The Sultan's Palace, after 44 minutes
In 1965, the comedian Tom Lehrer, pointing out that World War I and World War II had great songs, but that World War III might end quickly, so someone should write a song for it now, wrote "So Long, Mom (A Song for World War III)." With satire that burned as hot as The Bomb, he sang:
Remember, Mommy:
I'm off to get a Commie!
So send me a salami
and try to smile somehow!
I'll look for you when the war is over
an hour and a half from now!
Thankfully, such a war hasn't happened yet. But there has been an even shorter war!
August 27, 1896: The Anglo-Zanzibar War is fought. And, by the time pretty much everybody who could have been called up to fight in it found out about it, it was over.
Zanzibar is an island off the coast of the modern nation of Tanzania. A Muslim Sultan had ruled over it starting in 1856. In 1893, Hamad bin Tuwaini became the Sultan, and was favorable to the British Empire. On August 25, 1896, he died. He was believed to be only 39 years old, and did not fall in battle. He was suspected of being poisoned by the new Sultan, Khalid bin Barghash, who was anti-British.
An agreement made on June 14, 1890, instituting a British protectorate over Zanzibar, specified that a candidate for accession to the Sultanate should obtain the permission of the British consul. Khalid refused to fulfill this requirement. The British considered this a casus belli, and sent an ultimatum to Khalid, demanding that he order his forces to stand down and leave the Palace. In response, Khalid called up his Palace guard, and barricaded himself inside the Palace.
The ultimatum expired at 9:00 AM, local time on August 27 -- 6:00 AM in London, 1:00 AM on the U.S. East Coast. By that time, the British had gathered two cruisers, three gunboats, 150 marines and sailors, and 900 Zanzibaris in the harbor area.
The Royal Navy contingent were under the command of Rear-Admiral Harry Rawson, and the pro-Anglo Zanzibaris were commanded by the First Minister of Zanzibar, Brigadier-General Lloyd Mathews. Around 2,800 Zanzibaris defended the Palace: Most were recruited from the civilian population, but they also included the Sultan's Palace Guard and several hundred of his servants and slaves.
At 9:02, the British bombardment began. It set the Palace on fire, and disabled the defending artillery. A small naval action took place, with the British sinking the Zanzibari royal yacht HHS Glasgow and two smaller vessels. Some shots were also fired ineffectually at the pro-British Zanzibari troops as they approached the Palace. The flag at the Palace was shot down, and fire ceased at 9:46. The shortest war in history was over.
The British quickly placed Sultan Hamoud bin Mohamed in power at the head of a puppet government. He ended slavery in the Sultanate in 1900, but died in 1902. Unlike Hamad's death, Hamoud's was not considered suspicious.
Approximately 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. It is unknown how many of these casualties were combatants, but Khalid's gun crews were said to have been "decimated." British casualties amounted to one petty officer severely wounded aboard HMS Thrush, who later recovered.
General Mathews lived until 1901; Admiral Rawson, until 1910. The defeated Sultan Khalid escaped to the mainland, in what was then German East Africa, and received asylum in the German consulate. He lived in exile until 1927.
The war marked the end of the Sultanate of Zanzibar as a sovereign state, and the start of a period of heavy British influence. In 1964, Tanzania became independent, and the Zanzibar archipelago was annexed as a part of it. For most of its history, Tanzania has been a repressive one-party state.
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August 27, 1896 was a Thursday. The only professional sports league then operating in North America was baseball's National League, and these games were played:
* The New York Giants swept a doubleheader from the St. Louis Browns, 7-3 and 10-6 at the Polo Grounds. This Browns team is not the one that was formed in the American League and became the new Baltimore Orioles in 1954. This one became the Cardinals in 1900.
* The Brooklyn Bridegrooms split a doubleheader with the Louisville Colonels at Washington Park in Brooklyn. The Colonels won the opener, 10-2. The Bridegrooms won the nightcap, 7-6. The Brooklyn team got the name when several of their players got married in a single off-season. In 1911, they became the Dodgers.
* The Boston Beaneaters beat the Chicago Colts, 7-3 at the South End Grounds in Boston. The Colts, named for the relative youth of their players, would, in 1903, adopt another youthful name: The Chicago Cubs. It would take 3 name changes and until 1912 for the Beaneaters to take the name by which the franchise has been known since: The Braves.
* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Cleveland Spiders, 9-4 at National League Park (later Baker Bowl) in Philadelphia.
* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Cincinnati Reds, 9-3 at Union Park in Baltimore.
* And the Washington Senators beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 7-5 at Boundary Field in Washington.
The Orioles, the Senators, the Spiders and the Colonels would be dismissed from the NL after the 1899 season.
