Yet this was doubtless the state of affairs with which Cetywayo had to contend during the latter years of his reign. He found himself surrounded by a great army, in a high state of efficiency and warlike preparation, proclaiming itself wearied with camp life, and clamouring to be led against an enemy, that it might justify its traditions and find employment for its spears. Often and often he must have been sorely puzzled to find excuses wherewithal to put it off. Indeed his position was both awkward and dangerous: on the one hand was Scylla in the shape of the English Government, and on the other the stormy and uncertain Charybdis of his clamouring regiments. Slowly the idea must have began to dawn upon him that unless he found employment for the army, which, besides being disgusted with his inactivity, was somewhat wearied with his cruelties, for domestic slaughter had ceased to divert and had begun to irritate: the army, or some enterprising members of it, might put it beyond his power ever to find employment for it at all, and bring one of his brothers to rule in his stead.
And yet who was he to fight, if fight he must? There were three possible enemies – 1. The Swazis; 2. The Transvaal Boers; 3. The English.
Although the English may have held a place on Cetywayo’s list as possible foes, there is no ground for supposing that, until shortly before the war, he had any wish to fight with us. Indeed, whereas their hatred of the Boers was pronounced, and openly expressed, both the Zulu king and people always professed great respect for Englishmen, and even a certain amount of liking and regard.
Therefore, when Cetywayo had to settle on an enemy to attack, it was not the English that he chose, but the Swazis, whose territory adjoined his own, lying along the borders of the Transvaal towards Delagoa Bay. The Swazis are themselves Zulus, and Cetywayo claimed certain sovereign rights over them, which, however, they refused to recognise. They are a powerful tribe, and can turn out about 10,000 fighting men, quite enough for Cetywayo’s young warriors to try their mettle on. Still the king does not appear to have wished to undertake the war without first obtaining the approval of the Natal Government, to whom he applied several times for permission “to wash his spears,” saying that he was but half a king until he had done so. The Natal Government, however, invariably replied that he was on no account to do anything of the sort. This shows the inconveniences of possessing a complimentary feudal hold over a savage potentate, the shadow of power without the reality. The Governor of Natal could not in decency sanction such a proceeding as a war of extermination against the Swazis, but if it had occurred without his sanction, the Swazis would have suffered no doubt, but the Zulu spears would have been satisfactorily washed, and there would have been no Zulu war. As it is, Englishmen have been killed instead of Swazis.
Thwarted in his designs on the Swazis, Cetywayo next turned his attention to the Transvaal Boers. The Zulus and the Boers had never been good friends since the days of the massacre of Retief, and of late years their mutual animosity had been greatly increased owing to their quarrels about the boundary question previously alluded to. This animosity reached blood-heat when the Boer Government, acting with the arrogance it always displayed towards natives, began to lay its commands upon Cetywayo about his relations with the Amaswazi, the alleged trespassing on Boer territory, and other matters. The arrogance was all the more offensive because it was impotent. The Boers were not in a position to undertake the chastisement of the Zulus. But the king and council of Zululand now determined to try conclusions with the Transvaal on the first convenient opportunity, and this time without consulting the Government of Natal. The opportunity soon occurred. Secocoeni, the powerful chief of the Bapedi, one of the tribes whose territories border on the Transvaal, came to a difference with the Boers over another border question. There is good ground for supposing that Cetywayo incited him to withstand the Boer demands; it is certain that during the course of the war that followed he assisted him with advice, and more substantially still, with Zulu volunteers.
To be brief, the Secocoeni war resulted in the discomfiture of the Transvaal forces. Another result of this struggle was to throw the whole state into the most utter confusion, of which the Dutch burghers, always glad of an opportunity to defy the law, took advantage to refuse to pay taxes. National bankruptcy ensued, and confusion grew worse confounded.
Cetywayo took note of all this, and saw that now was his opportunity to attack. The Boers had suffered both in morale and prestige from their defeat by Secocoeni, who was still in arms against them; whilst the natives were proportionately elated by their success over the dreaded white men. There was, he knew well, but little chance of a rapid concentration to resist a sudden raid, especially when made by such a powerful army, or rather chain of armies, as he could set in motion. Everything favoured the undertaking; indeed, humanly speaking, it is difficult to see what could have saved the greater part of the population of the Transvaal from sudden extinction, if a kind Providence had not just then put it into the head of Lord Carnarvon to send out Sir T. Shepstone as Special Commissioner to their country. When Cetywayo heard that his father Sompseu (Sir T. Shepstone) was going up to the Transvaal, he held his hand, sent out spies, and awaited the course of events. The following incident will show with what interest he was watching what took place. At the Vaal River a party of Boers met the Special Commissioner and fired salutes to welcome him. It was immediately reported to Cetywayo by his spies that the Boers had fired over Sir T. Shepstone’s waggon. Shortly afterwards a message arrived at Pretoria from Cetywayo to inquire into the truth of the story, coolly announcing his intention of sweeping the Transvaal if it were true that “his father” had been fired at. In a conversation with Mr. Fynney after the Annexation Cetywayo alludes to his intentions in these words: —
“I heard that the Boers were not treating him (Sompseu) properly, and that they intended to put him in a corner. If they had done so I should not have waited for anything more. Had but one shot been fired, I should have said, ‘What more do I wait for? they have touched my father.’ I should have poured my men over the land, and I can tell you, son of Mr. Fynney, the land would have burned with fire.” This will show how eagerly Cetywayo was searching for an excuse to commence his attack on the Transvaal. When the hope of finding a pretext in the supposed firing at Sir T. Shepstone or any incident of a similar nature faded away, he appears to have determined to carry out his plans without any immediate pretext, and to make a casus belli of his previous differences with the Government of the Republic. Accordingly he massed his impis (army corps) at different points along the Transvaal border, where they awaited the signal to advance and sweep the country. Information of Cetywayo’s doings and of his secret plans reached Pretoria shortly before the Annexation, and confirmed the mind of the Special Commissioner as to the absolute necessity of that measure to save the citizens of the Republic from coming to a violent end, and South Africa from being plunged into a native war of unexampled magnitude. The day before the Annexation took place, when it was quite certain that it would take place, a message was sent to Cetywayo by Sir T. Shepstone telling him of what was about to happen, and telling him too in the sternest and most straightforward language, that the Transvaal had become the Queen’s land like Natal, and that he must no more think of attacking it than he would of attacking Natal. Cetywayo on receiving the message at once disbanded his armies and sent them to their kraals. “Kabuna,” he said to the messenger, “my impis were gathered; now at my father’s (Sir T. Shepstone’s) bidding I send them back to their homes.”
This fact, namely, that at the bidding of his old mentor Sir T. Shepstone, Cetywayo abandoned his long-cherished plans, and his undoubted opportunity of paying off old scores with the Boers in a most effectual manner, and gave up a policy that had so many charms for him, must be held by every unprejudiced man to speak volumes in his favour. It must be remembered that it was not merely to oblige his “father Sompseu” that he did this, but to meet the wishes of the English Government, and the act shows how anxious he was to retain the friendship and fall in with the views of that Government. Evidently Cetywayo had no animosity against us in April 1877.
In his interview with Mr. Fynney, Cetywayo speaks out quite frankly as to what his intentions had been; he says, “I know all about the soldiers being on their way up, but I would have asked Sompseu to allow the soldiers to stand on one side for just a little while, only a little, and see what my men could do. It would have been unnecessary for the Queen’s