Morgan Episode 42 shortest war

The podcast hosts, Morgan and Emily, are recording an episode and discussing various topics. They talk about Morgan's children being loud in the background and a phone call from someone named Kyle. They also mention a time-sensitive matter and potential changes in plans. They then go on to discuss the history of Zanzibar, its colonization, the slave trade, and the involvement of the British Empire. They mention the conflict between the British and the royal family of Zanzibar. The story being discussed is about the shortest war in history, which took place in Zanzibar in 1896. okay should we do like the clap thing and make sure we're lined up one two three perfect we're so in sync it showed up on my yeah perfect okay yes okay do you have to yawn first welcome to ill-equipped history where two best friends tell you a story from history and no one told us to do that so here we are my name is Morgan here with my I was trying to trying to come up with an adjective that is different than I've been using and I almost said emphysematic you got emphysema so my asthmatic co-host Emily I also edited them out during recording constantly yawning you guys can't tell we're still in the same vicinity so we've still got that yeah making each other laugh by looking at Emily just put on her glasses and like went full turtle curling her lip her upper lip around her teeth to put her glasses on I know why you put glasses on did your mouth have to help me do that too well guys if you hear some things going on in the background we're actually recording in the middle of the day mm-hmm and my children are very loud goblins so we're trying they're the sweetest things but they're they're young and they woke me up this morning so and I had to tell them a few times go to your room of play and he didn't they wouldn't they didn't listen to me and they kept yelling I was like why are you yelling sorry Kyle he's like can you call me when you get a chance the sooner the better okay make it quick sorry he's probably told me like you need to come home today hey good morning good um me and Emily are actually recording an episode right now is everything okay okay um how time sensitive like can they wait like a couple hours do they need to be answered right now I'm going to be leaving today is that one of them what's what's wrong well tell me no no I'm just saying like you don't have to like believe you're on the point just tell me what's going on is it going to have to be rescheduled again okay well when what when mm-hmm maybe when would we be leaving on the 18th or on the 17th okay so that week is NASP and I'm going I'll be virtual so I'll be at home so like I don't I'm not going to be at the school or anything so whatever that looks like that like almost whole week so it actually it actually goes into Saturday but I don't know what the sessions look like yet so the only thing is I there's probably not a whole lot going on on Saturday because it's only like four hours so I just have to make sure I'm maximizing my professional development I have to renew my NCSP this year but that should be fine I have no idea I mean we could leave Friday yeah it's virtual yeah okay yeah at any time because I mean probably more in the afternoon but okay okay okay okay is this going to be the last last time it changes okay okay what what else is the other time sensitive thing or is that it that sounds like an infection honey can you get I'm gonna leave her on one or two my mom called me this morning said supposed to snow start snowing tonight so yeah so I'll be leaving in a couple hours okay that's fine okay like full drizzle okay okay good good good hey baby um Emily Emily is still waiting um we're still like just recording because we haven't paused anything so but I can I call you when we're done okay all right well thank you for letting me know love you too you made it sound like it was an emergency and he was like it's kind of sensitive and he's like didn't want to talk I'll just say what it is and he's like that was really aggressive I was like just tell me anyway he kept saying like opportunities have offended themselves to make your birthday weekend even better and I'm like I don't know what he still hasn't told me what we're doing so I have no idea yeah yeah anyway okay I don't remember what we were talking about before he called me we're just chatting all right so I stumbled upon this one I was just kind of looking up some I kind of was like let's talk about another war you know you know sunken ships and war those are the two constants of history right so I was looking up and this one has a very unique place in history which I will get into after we go over our skit so let's jump into it the year is 1896 Prince Khalid bin Barghash has locked himself and his army inside the royal palace British naval forces are in the harbor awaiting orders diplomat Basil Cave and Rear Admiral Harry Rossin are going through their options okay I've asked this kid like twice now to leave the palace and he won't I mean Zanzibar is under our control it's our right as the British Empire to install our own puppet I mean leader on the throne there must be a way to solve this matter diplomatically or I wouldn't have my job I'm sending out one last order to vacate you got express