Shaka’s first independent campaign was against the eLangeni, his mother’s tribe. After a march of 25 miles, his warriors surrounded the capital kraal under the cover of darkness and obtained a surrender without a fight. Once again, his judgment seat dealt out punishment for any who had done evil against his mother or himself, with the more hideous forms of execution used for those who had insulted his mother. This conquest doubled his number of spear-wielding warriors.

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Shaka next declared war on the Butelezi tribe, and both armies formed their battle lines about 100 yards apart at the appointed time and place. The Butelezi had come in the usual manner, with their women and ample supplies of beer trailing behind to celebrate their expected victory. Their 600-strong army formed up in five lines about 200 yards long, with their leader seated comfortably in the shade of a tree on a hill far behind his warriors, as had long been the practice for most African chiefs.

Personally leading his 750-strong army, Shaka placed his best 300 warriors in the center as the army’s head, with a regiment behind as the loins and half of another regiment on each flank as the horns. The Zulu center advanced to within 60 yards of the foe, then charged. The surprised Butelezis did not even have time to throw their spears before the Zulus were among them, stabbing with the fatal ‘left hook’ method. The Butelezi army panicked and fled, but the Zulus, their iklwas delivering deadly blows, stayed on their heels. The encircling horns, meanwhile, had closed in on the women spectators also, and soon even the last screaming woman had been dispatched. The Zulus had suffered only a few casualties. Those wounded beyond help were put out of their misery with a single, merciful spear thrust. Shaka then sent his warriors throughout the land to gather all the women, children and cattle, slay all the useless people and burn every hut. With that campaign, Shaka introduced a new type of warfare to southern Africa-one of total annihilation.

Early in 1818, Chief Zwide killed the husband of Dingiswayo’s sister, and the incensed king quickly marched his army toward the land of the Ndwandwes, ordering Shaka to do likewise. The king reached the enemy kraal and, while waiting for Shaka, let himself be tricked into captivity. When Chief Zwide cut off his head, the leaderless Mthethwa army fled. The onrushing Shaka and his now hopelessly outnumbered army avoided falling into a trap only through a warning from a friendly chief. The entire Izi-cwe regiment now flocked to Shaka’s standard, as did many individual Mthethwas, bring his total fighting force close to 5,000.

After eliminating other tribes and forming additional alliances, Chief Zwide decided to remove the Zulu threat. He placed one of his sons, Nomahlanjana, in command of 10,000 warriors and sent them marching on the Zulu capital. The Ndwandwe army reached the northernmost border of Zululand, the White Umfolozi River, in early April 1818.

To contest that invasion, Shaka had less than 4,000 warriors, because a sizable bodyguard had to be detached to guard the women, children and cattle evacuated southward into the forest. He had placed Zulu warriors at the few fords where the rain-swollen river could be crossed, and his main force on the top of Qokli Hill, just south of the river. Shaka positioned his regiments in a complete circle, five lines deep. He concealed his reserve on the central plateau, where ample supplies of water, food and firewood had been stored. No water existed for some distance from Qokli Hill. He made his stand on the hill because there were no natural obstacles on the plain on which to anchor his flanks. As a last resort, he planned to form his warriors into a solid phalanx and burst through the encircling enemy to seek refuge in the forest to the south. Basically, the Zulu commander had adopted a circular version of the famous British hollow square tactics that Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, had used to defeat Napoleon at Waterloo on June 18, 1815. Shaka planned to fight defensively only until the Ndwandwes made a mistake, then launch his counterattack.

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