Campaigning North and South

Picking up where we left off.

The Dalit laborers' so-called grand plan was to campaign south. Several thousand of them began their invasion of the Ngoni Kingdom.

Though it was called a kingdom, the Ngoni were really an alliance of more than a hundred tribes. So when the Dalit laborers launched their attack, a bizarre spectacle unfolded: one tribe was in trouble, while all the others stood by and watched.

When the Dalit Legion invaded a tribe's territory and began killing and looting, the other Ngoni tribes simply waited for the attackers to leave so they could snatch a few things for themselves.

Just like that, the Dalit Legion wiped out more than a dozen tribes, leaving the northern reaches of the Ngoni Kingdom in ruins. Only then did the council of elders receive word.

At that point, the council was split once again. Some called for the invaders to be wiped out, some wanted to abandon the northern territories, and others advocated making peace.

The Ngoni chiefs on the council argued without end. Finally, they all slapped their foreheads and decided they might as well each do their own thing.

The remaining northern tribes fled in one direction. In another, a hastily assembled Ngoni army headed for the front to fight the Dalit invaders to the death. Meanwhile, another group boarded ships for Bagamoyo to negotiate with the Austrians.

In truth, after the previous few major wars, almost none of the Ngoni chiefs believed they could defeat the Austrian army. After all, even the mighty Weging Kingdom had held out for less than a week—or, more precisely, just three days.

But that had been Archduke Friedrich's Marine Corps, an elite force even by European standards. The colonial troops in Tanzania, apart from those who had come from Austria itself,