permission from the higher-ups right this kid doesn't if this kid doesn't leave by 9 a.m. I'm blowing that palace to smithereens I guess this is what it comes down to and I hope you listen you messenger send this to the palace Prince Khalid and has one hour to leave the palace or we open fire a few minutes passed the prince's envoy arrives with a message of his own the prince would rather die than leave the palace he is the rightful sultan of Zanzibar his father decreed it and he will be a great ruler we have tried to solve this peacefully and he is refusing to stand down he's about to get a taste of British naval power in his face do it the clock tower sounds nine times after the ninth bell Rawson turns to his sailors arm the cannon fire when ready so this story is about the shortest war in history so our setting for this story is in Zanzibar in the late 1800s for those of y'all who do not know Zanzibar is a tiny tiny island off the coast of East Africa near what is now Tanzania it's actually now it is a part of Tanzania but it was not at the time at the time it was sort of part of the continent not continent I don't know what I'm saying the country of Tengen Yaka it or Tengen Yika sorry so what's now Tanzania and Zanzibar and a couple other places was Tengen Yika Zanzibar is also known as Nguya and that thing that may be more of like a local pronunciation of it it's teeny-tiny it's about half the size of Rhode Island teeny-tiny I think so yeah it's really little also fun fact Freddie Mercury was born there yeah yeah so Zanzibar is a major exporter of cloves coconuts and citrus okay yeah it's got huge clove it did have huge clove plantations at the time of this story and it's very profitable because Europeans got to have their spices right Zanzibar was colonized by the Portuguese in the 1500s so it apparently seemed to be kind of a mutually beneficial relationship the Portuguese they kind of they like we're like okay Zanzibar is ours now but they didn't like meddle in everything they said they kept their distance they were not directly involved in the goings-on they seem to just kind of help each other mutually with political matters mostly war so they more became like allies yeah in 1698 Zanzibar was taken over by Oman which is a country in the Middle East and it's an Arab country I don't understand he even said yesterday that sound travel throughout this house and not even closed doors will help so when Oman took control over Zanzibar trade grew even more than it already had with the Portuguese unfortunately one of their big producers was enslaved people they were a huge slave port and they also had slaves on the island providing free labor for the clove plantations and the citrus plantations and all of that I think I saw somewhere about two thousand there may have been more let me let me double check really quick okay I don't know why I use this reference but Neyland Stadium holds a hundred and almost a hundred and two thousand so you see at a Tennessee football game a hundred thousand more people than live on this island yes I'm trying to find currently it has where did I just see it it has almost a million people living there now so maybe I saw two thousand somewhere else and it was wrong so I'm not I'm not entirely sure so like this was a major trade port especially for enslaved people and from Zanzibar enslaved people went out to the southern US the Caribbean India the Middle East and within Zanzibar itself like I said in 1832 the Sultan of Omar moved to Zanzibar and all I could hear when I was researching this was that line from history of the entire world I guess by Bill Wurtz on YouTube where it goes Sultan of Omar lives in Zanzibar now that's just where he lives there was a reason why it was because he wanted to be closer to all of the commerce and trade that was happening in Zanzibar so and also around this time a lot of Indians were coming into Zanzibar as well and at this time India was being colonized by the British and so when Indians were coming in that got the attention of the British Empire right and like wow this is a super prosperous trade route dollar signs or pound signs yeah so the British really just metal this entire story happened because the British meddled and another thing about the story is that there's not really one right side one wrong side they both had like justifiable motive motivations I almost said listen my brain is not functional anymore at all modifications they both have their motivations which I'll get into so there's not really a side that you want to root for because it's like the colonizers almost seem like they're doing something good against the the native indigenous and like royal family yeah but then also like you're like you want the the people who've been living there for a while and have like been kind of running the place to have their own it's complicated yeah yeah so when all of this is going on Europe is colonizing the fuck out of Africa I mean it is just it's it's really horrible and this created a lot of conflict between European countries and this included Great Britain and Germany and they were scrambling to colonize what they could and exploit their rich resources in Africa so Great Britain was directly involved with the slave trade as we've discussed previously especially