Finding the light throwing spear dangerously fragile when used as a striking or thrusting weapon, Shaka used the time between campaigns to design a single, massive-bladed assegai with a stout, short handle. Called aniklwa, in reference to the sound it made when it was plunged into and pulled from the victim’s body, it later became the primary Zulu weapon and was used to cut a bloody swath through half a continent. He first used it in the 1810 campaigns, when he was 23 years old.

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Later, King Dingiswayo and his army found the Butelezi tribe drawn up in battle formation on a ridge, with their cattle behind them and, farther back, their women and children. When the king’s herald demanded the enemy’s surrender, a famous Butelezi warrior issued a challenge, which Shaka accepted. After a quick victory with his new iklwa and close-in tactics, Shaka strode toward the Butelezi army, followed first by his friends, then his unit and finally the entire Izi-cwe regiment. That unexpected surge caused the Butelezis to break and flee among their cattle for protection. The Butelezis admitted defeat, accepted Dingiswayo’s suzerainty and paid a compensation in cattle. The king rewarded Shaka with 10 head of cattle and promoted him to the command of 100 warriors. After subduing three more tribes, Dingiswayo headed home.

Back at the military kraal, Shaka began shaping his 100-man command into an effective fighting machine. The young commander divided his men into three separate bodies. The largest was the central compact one, with two smaller ones on each flank. Shaka’s tactical genius brought about the deployment of two enveloping ‘horns’ (flanking forces) from the ‘head’ (main body) and supported behind by the ‘loins’ (reserve force). It was later destined to become the well-known and traditional Zulu ‘buffalo’ battle formation.

Shaka and his 100 men performed so outstandingly in combat that the king appointed him as regimental commander. After Shaka had trained the Izi-cwe in his innovative fighting, Dingiswayo moved against Zwide, the chief of the powerful Ndwandwe tribe. The Mthethwas found Zwide’s army on a steep ridge, with a 500-strong allied contingent rushing to link up with it. Shaka and his Izi-cwe regiment raced to cut off the allied warriors, wheeled and struck them head-on with a furious attack. As Shaka had hoped, many of the Ndwandwe warriors now streamed off the ridge to aid their allies and catch the Izi-cwe regiment in a pincer movement. After putting the allies to rout, Shaka turned to face and hold the Ndwandwes from the ridge until his army arrived. He then ordered his right flank to extend and surround them. Before all of Chief Zwide’s army could join the battle, it had already been won by Shaka’s tactics, which had transformed a traditional set-piece battle into one of movement, permitting the defeat of the enemy in detail.

Shaka’s reward was a generous share of the captured cattle, which he gave to his men. King Dingiswayo also appointed Shaka as his commander in chief and maneuvered a reconciliation with his estranged father, Senzangakhona, who promised to make Shaka his heir.

Before Shaka’s father died in 1816, his eighth wife persuaded him to appoint her son as his successor instead of Shaka. When the new Zulu chieftain was assassinated shortly thereafter, King Dingiswayo told Shaka to assume the Zulu throne and gave him a regiment to enforce that decision. Shaka’s new domain consisted of about 100 square miles, and he could reach any point of his frontier in less than a hour from his centralized royal kraal. Those Zulus who had slighted his mother or him in the past he condemned to death by clubbing, spearing, head-twisting or impaling.

The new Zulu ruler called up every subject capable of bearing arms and formed them into regiments. He selected a regiment of 20-year-old youths to garrison his newly built kraal of 100 huts, named Bulawayo. Shaka quickly shaped his army of 500 warriors into an effective fighting force. Each day he visited the military kraals, chastised any violator of his rules and strove to instill a sense of special Zulu pride. The new chief forced them to abandon their cowhide sandals and throwing spears and adopt his revolutionary method of close-in fighting with the short, thick-bladed iklwa.

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