 There had been episodes of aggressive expansionism, the so-called ‘forward’ policy, which would then be followed by a period of retrenchment.A case in point was the 1877 annexation of the Transvaal.In 1877 the Transvaal was bankrupt - the gold fields of the Witwatersrand were far in the future, they were also under attack from several of the Native tribes, particularly from the Zulus.