Reaching the Umbrella River the next day with an army reduced to 12,000, Shoshangane located a narrow ford and, posting his best regiment in a dense formation to guard it, he started withdrawing his regiments, which were strung out on a 2,000-yard front parallel with the river. The cautious commander failed to notice that his front line facing the Zulus had not been shortened to compensate for the withdrawn units.

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But Shaka did notice and launched an attack by 7,000 of his warriors, holding back only 1,000 in reserve. The Zulus smashed through the poorly arrayed Ndwandwes, slaying all who did not swim to the other side. Shaka next secretly dispatched two regiments-one downstream and the other upstream-to slip unseen across the river and strike the foe’s rear. Once they had struck both flanks and begun rolling them up onto the center, Shaka ordered his main army to force a crossing and join the battle. His unexpected tactics quickly broke the Ndwandwe formation into small bands of fugitives, closely hounded by the victorious Zulus. When night halted the pursuit, Shaka sent his two freshest regiments racing to Zwide’s kraal, but they failed to capture the enemy chief, who fled some 200 miles before halting. The next morning, the entire Zulu army swept through Ndwandweland, killing every person it encountered, burning all huts and seizing the livestock.

By this victory, Shaka gained absolute control over the heartland of the Nguni, which he used to create a much greater Zulu empire. From then until his death, Shaka’s armies ranged the surrounding lands, leaving rotting corpses, burning huts and total devastation in their wake. Shaka became as absolute a ruler as was possible in an age of primitive technology. He amassed vast herds of cattle, each one bred to a single color. Few kings or dictators, before or since, have treated their subjects with such ruthlessness and ferocity. He had his warriors clubbed to death upon the merest sign of weakness. He neither took a legal wife nor fathered a son, for fear that his heir would plot against him, and had his concubines executed if he discovered they were pregnant. He expelled all rainmakers, declaring that only the king could make rain. When his mother died, he massacred thousands of his subjects so their families would mourn along with him. Now clearly insane, Shaka retained his throne through the worst kind of sheer terror-vast mass executions, torture and mindless butchery.

In 1828, Shaka’s half-brother, Dingawe-by then fearing for his own life-slew the mad tyrant and assumed the throne, quickly murdering all prominent Zulus likely to protest his actions. He had Shaka’s body buried secretly in an unmarked grave.

At his death, Shaka ruled over 250,000 people and could muster more than 50,000 warriors, whose iron discipline equaled that of the Roman legions in their prime. His 10-year-long kingship had resulted in more than 2 million deaths by warfare alone, not counting the deaths during mass tribal migrations to escape his armies. His semi-Pyrrhic victory at the Battle of Qokli Hill and his masterful conduct of the Second Ndwandwe War remained the highlights of his military exploits, establishing Shaka, king of the Zulus, among the great commanders of all time.

This article was written by Truman R. Strobridge and originally published in Military History Magazine in October 2002.

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