By 1896 the Sultanate of Zanzibar was independent on paper and British in practice: an 1886 understanding required each new sultan to be approved by the British consul. On 25 August 1896 the compliant Sultan Hamad bin Thuwaini died suddenly — poisoning by his ambitious 29-year-old cousin Khalid bin Barghash was widely suspected, never proven. Within hours Khalid had occupied the Beit al-Hukum palace complex in Stone Town and proclaimed himself sultan, without asking anyone in a pith helmet.
The consul, Basil Cave, told him to stand down. Khalid instead gathered roughly 2,900 men — palace guards, armed servants and townsmen — around the palace, along with a few artillery pieces, a couple of Maxim guns, and the sultanate’s entire navy: the Glasgow, an elderly royal yacht. Cave assembled five Royal Navy warships in the harbour and, with London’s authorisation, delivered an ultimatum: leave the palace by 9:00 on 27 August.
Some forty minutes
At 8:00 Khalid sent word that he did not believe the British would fire. Cave replied that he had no desire to fire, but would. At 9:00 the ultimatum expired; at 9:02 the bombardment began.
The wooden palace complex disintegrated under modern naval shellfire. The Glasgow gamely engaged the fleet and was sunk in shallow water, her crew rescued by British boats. The palace guns were silenced within minutes; the harem and adjoining buildings caught fire; Khalid’s flag came down — by one account shot away — and firing ceased at about 9:40. Common statements of the war’s duration run from 38 to 45 minutes; it is the shortest war in recorded history by any of them.
About 500 Zanzibari defenders were killed or wounded, most in the burning palace. British casualties: one petty officer, wounded, who recovered.
Aftermath
Khalid slipped out a side entrance early in the shelling and claimed asylum in the German consulate, from which — German honour and British warrants delicately balanced — he was extracted by boat at high tide so as never to touch Zanzibari soil, and shipped to Dar es Salaam. The British caught up with him in 1916, during the East African campaign; he was exiled and eventually allowed home to die in Mombasa in 1927.
By afternoon on 27 August the British had installed the tractable Hamud bin Muhammed as sultan. He proved cooperative in the one respect history most notes: under British pressure, Zanzibar — for centuries a hub of the East African slave trade — abolished the legal status of slavery the following year. The sultanate itself lasted, ever more ornamental, until the revolution of 1964.