Then drew near the culmination of evil—the inevitable consequence of weakness in numbers; of indisposition to submit to a strong government; of a treasury impoverished by civil war; of continual conflict with the savage blacks; and, withal, of a state of anarchy among themselves. In 1876 the portents of approaching calamity multiplied. In a war with Sikukuni, a powerful Kaffir chief paramount in the mountainous district to the northeast, the Africanders were worsted so completely that they returned to their homes disheartened and in confusion. On the southeast their border was threatened by hordes of Zulus under Cetawayo, now manifesting a decided disposition to attack. In fact, the weak and disordered condition of the republic exposed its own people—many of whom were British subjects—to immediate and frightful danger. Moreover, it constituted a danger to all the European communities in South Africa. In the event of two such chiefs as Sikukuni and Cetawayo joining forces against the whites and prevailing, as they seemed able and likely to do, over the frontier civilization in the Transvaal Republic, nothing could prevent them from moving in strength against the Free State on the south, and Natal on the southeast, and later, against Cape Colony itself. It was not without cause, therefore, that the British government resolved to avert the threatened conflict. There were two possible ways of doing this. Britain might have taken the field as a friendly ally, making common cause with the Transvaal Republic against a common danger, and leaving its independence intact. The other way was to annex the Transvaal territory, subvert its republican government, and give it the status and administration of a British colony. There is no record to show that the British government ever entertained the thought of acting as the ally of the republic. On the contrary, Sir Theophilus Shepstone was appointed as imperial commissioner to visit the scene of danger and examine into the state of the country. He was secretly instructed and authorized to proclaim the immediate annexation of the Transvaal territory to the British dominions in South Africa in case he deemed it necessary for the general safety to do so, and if, in his judgment, a majority of the people would favor the step.