with the Americas and all of that but in 1833 the Slavery Abolition Act ended slavery within the British Empire and when the British ended it they wanted it ended everywhere to be the one to say well we we do it this way we want everyone to do it this way exactly and also all of your artifacts are now in our museum yes exactly so and again it's like okay yeah they want to end slavery that's not a bad thing but also they're like meddling and everything it's just it's again it's complicated so the British are very interested in Zanzibar at this time and they're like they're not taking it over or anything they're not going to war but they're like hovering like a really annoying ant or something they're just like what you doing over there yeah like what you got going over there you got a boyfriend yet you know yeah it's kind of like that so in 1856 the current Sultan at that time Said bin died the British zoomed in and meddled Said bin had two sons and the British were like hey how about what if genius idea one son goes back to Oman and the Sultan of Oman and then the other son sits here in Zanzibar in rule Zanzibar and they're like cool and they're like ha ha now we have separated these two entities Zanzibar is no longer under Oman's protection or their rule so we're gonna loop in come on in so the British couldn't really again they couldn't do anything with or to Zanzibar while it was under Omani control but once those powers were separated they came in like seagulls mine mine mine mine so that Sultan the the son of Said bin eventually died a lot of Sultans like within not a very long time are just dying left and right one of them is some of them did die from illness so because it's the 1800s in a tropical country and you know yeah so when that Sultan died the British put a pro-British supporter on the throne a Sultan and his name was Bargash bin Said he followed their policies and he abolished the slave trade in Zanzibar but he did not end slavery in Zanzibar just the trade yes and Great Britain was not a fan of this because they're like no we want to abolish completely but again Zanzibar and this is not justifying what was going on but Zanzibar and like the wealthy of Zanzibar really relied on that free labor to produce their crops and their exports and stuff so at the same time that all of this is going on within Zanzibar Germany and Great Britain signed the Heligoland Zanzibar Treaty and this divided Tanzania and Zanzibar so Germany got Tanzania which is on the African continent and Great Britain got Zanzibar did I say that right Germany got Tanzania Great Britain got Zanzibar so I guess Bargash bin Said died as well like really quickly and so in 1890 a new Sultan was put on the throne his name is Ali bin Said he saw what was coming so he was like okay I don't want Great Britain to colonize us I want us to at least preserve like the Sultanate I want us to preserve our way of life so they came to an agreement that Zanzibar was now going to be a protectorate of Great Britain instead of like a colony so protector is quote an autonomous territory that has protected diplomatically that is protected diplomatically or militarily against third parties by a stronger state or entity the protectorate retains formal sovereignty and remains a state under international law but in exchange for this they usually accept specified obligations that vary depending on the nature of their relationship and I got this from the US diplomacy website exactly so there's three conditions for this protectorate that they agreed to so first is they wanted to reopen free trade in Zanzibar the second was they wanted the power to veto any Sultan in any contested succession so they got like if there's any contested issues the Great Britain wanted the power to have their say and three they wanted the island to totally abolish slavery okay so while Ali bin Said was Sultan he did not abolish slavery he was able to kind of tip he was like I'm working on it you know but he also wanted to keep his wealthy elite happy but Great Britain was like okay now it's time it's time because they wanted to abolish slavery so when he died again they're just going through Sultans like this when Ali bin Said died the British wanted to put someone on the throne who would listen to him or listen to them so at this in Zanzibar there were not any laws or traditions about passing the throne down to the oldest son there were multiple candidates that could be become Sultan and I wasn't really sure about the process like I don't think it was a vote I think like maybe the court whatever equivalent got together and they kind of said who was going to be the next Sultan but because there's multiple candidates this was technically a contested succession and the Great Britain plopped one of their own onto the Sultan's throne and his name was Hamid bin Thawani so at the same time there's another player on all of this and his name is Khalid bin Barghash so Khalid bin Barghash bin Said al-Busaid was born in 1875 his father was one of the Sultans of Zanzibar Said Barghash who was like two or three Sultans ago Said wanted to pass the throne to Khalid even though there wasn't like any laws of succession or anything but with the British doing all their interference and Zanzibarian politics it wasn't really likely