to satisfy the ambitions of Natal traders and British missionaries and
imperialists, Shepstone threw his erstwhile Zulu allies to the wind. He
espoused Transvaal territorial claims against the Zulu and persuaded the
British high commissioner that the kingdom, with its powerful military
organization,
was the major obstacle to peace and order in Southern
Africa.
In December 1878, disregarding the report of a boundary commission
appointed by the Natal government rejecting the Transvaal claim to Zulu
territory, the high commissioner peremptorily demanded that Cetshwayo
should disband his army within thirty days. Cetshwayo's response was to
mobilize about thirty thousand men. On January
I I, 1879, a British force
of seven thousand British regulars, about as many Natal African levies, and
a thousand colonial volunteers invaded Zululand. Ignoring the advice of
no less a person than Paul Kruger, the British commander failed to order
entrenchments around his camps and reconnaissance in depth ahead of the
line of march. Sixteen hundred British soldiers spent the night of January
2 I unprotected,
beside the hill Isandhlwana.
Early the next morning, a
Zulu army took them unawares and slaughtered nearly every one of them,