The First Matabele War was fought between 1893 and 1894 in modern-day Zimbabwe. It pitted the British South Africa Company against the Ndebele (Matabele) Kingdom. Lobengula, king of the Ndebele, had tried to avoid outright war with the company's pioneers because he and his advisors were mindful of the destructive power of European-produced weapons on traditional Matabele impis (units of warriors) attacking in massed ranks. Lobengula reportedly could muster 80,000 spearmen and 20,000 riflemen, armed with Martini-Henry rifles, which were modern arms at that time. However, poor training meant that these were not used effectively.
The British South Africa Company had no more than 750 troops in the British South Africa Company's Police, with an undetermined number of possible colonial volunteers and an additional 700 Tswana (Bechuana) allies. Cecil Rhodes, who was Prime Minister of the Cape Colony and Leander Starr Jameson, the Administrator of Mashonaland also tried to avoid war to prevent loss of confidence in the future of the territory. Matters came to a head when Lobengula approved a raid to forcibly extract tribute from a Mashona chief in the district of the town of Fort Victoria, which inevitably led to a clash with the company.
Events leading to war
The British government agreed that the British South Africa Company would administer the territory stretching from the Limpopo to the Zambezi under royal charter. Queen Victoria signed the charter in 1889. Cecil Rhodes used this document in 1890 to justify sending the Pioneer Column, a group of settlers protected by well-armed British South Africa Company's Police (BSAP) and guided by the big game hunter Frederick Selous, through Matabeleland and into Shona territory to establish Fort Salisbury (now Harare).
Throughout 1891 and 1892, Lobengula ensured that his raiding parties were directed away from their main target areas of Mashonaland and so precluded possible clashes between his zealous young commanders and the white settlers. However, in 1893, a chief in the Victoria district named Gomara refused tribute, asserting that he was now under the protection of the laws of the settlers. In retaliation, Lobengula ordered a raiding party of several thousand warriors to bring his vassal to heel. The raiding party destroyed several villages and murdered many of the inhabitants, especially children and the elderly, enslaved all their young men and women and killed everyone else. However, the local British South Africa Company administration felt that they had to intervene to avoid losing the confidence of the local people who complained that they were not being given any support against the raid. As a result, the Company officials demanded the raiders to leave immediately. The Ndebele refused and in the hostilities that developed the Ndebele sustained about 40 casualties; this led to their withdrawal. King Lobengula had given stern warnings to his fighters when they started the raid. "If you shed one drop of the white man's blood on this raid into Mashonaland, I will have every one of you killed when you return".
Start of the war
There was a delay of just over two months (August to October) while Jameson corresponded with Rhodes in Cape Town and considered how to amass enough troops to undertake an invasion of Matabeleland.
BSAP columns rode from Fort Salisbury and Fort Victoria, and combined at Iron Mine Hill, around the centre point of the country, on 16 October 1893. Together the force totalled about 700 men, commanded by Major Patrick Forbes and equipped with five Maxim machine guns. Forbes' combined column moved on the Matabele king's capital at Bulawayo, to the south-west. An additional force of 700 Bechuanas marched on Bulawayo from the south under Khama III, the most influential of the Bamangwato chiefs, and a staunch ally of the British. The Matabele army mobilised to prevent Forbes from reaching the city, and twice engaged the column as it approached: on 25 October, 3,500 warriors assaulted the column near the Shangani River. Lobengula's troops were well-drilled and formidable by pre-colonial African standards, but the pioneers' Maxim guns, which had never before been used in battle, far exceeded expectations, according to an eyewitness "mow[ing] them down literally like grass". By the time the Matabele withdrew, they had suffered around 1,500 fatalities; the BSAP, on the other hand, had lost only four men.