How powerful could the Zulus possibly get ?

mad orc

Banned
How powerful could the Zulus possibly get ?
How late could the British or Boers turn to them ?
How big can you make their kingdom before fate(or British) catch up with them ?
 
It depends, Shaka had a psychotic break after the death of his mother, the only being he wouldn't kill in hearth beat for opposing him, his demands and actions in connection with her death likely did more damage to the Zulu empire than anybody else had done in all his years of conquest combined.
 

Maoistic

Banned
They have potential if they follow the US and Japanese path, which is allying with European powers and/or bringing in European technological knowledge to rapidly industrialise. Tough chance convincing the British to leave them alone for that though. It doesn't help that European colonial powers had already agreed to partition Africa and were thus not intervening to save any of the African polities that were progressively conquered and annihilated. They need to convince Britain to leave them alone or convince other European powers to force Britain out of Southeast Africa. The Portuguese are nearby in Mozambique but they had been practically absorbed into Britain. France was also just another extension of the British Empire by the time of the Scramble for Africa. That leaves Germany, Britain's European arch-rival, as the most immediate European power the Zulus can ask for assistance in repelling the British. If they somehow managed to do that, they could then have proceeded to use German maxims and rifles to absorb nearby polities and grow to as much as the size of Joseon Korea (200,000 square km.), and who knows, become the Japan of Africa.
 
Top