Wheel of Topics #32

The anglo-zanzibar war is the shortest war known to man. First, lets start with some geography and history.

Zanzibar is a small archipelago in the Indian ocean very near the eastern coast of Africa and north of Madagascar. During the colonial era, it was part of a highly sought after region for commercial reason. This area was used to place harbour where ship coming from India and China could refuel, resupply and exchange some of their cargo for african goods. In those time, landing in a harbour from another country usually meant to pay severely increased docking fees and inflated prices for supplies and goods, something all captains tried to evade at all cost. Most european country either had colonies with harbour or commercial contract with colonial empire to reduce the average cost of imported goods.

The Zanzibar was part of the Sultanate of Oman up until 1858. The independence was proclaimed by Sultan Majid Bin Said, independence that was approved by the British empire. Because of the friendly relations between Zanzibar and the British empire, the archipelago was declared a British protectorate by Ali Bin Said in 1890. One of the rules of the protectorate was a veto on who could succeed to the position of Sultan. Ali was succeeded by Hamad Bin Thuwaini in 1893. Hamad died of mysterious cause(possibly murder) in 1896 and the Sultan position was immediately taken by his nephew, Khalid bin Bargash, without the consent of the British empire.

This is when everything start to happen. The British empire orders Khalid to desist from his position within a set amount of time. If he refuse, the navy will attack and place another candidate as Sultan. Khalid started to recruit a small army from the civilians that were displeased by the presence of the British. In one day, he mustered 2800 men(1000 palace guards, 700 zanzibari askari soldiers, and 1100 militiamen) and reinforced the defenses of the palace. The 27th of August, after one last attempt at diplomacy, three cruisers and two gunboats were ordered to start bombarding the palace at 9 o'clock while 150 sailors, followed by 900 zanzibari soldiers, would approach from the land. The first few shell set the palace ablaze, rapidly breaking the moral of the defenders that surrendered in less than forty minutes. The Defenders lost 500 men, mostly because of the fire, and the british forces counted only one wounded among their rank.

This topic was actually pretty easy to make, although some of the information seems quite unlikely. Victors make history, or something like that.

Grim the pirate