{"id":13413,"date":"2024-07-20T12:53:44","date_gmt":"2024-07-20T12:53:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/used82.com\/?p=13413"},"modified":"2024-07-20T12:53:44","modified_gmt":"2024-07-20T12:53:44","slug":"true-story-of-shortest-war-in-history-that-lasted-under-40-minutes-but-still-had-500-deaths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/used82.com\/?p=13413","title":{"rendered":"True story of shortest war in history that lasted under 40 minutes but still had 500 deaths"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Anglo-Zanzibar War is widely known as the shortest in history<\/h2>\n

The shortest war in history only lasted 40 minutes, but still managed to take the lives of 500 people.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The\u00a0Anglo-Zanzibar War<\/a>, which took place in 1896, is widely known as the shortest war to ever take place.<\/p>\n

But sadly, it had many casualties, despite barely lasting an hour.<\/p>\n

It all started in August 1896, when the sultan of\u00a0Zanzibar<\/a>, Sultan Hamad, died suddenly.\u00a0Britain<\/a>, who had influence over the region at the time, had a preference over who would replace the sultan, but Prince Kh\u0101lid ibn Barghash did not agree.<\/p>\n

\n
\"British<\/div>\n

British forces in front of the sultan’s palace. (Pictures from History\/Getty Images)<\/cite><\/div>\n

He took control himself instead – much to the disapproval of the British – which caused tensions between the two sides.<\/p>\n

On August 25, the Brits arrived in Zanzibar with soldiers and gunboats, while Prince Kh\u0101lid took refuge in the palace behind an army of 3,000 soldiers and supporters, as well as several artillery guns.<\/p>\n

While directly asking Prince Kh\u0101lid to surrender, the Brits were also sending troops to protect the British Consulate and control any rioting from the public.<\/p>\n

Despite the growing tension – and the ultimatums that chief diplomat, Basil Cave issued to Kh\u0101lid – the British troops could not proceed without the approval of the government at home.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Prince<\/div>\n

Prince Kh\u0101lid ibn Barghash. (Henry Guttmann\/Pictures from History\/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)<\/cite><\/div>\n

Cave sent a telegram to the Foreign Office, asking: \u201cAre we authorised in the event of all attempts at a peaceful solution proving useless, to fire on the Palace from the men-of-war?\u201d<\/p>\n

The next day, he received the following: \u201cYou are authorised to adopt whatever measures you may consider necessary, and will be supported in your action by Her Majesty\u2019s Government. Do not, however, attempt to take any action which you are not certain of being able to accomplish successfully.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prince Kh\u0101lid was issued one final ultimatum on 26 August, but did not surrender.<\/p>\n

That afternoon, the harbours were cleared and British women and children taken to safety.<\/p>\n

\n
\"The<\/div>\n

The palace after the bombardment. (Pictures from History\/Getty Images)<\/cite><\/div>\n

At 9am the following day, troops began infiltrating the palace, and at 9.02am, ships Racoon, Thrush and Sparrow opened fire on the palace, leading to around 500 casualties.<\/p>\n

Many of those killed had died in the fire that engulfed the palace.<\/p>\n

Kh\u0101lid, however, ended up escaping, seeking shelter in the German Consulate before being smuggled into Tanzania. He remained on the run until he was captured in 1916, when British forces invaded East Africa.<\/p>\n

Despite the conflict lasting just minutes, it took the lives of many of Kh\u0101lid’s troops.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Anglo-Zanzibar War is widely known as the shortest in history The shortest war in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"views":75,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13413\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}