468 vs. 15,000
by Steven Thomas Druckenmiller
In February of 1838, a peaceful delegation of Voortrekkers, Dutch pioneers who had left the Cape of South Africa looking for a new home, met with the Zulu king Dingane. The party, wishing to live in peace amongst the native peoples, visited with the king to broker a peaceful exchange of land. Piet Retief, the leader of the Voortrekkers at the time, and his advanced party of one hundred men were successful, securing land to eke out an existence for his fellow pioneers, 1100 in all.
On the third day of the summit, the King of the Zulu invited Retief to a celebratory dance. Informing the Trekkers that it was an offense to carry arms in the presence of the sacred dance, the King commenced the celebration. With the party of defenseless men in the middle of hundreds of Zulu warriors, the King then betrayed their trust. Thundering “Kill the wizards!”, the dancers fell on the innocent men. They were then taken to a local hill, where all one hundred of them were savagely beaten to death. Retief was made to watch before being murdered himself. The King then set his massive army (over 15,000 warriors) upon the remaining Voortrekkers, killing 500 of their men.
The Voortrekkers—leaderless and shocked by this senseless betrayal—retreated. It was during this recuperative period that they planned their rightful march to justice. They regrouped and appointed a new leader, a courageous and imposing man by the name of Andreis Pretorius. With a party of only 468 men remaining, Pretorius went to meet the Zulu on the field of battle.
The fog slowly lifted as dawn broke on the field where the party lay, their wagons smartly pulled in a tight defensive ring. Finally, when the field was clear, there stood the Zulu Army, 15,000 soldiers ready to kill, no more than 300 yards away. With both sides realizing the immediacy of the situation, the Voortrekkers grabbed their rifles while the entire Zulu army charged the wagon-fortress. The Voortrekkers merely had to fire their rifles to hit something, sending the Zulu Army into massive disarray. The battle raged for two hours, with the Zulu foolishly charging their considerable number headlong into the fury of grapeshot.
Realizing that the Voortrekkers were running low on ammunition, however, the wise Pretorius made a command decision. Rolling back the wagons, the Voortrekkers charged forward as cavalry, breaking the huge Zulu army in half with thunderous fire. Flanked and outgunned, the Zulu attempted to fight back, but were duly slaughtered. At the end of the day, over 3000 Zulu warriors were dead, strewn among the banks of the Ncome River, which was renamed Blood River in memory of the overwhelming victory. The Voortrekkers suffered only three injuries, including Pretorius.
The preceding is one of my favorite historical stories, because of the clearly defined sides of good and evil present that bloody day. The Voortrekkers, unlike most of their Western brethren, attempted to negotiate peacefully with the natives. They were betrayed and slaughtered because of King Dingane’s fear of Western technology (hence the epithet "wizards" applied to the Westerners). The rational minds of Western men, here represented by the courageous Voortrekkers, defeated the dishonest, irrational savagery of the Zulu.
Note the battle tactics, or, in the Zulu case, the lack thereof. Zulu rule of the African plain having never before been challenged (strictly because of their number), they did not think, they did not change tactics, and merely assumed that what had worked before (mindlessly rushing at the enemy in huge numbers) would work again. Reality, and Western minds and tactics, did not budge. In every metaphysical and ethical way, in this case, the Zulu were evil, evaders who refused to accept a new reality, and betrayers, who gave their word and broke it in the most terrible way imaginable. In that sense, then, the Trekkers were good, because their ingenuity and quest for justice meant that victory was certain. Three injured vs. 3000 dead? Never has history given us such a stark example of what a rational culture can do in the face of irrational, mindless savagery.
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