so when Said died he put it in his will that he wanted Khalid to become Sultan when he was ready he was only Khalid was only like seven at the time so he was too young when Said died in 1888 so yeah two years prior to all the stuff going on with the the treaty the British and the Germans both appointed Said Khalifa bin Said as Sultan who was Khalid's uncle and this royally pissed off Khalid he was like no I'm supposed to be Sultan even though I'm young but he's like okay you know what I'm just gonna just gonna hang back I'm gonna wait whatever so Khalifa died in 1890 and that's when Khalid bin Said was appointed Sultan and he's the one that agreed for the protectorate of Zanzibar I did put pictures of some of the major players because they're all related to like their uncles and cousins and brothers and all that yeah yeah they're all related so yeah again like every two years or so there's a new Sultan yeah and Khalid openly supported his uncle in this venture because he was trying to kind of gain more political support in the background and he was still a teenager at this point yeah so in 1893 so three years after protectorate Ali bin Said died another death Khalid demanded he become Sultan as his father's wish like I said and both his mother and father were Arab and this like improved his popularity among the elite of Zanzibar they're like he's like both of his parents like they're Arab from the Oman like culture like he is definitely able to be Sultan because of this I didn't really get into a whole lot of what that was about but he's been heavily involved in the court since he was very young and many favored him to be the new Sultan so the British had different plans though and ended up appointing Hamoud bin Thawani who was a pro-British supporter after Ali bin Said died and Thawani was Khalid's cousin this royally pissed off 19 year old Khalid so he got into the palace and locked all the doors and we're like you can't come in this is not last very long though so the British were like let us in and he's like no and they're like let us in and he's like okay so he went meant to only let in to like British I was like a general and a consulate or something but once the door was like so this is a quote from an article I read quote however as soon as the door was finally opened the public invaded it including the Marines and directly went to the upper floor Prince Khalid welcomed the general and British consul rental rod told Prince Khalid that he had committed a stupid move by invading the castle and quote they're like you dumb kid you don't know what you're doing get out of here so he left yeah and but that was not the war though that was just anyway yeah so now we're getting into the actual war and it's known as the Anglo Zanzibar war so Thawani was Sultan for three years before he mysteriously and suddenly died on August 25th 1896 yes this one is suspicious I think all the other ones either died of natural causes or illness but it is suspected that Khalid poisoned him but no one can know for sure yes he's still very young so once they got the news Thawani died Basil cave who's the chief diplomat of Zanzibar and Lloyd Matthews who's the first minister ran to the palace in order all the doors to be locked so Khalid wouldn't start his bullshit lock all the doors lock all the doors Khalid was back on his bullshit him and has been snuck in through a window and again like you can feel like his father wanted him to be sold like he had a lot of supporters he felt like it was his right but it went against the British like mountain in the coming in like yeah yeah so pro Khalid supporters also came into the palace and a lot of these people were people who supported the institution of slavery for free labor because Khalid wanted to keep things as they were he was not really a fan of the British coming in and changing everything and in the article I was reading about Prince Khalid specifically it was a little bit about his life mostly about this conflict but he even like while he was hold up he even tried to write a letter to Queen Victoria being like I'm okay with you I just need you to get your guys out of here we can be bros but you gotta get your guys out of here yeah so Khalid amassed a military to guard the palace there's about 3,000 men artillery and he had a royal royal yacht called the Glasgow in the harbor and had like some weapons I know I know so cave that's what gave the diplomat he was trying to get Khalid out of the palace as peacefully and diplomatically as possible and it didn't work you're like get out and Khalid's like no he's like get out now I'm sure there was so in the Zanzibar Harbor there were already two British man of wars the HMS Philomel and the HMS rush big British warships okay so sailors like they went to go guard the British consulate on Zanzibar making sure there's no riots going on because there's you know some tensions happening and cave called for the HMS Sparrow to help out if necessary which was nearby so the British couldn't really do anything yet without the go ahead from the British government so caves in on a telegram asking if they could if if needed to if they could handle the situation as needed though no one from either side really expected there to be violence they were trying they were really trying