Zulu "Corps"

Posts : 25 Join date : 2024-01-28 Location : Baja, Hungary

I have a few questions about the so-called "corps". Did they have a commander-in-chief, who lead all the units? Were they essentially just two or three regiments operating together? I've founds some weird pairs, where a corps was made up of a regiment of 35 year old warriors and another, of 70+ old timers. For example, the "Udukuza" corps, which contained a regiment bearing the same name (73 year old warriors, and very few of them lived to see that age), and then the Iqwa regiment, with its 35 year old bachelors. What was the logic behind this? Pairing up these two regiments makes no sense from a practical or military standpoint. Also, I am unsure if the regiments even had a commander for each of them...
Thanks in advance to anyone who could help me out there.

Subject: Re: Zulu "Corps" Sat May 04, 2024 11:44 pm

The iKhanda was more or less the base for a number of regiments, used for training, assembly, rites. It was not an operational unit and did not necessarily have an overall inDuna. There were exceptions like the uNdi corps which for a variety of reasons tended to function as a single unit but not exclusively so.
These entities do not fit into European notions of a military 'framework', but then, why should they? They weren't European! And they did not conform to European concepts of military 'efficiency' or 'efficacy'. There's more than one way to skin a cat.

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