Impi - The Impi in Battle

The Impi in Battle

The impi, in its Shakan form, is best known among Western readers from the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879, particularly the famous Zulu victory at Isandhlwana, but its development was over 60 years in coming before that great clash. To understand the full scope of the impi's performance in battle, military historians of the Zulu typically look to its early operations against internal African enemies, not merely the British interlude. In terms of numbers, the operations of the impi would change- from the Western equivalent of small company and battalion size forces, to maneuvers in multi-divisional strength of between 10,000 and 40,000 men. The victory won by Zulu king Cetawasyo at Ndondakusuka, for example, two decades before the British invasion involved a deployment of 30,000 troops. These were sizeable formations in regional context but represented the bulk of prime Zulu fighting strength. Few impi-style formations were to routinely achieve this level of mobilization for a single battle. For example, at Cannae, the Romans deployed 80,000 men, and generally could put tens of thousands more into smaller combat actions). The popular notion of countless attacking black spearmen is a distorted one. Manpower supplies on the continent were often limited. In the words of one historian: "The savage hordes of popular lore seldom materialized on African battlefields." This limited resource base would hurt the Zulu when they confronted technologically advanced world powers such as Britain. The advent of new weapons like firearms would also have a profound impact on the African battlefield, but as will be seen, the impi-style forces largely eschewed firearms, or used them in a minor way. Whether facing native spear or European bullet, impis largely fought as they had since the days of Shaka, from Zululand to Zimbabwe, and from Mozambique to Tanzania.