to like okay let's figure out how to do this without yeah he's trying to fight the British which again there's lots of problems with the British Empire as we discussed but they were one of the biggest world powers gobbling up Africa and their its resources so Khalid kept saying no he's not going to leave so on August 26th which is the next day after Khalid swarmed the palace he got in like hours after the one he died like as soon as he heard it was hours yeah that's that's what people like yeah really so on August 26 the HMS Raccoon and the HMS St. George came into the harbor as well with Rear Admiral Harry Rossin on board yeah Raccoon so now and he was the commander of the British naval fleet in this region so now there are five I also saw there was an HMS Thresh or thrush so five to six British warships in the Zanzibar Harbor yeah and if you scroll down so there's a picture of the Sultanate in Zanzibar which is the palace and the picture below that is what the palace looked like in the 1800s with the clock tower and the balconies and stuff it is right on the harbor like there's like this street and then the harbor well not when you are going up against a powerful naval fleet no but again the island's not that big yeah it's very beautiful so Kay's got confirmation from the British government and the telegraph said quote you are authorized to adopt whatever measures you may consider necessary and will be supported in your action by Her Majesty's government do not however attempt to take any action which you are not certain of being able to accomplish successfully end quote so basically like don't do anything unless you're sure it'll work we don't need any half-assed attempts we don't need this to fail because then that will not make us that will make us look weak yeah so again that day he was instructed to leave the palace so on that day August 26 he was instructed to leave the palace by 9 a.m. on the 27th the next day or else and Khalid replied back quote we have no intention of hauling down our flag and we do not believe you would open fire on us with five to six naval British man of wars in the harbor pointing their guns at the palace so cave responded quote but unless you do as you were told we shall certainly do so so he's like you called her you're not calling our bluff because we're going to move forward with it yeah so again the palace is on the waterfront of a harbor and it was made of wood with hundreds of people okay there are hundreds of people inside this palace okay at 9 a.m. Rossin ordered a bombardment and 902 a.m. is when the first shell hit the palace it instantly disintegrated the clock tower so now you have several man of wars firing artillery at this one palace at point blank range if you scroll down okay yeah you can see the bombardment lasted less than an hour some sources put it at 38 minutes and that is when the bombardment ended and they grabbed Khalid's flag because he had put up a new flag when he invaded the palace it looks like buildings after the blitz mm-hmm yeah holy shit mm-hmm so again it's between 40 and 50 minutes is how long the entire thing lasted there's not no one there's not a very consistent description but everyone agrees it was less than an hour at the end of it there are 500 dead and injured Zanzibarians from within the palace while only one British soldier was seriously injured and I think it was from like crossfire because the Khalid did have his military like shooting rifles back at the British and then Great Britain immediately put Hamoud bin Mohammed on the throne no he escaped the bombardment he did and fled to the German consulate yeah yeah no one knows exactly how he escaped but they think he escaped during the bombardment yeah yeah like if you say I would rather die mm-hmm then and then you ran away mm-hmm to the Germans who the Germans and the British were not friends they were not enemies but they were not friends at this time I think they are now now in modern times but no okay so and then the Germans wanted to screw over the British and so the British were like can we have this guy back he is going to be a prisoner and they're like no we are not going to extradite him over to you guys yeah yeah so the Germans eventually smuggled him to Tanzania which was German owned uh let me get a map they're not it's or if you just like look up Zanzibar look at a map it's not that far I don't know exactly how far but it's pretty close oh and if you have a map up at least a map I have there it says Dar es Salaam which is south of Zanzibar in Tanzania so Khalid would escape to Dar es Salaam but not long after the British invaded Tanzania not for Khalid they were invading just to invade because and they found him it was just a happy accident they're like oh my god here's a war prisoner we were looking for so then they exiled him to st. Helena which is actually where Napoleon was exiled to but he was not exiled for life he spent a few years there and eventually did return to East Africa and he the article I was reading said he lived a very quiet life after that didn't do anything he got off his bullshit and he eventually died in Mombasa Kenya in 1927 at the age of 52 okay it's not yeah it's pretty close so Zanzibar remained a protector of the British Empire until 1963 when it became independent