 On 15 December 1876, Shepstone with 25 troopers from the Natal Mounted Police and others set out from Pietermaritzburg to Pretoria to annex the Transvaal; arriving on 27 January 1877 to a cordial reception.That controversial British annexation of the Transvaal, was disrupted when Sekhukhune allegedly signed a peace treaty with the Boers removing the main justification for British intervention in the Transvaal at that time.Nonetheless, tensions between the British colonists and the Zulu continued to build, culminating in the Anglo-Zulu War.