How do you define a war?
Should both sides have a fair chance of winning?
Is a coup within a protectorate justified as war?
Does the conflict end even if the reigning individual survives amidst desolation and complete destruction of his kingdom?
And how short do you think the shortest war in history was?
Thats how long the Anglo-Zanzibar war lasted.
Was it fair to call it a war?
Soldiers at the palace of the Sultan of Zanzibar, circa 1880 1920.
St Thomas Aquinas answered all these questions in his definition of war.
On 25 August 1896, the Sultan of Zanzibar Hamad bin Thuwaini died.
His nephew Khalid bin Bargash seized power by force almost immediately.
But the imminent war was not among kin.
A thriving clove industry kept the Anglos deeply interested in the affairs of the state.
Naturally, when the royal nephew made it clear that he would not be controlled, they were furious.
Diplomacy was their first go-to option.
At 8am chief diplomat Basil Cave issued a formal warning to Khalid, asking him to surrender.
To go against direct British orders would mean inviting bombardment of the sultanate for retaliation.
Khalid did not leave the palacenot for a while at least.
Khalids insurgent remark had finally declared war.
Heavy bombardment ensued, unmatched in size or force by the trickling army of Zanzibar.
Their modest numbers were no match to the heavily populated warships of Britain called HMS Philomel and HMS Rush.
Backup ships joined the conflict too.
Only a single British officer was harmed in the duration.
But it could not have been north of an hour.
Khalid survived the loss though and fled to the nearby German consulate to seek refuge.
From there he was exiled out of the country.
According to Hew Strachan, a military historian of Oxford University, an individual cannot go to war.
It is a group activity.
The war survivor then had no leverage left.
The battle was over within the day.
Destroyed Palace and other buildings after the attack in the Anglo-Zanzibar War.
The sultanate continued to exist under stringent compliance rules till the 1960s when it was merged with Tanzania.
Khalid lived on for years, until dying in British Mombasa in 1927.
The next war to come closest to breaking the Anglo-Zanzibar occurred in 1967.
It was the Six-Day war which lasted close to a week.
None, though, that could be described as briskly as they came, they saw, they conquered.
References:#History-uk.com#History.org.uk#Atlas Obscura#National Geographic
