zulu warriors died on the battlefield, while the Boer side lost only one man. The proud Zulu Kingdom had no choice but to retreat in defeat.
This Battle of Blood River decided the fate of Natal. The Zulu Kingdom, which had previously been dominant, lost the initiative from that point on.
The Boer wagon trains reached the Zulu capital only to find that Dingane, with his entire army and populace, had abandoned the city and fled north. The Boers installed Prince Mpande on the throne as king and got permission for Boer settlements in Natal, along with receiving 10,000 kilograms of ivory as compensation paid to Pretorius. Then they pursued the fleeing King Dingane, forcing him to retreat into Swaziland, where he was killed by his own guards.
But the Boers' good times did not last long. Although they had defeated the Zulu Kingdom, the British then cast their eye on the Natal colony.
Citing the Boers' infringement on Zulu rights, the British invaded the Republic of Natalia. Crushed in 1843, the Boers once again headed inland. Eventually, they broke through the Zulu defenses and in 1852 founded the Transvaal Republic and the Orange Free State.
When two tigers fight, the one to benefit is the British. And now that the British were backing them, the Zulu recovered from their disadvantage and frequently launched raids on the Transvaal Republic.
The Transvaal Republic was almost constantly harassed by the Zulu Kingdom. Skirmishes broke out daily, and Transvaal's main forces had to remain concentrated in the southeast to fend off these provocations.
As for the massive East African Kingdom to the north, the Transvaal Republic was initially alarmed by these newly arrived Germans. But after a long period of contact, they realized the Germans had no intention of attacking and even engaged in trade, so the Boers gradually let their guard down. Deep inside, however, the Boers feared that the Germans might act like those "English beasts." Thus, they secretly offered support to their old defeated foes, the Ndebele. And by doing so, they planted the seeds of their own destruction.
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