So today I wanted to teach you about Britain’s colonial past and hopefully teach you some historical trivia. The Anglo-Zanzibar War was a conflict between the United Kingdom and the Zanzibar Sultanate on the 27th of August 1896 following the dispute of succession after the death of pro-British Sultan Hamad bin Thuwaini. The war lasted between 38 and 45 minutes, the differences owed to the difficulty in defining precisely when the war begun.
So what makes this a war and not a simple battle or a military skirmish? For an engagement to be considered a war, it must be fought between two or more sovereign nations usually over a protracted period of time. This first condition was fulfilled. However, because this conflict was slightly one-sided, it was fought over a period of minutes rather than years.
Here is the the background to the war.
The Zanzibar Sultanate was an island country in the Indian Ocean, today being off the coast of Tanzania. Quick tangent here, the difference between a sultanate and a caliphate is the caliphate’s strict adherence to Sharia law whilst a sultanate tends to be more secular. This is a very simplified and general definition. The island had been declared independent of the Sultans of Oman in 1858 and was recognised by Great Britain, leading to Zanzibar being treated as its own sovereign nation. This is the current Sultan of Oman, Qaboos bin Said al Said, of the Al Said dynasty. He is actually the longest-serving Arab leader, having overthrown his father in a palace coup in 1970.
Barghash bin Said, the second sultan of Zanzibar, had been forced by a British ultimatum and a threat of blockade to abolish the slave trade in June 1873, which was especially lucrative in the region. However, it was later discovered that instructions from London would have prohibited aggressive action being taken if that ultimatum had been rejected.
Britain had recognised Zanzibar’s sovereignty and sultanate in 1886 and maintained good relations with the country. However, growing German interests in East Africa lead to the two major powers vying for trade and territory rights throughout the late 19th century in the “scramble for Africa”. Here I have highlighted British East Africa in red and German East Africa in green, with Zanzibar lying roughly in between in the Indian Ocean. Zanzibar had leased land on the continent to both Germany and Britain, leading to the abolition of the slave trade in those areas which upset the ruling classes. This led to civil unrest and armed confrontations.
The Imperial British East Africa Company, responsible for the administration of British East Africa, was therefore forced to run a naval blockade along with German assistance. This was to halt the continuing domestic slave trade and to restore order in the region. The next Sultan pictured on the left, Ali bin Said in 1890 banned the domestic slave trade on British orders (although he did not ban ownership). He also declared Zanzibar a British protectorate, with British naval officer Lloyd Mathews as First Minister to his cabinet and guaranteed the British a veto over future appointments of sultans.
In the same year, the British also signed the Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty which ceded German rights to Zanzibar, officially demarcating spheres of interests and gave the Germans the strategic archipelago of Heligoland in the North Sea above Imperial Germany. This treaty allowed the UK greater influence to abolish the slave trade in Zanzibar and East Africa, an objective since 1804.
Sultan Ali’s successor was Hamad bin Thuwaini who became sultan in 1893 and maintained a close relationship with the British despite dissent over growing colonial control against their sovereignty. There was also disapproval concerning the loss of the valuable slave trade. Zanzibari troops regularly became involved in clashes with British-led police on the island.
25th August:
Three years after being crowned, Sultan Hamad died suddenly at 11:40AM East Africa Time on the 25th August 1896, argued to be assassinated by his cousin Khalid Bin Barghash who took the throne. He assumed the throne without the approval of the British consul, contravening treaties made with Sultan Ali and the British right to veto the appointment of future sultans. he The govt of the United Kingdom preferred an alternative, Hamud bin Muhammed. This was because Khalid publicly demonstrated anti-imperialist sentiments, seen to threaten British interests in the region. He had also attempted to claim the sultanate earlier after the death of Ali in 1890, but was persuaded not to by the British consul-general at the time.
This time he ignored the consul’s warning, barricading himself within the royal palace and began mustering a force of 2800 men with rifles and muskets, majority of them being civilians but including 700 professional soldiers. The sultan’s artillery consisted of several Maxim machine guns, a Gatling gun, a 17th century bronze cannon (200 years old at the time, gifted by the German emperor Wilhelm II) and two 12-pounder field guns, all aimed at British ships in the harbour. Furthermore, they seized the Zanzibari Navy, which consisted of one measly wooden Royal Yacht, the HHS Glasgow based off the British frigate Glasgow. In contrast, the British had 150 highly trained sailors and marines, with two gunboats and one cruiser, all aiming at the timber palace complex.
