A Brief History of a Very Short War

It almost seems as if the incident came from a Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera. The shortest war in the history of the world occurred on a small, obscure island on August 27, 1896, from 9:00am until 9:45am EAT (Eastern African Time). It was a Thursday On the one hand was the might of the British empire, including five ships, 150 Royal Marines and sailors and 900 African troops. Defending was a sultan barricaded in his palace with a few hundred men of his personal guard, a couple of thousand civilians who had been forced into service, two cannons and the royal yacht. Although the Anglo-Zanzibar War was just a minor event in the great scheme of things, it did have larger implications. Zanzibar is located off the east coast of Africa, in the Indian Ocean. For centuries, it had been used by Arab traders as a way station to bring out goods from the African mainland, primarily slaves. In 149 9, as the Europeans found their way around the Cape of Good Hope and on their way to a maritime route to the East, Zanzibar was taken over by the Portuguese, who ran it for their own purposes until they were expelled by the Sultan of Oman in 1698. By 1858, with Oman fading in its power, Zanzibar became independent, with its own hereditary sultan. Not surprisingly, the British, who were busy colonizing British East Africa (now Kenya and Uganda), decided to get involved in the island's welfare. They didn't want it for themselves, but they didn't want anyone else getting their hands on it. In addition, they wanted to stop the slave trade in East Africa. In 1886, the British signed a treaty with the current sultan establishing Zanzibar as a protectorate and requiring its government to receive British permission before any new sultan could succeed to the throne. For that purpose, and generally to keep an eye on things, they installed a consul on the island. Not even a full ambassador, mind you, but a consul, however one with full plenipotentiary powers (that is, he could act independently upon behalf of the Crown, since communication with London took a great deal of time, even by 19th century standards).

Meanwhile, Germany, which was a recent entry into the colonial game, was involved in securing German East Africa (now Tanzania), just south of British East Africa. The new Kaiser, Wilhelm II, had shown by the mid-1890s that he was willing to invest a great deal of national (and personal) effort in achieving world prestige equal to that of Great Britain. No parcel of foreign land was too small, no event too minor to catch the attention of the All Highest One (as the Kaiser was addressed by members of his General Staff). In fact. Sir Rennell Rodd, who had been British consul in Zanzibar since 1893, had heard rumors that German representatives had been negotiating with the sultan over trading rights and even concessions on mainland areas controlled by Zanzibar.