The shortest battle in recorded history began at 9 a.m. on August 27, 1896. It ended in less than three quarters of an hour. A total of 501 soldiers are known to have been wounded and killed during this period.
Before we get into the details, let’s make a small correction. When you type “the shortest battle in history” into the search engine, you will come across the battle of Mohaç, which took place on the Mohaç Plain between the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary and lasted only 2 hours. Although two hours is quite short for a battle, we need to think universally when we talk about history. For this reason, the answer you will get in an English search will be Anglo-Zanzibar War.
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Some Details about the Shortest Battle in History
It all started in 1890 with the signing of the Heligoland Zanzibar agreement between Germany and Britain. With this agreement to colonize Africa, it was decided that the province of Zanzibar would be under British rule and the rest of Tanganyika (modern Tanzania) would be under German control. Britain then began to station troops in Zanzibar and Germany in Tanzania. The Sultan of Zanzibar, Sayyid Ali ibn Said, opposed this until his death in 1893. However, the new sultan of Zanzibar, Hamad bin Thuwaini, who took over after his death, was a great admirer of the British.
On August 25, 1896, Hamad died suddenly in his palace after his cousin poisoned him. Within hours, the cousin, Prince Khalid bin Barghash, would assume the sultanate. Khalid was a symbol of resistance to European intervention in the region. The people supported him and an army of about 3,000 men emerged. The British ordered him to hand over the throne to his cousin Hamoud bin Mohammed. When he refused, they gathered a force of 900 men to prove their power and placed five ships of the Royal Navy in the harbor near the palace.
Rear Admiral Harry Rawson sent an ultimatum to the Sultan, ordering him and his troops to leave the palace and surrender their weapons by 9am the next day. However, Sultan Khalid refused. As a result, at 9 a.m. on August 27, 1896, British ships opened fire on the palace. In just 38 minutes the battle was over. In the process, the British destroyed defensive weapons and killed or wounded 500 of the sultan’s men.
One British soldier was wounded in the process. In the afternoon of the same day, the British installed their chosen ruler, Hamoud bin Mohammed, on the throne. Khalid bin Barghash fled the palace and took refuge in the German consulate. The Germans helped him leave the country. He was captured by the British only in 1916, during the First World War. British rule in Zanzibar continued until 1963.