The British consul, Basil Cave, repeatedly sent messages to Khalid to stand down. He replied saying that he would proclaim himself as Sultan at 3:00PM East Africa Time. Cave stated that this would constitute an act of rebellion and that Khalid’s sultancy would not be recognised by the British government. However, he could not open hostilities without government approval and telegraphed the following message to London: "Are we authorised in the event of all attempts at a peaceful solution proving useless, to fire on the Palace from the men-of-war?"
26th August:
At 10:00AM EAT, another 2000 tonne cruiser arrived in Zanzibar with further marines and sailors and was anchored in line with the other two. At around 2:00PM EAT, a telegraph from London read: "You are authorised to adopt whatever measures you may consider necessary, and will be supported in your action by Her Majesty's Government. Do not, however, attempt to take any action which you are not certain of being able to accomplish successfully." Further attempts at negotiations failed and an ultimatum was sent, requiring Khalid to haul down his flag and leave the palace by 9:00AM EAT or he would open fire. All British women and children were evacuated from the island earlier in the day on another cruiser.
27th August:
Khalid made requests for parley but the British consul would only accept if he agreed to the terms of the ultimatum. Khalid refused and declared that "we have no intention of hauling down our flag and we do not believe you would open fire on us". Cave replied that "We do not want to open fire, but unless you do as you are told we shall certainly do so." And having received no further correspondence from the palace, an order was made to “prepare for action.”
At exactly 9:00AM EAT, British ships to were ordered to commence the bombardment. The cruiser HMS Racoon and the two gunboats, HMS Thrush and Sparrow simultaneously opened fire at the palace at 9:02AM EAT. There were thousands present in the largely wooden palace, and even with barricades, there were many casualties from the high explosive shells. Despite initial reports that he had been captured and was to be exiled to India, Sultan Khalid escaped from the palace.
A Reuters news correspondent reported that the sultan had "fled at the first shot with all the leading Arabs, who left their slaves and followers to carry on the fighting", but other sources state that he remained in the palace for longer.
The shelling ceased at around 09:40AM EAT, by which time the palace and attached harem had caught fire, the Sultan's artillery had been silenced and his flag cut down.
During the bombardment a small naval engagement occurred when, at 09:05AM EAT, the obsolete Glasgow fired upon the flagship cruiser HMS St George using her armament of 7 nine-pounder guns and a Gatling gun, which had been a present from Queen Victoria to the sultan. The return fire caused Glasgow to sink, though the shallow harbour meant that her masts remained out of the water. Glasgow's crew hoisted a British flag as a token of their surrender, and they were all rescued by British sailors. HMS Thrush also sank two steam boats whose Zanzibari crews shot at her with rifles. The British controlled the town and the palace, and by the afternoon Hamud bin Muhammed, an Arab favourable to the British, had been installed as sultan with much reduced powers. The British ships and crews had fired around 500 shells, 4100 machine gun rounds and 1,000 rifle rounds during the engagement.
Aftermath:
Around 500 Zanzibari men and women were killed or wounded during the bombardment, most of the dead a result of the fire that engulfed the palace. Contrast this to British casualties, which was one severely wounded officer who later recovered.
Sailors from St George and Philomel were landed to form a fire brigade to contain the fire, which had spread from the palace to the nearby customs sheds. There was some concern about the fire at the customs sheds as they contained a sizeable store of explosives, but no explosion occurred.
Sultan Khalid, sought refuge in the German consulate following his flight from the palace, where they were guarded by ten armed German sailors and marines while men were stationed outside to arrest them if they tried to leave. Despite extradition requests, the German consul refused to surrender Khalid to the British as his country's extradition treaty with Britain specifically excluded political prisoners.
The British punished Khalid's supporters by forcing them to pay reparations to cover the cost of shells fired against them and for damages caused by the opportunistic looting which occurred in Zanzibar City, which amounted to 300,000 rupees.
This lead to the creation of a British puppet govt by Sultan Hamud, the sultanate only being retained to avoid the costs of running Zanzibar as a direct crown colony. After several months, with British prompting, slavery was abolished in all forms. And due to the effectiveness shown by the Royal Navy during the bombardment, there were no further rebellions against British influence during the remaining 67 years of the protectorate.