and a year later in 1964 there is a revolution and Zanzibar eventually joined Tanzania and this is now like they're all Tanzania yeah that's all I have about the shortest war in history it was a rapid-fire yeah yeah but they weren't they weren't going up against the a German like Empire they were going up against like a really tiny palace on a tiny island kid yeah whose ego was bigger than like he was able to like his bark was much worse than a bite like oh yeah yeah yeah for one the first time throwing a temper tantrum and locking himself into the palace but then letting them in and they're like get out and he's like okay fine and then the second time he like didn't kill his cousin and just happened to be an hour later two hours later crawling through a window I'm just imagining these two like super proper British guys like booking it to get back in here oh and I forgot to say I skipped over it or maybe I did I did say it that when they put how moved in Mohammed on the throne and he did abolish slavery on Zanzibar yeah so once he was on the throne the British like okay we're happy now we got everything we want wanted to do what the British wanted mm-hmm he could have had it yeah really but he didn't want to do that what a statement what a bold statement for someone who ran away yeah and I wasn't there I don't know if he just like woke up after the bombardment and was just happened to be alive and then escape somehow yeah I don't know that but he was throwing a temper tantrum so and got 500 of his own people killed or injured I wouldn't want him as a leader anyway if he was gonna be that reckless with other human life right like I just don't think he would have been a good leader I also am glad that he yeah yeah he was like all right I learned my lesson I'm just gonna hang out and live the rest of my life yeah oh my god all these people are in high school I went to Pamela yeah he is our guy you can't have him I just didn't know it was gonna be in the most petty way possible and it's ironic because all these people are like grown-ass men that are like we have superior decision-making abilities grown-ass men can be super petty all right this is why we need like people like normal people who are super busy to be in power they don't have time for this bullshit yeah I got laundry to wash I got dishes to do yeah I got dinner the leaves and the bar the fuck alone yeah or no we're not gonna fight the British today yeah yeah and again it's complicated too because it's like there's not really a side that is yeah more right or more wrong right it's like yeah what the British did in the end was like better because they did abolish the slavery but also you don't like that because like you were really medley mm-hmm yeah right yeah it's complicated okay there's a nice little little nugget episode there especially after our short episode not a lot and I try to like find more like background and context and stuff but I mean Zanzibar already has a really long history and I again wanted to keep it relevant to our topic but yeah so this is a nice little little tidbit especially after probably thinking boats and survival I'm still like shaking a whole time I've had a few episodes like that where I'm like I'm so excited to talk about I just shiver the entire time I can hear my voice trembling a little like felt that like jazzed up about it and except or since the like probably around Battle of Athens I've been really excited about them all mm-hmm but nothing like that feeling yeah because it was such a like a story about survival basically and it was kind of the same it was giving them the same vibes yeah we're still reeling this is a great story today thank you I loved it thank you yeah it was a very interesting little tale and now I finally have context to the Sultan of Oman wins in Zanzibar now from the Bill Wurst video yeah I'm sure it's like some kind of ceremonial I don't know what the technical term for it is but it's like a robe yeah these are all very fancy men and now he's got the little thingy and the sword I'll even fade mm-hmm I really like is that when you see their feet it just looks like they're wearing like like slides and they all have like very powerful facial hair do not I tell you that Kyle shaved off his beard it took a while to get used to for sure actually and he's gone mustache a couple times I don't hate the mustache yeah I liked it yeah no I understand no I actually like when Kyle was growing his beard back out like he had the mustache and then he was like little scruffy growing back the beard look I really like that look I don't mind like five o'clock shadow I don't like clean-shaven face yeah who are you a child a beard all right they're they're very British very posh the hat that's doing it for me thank you all of his medals and crosses and his own what are those called on the shoulders he looks like a very like a meaner version of who was the dad on Roseanne John Goodman yeah I pull it I pull it yeah that's what it meant he does look like John good all right so we'll post these pictures on our social media so y'all can follow along yeah yeah so I guess we can yeah ill-equipped history podcast group and page at ill-equipped history at ill-equipped history patreon.com slash ill-equipped history ill-equipped history calm no ill-equipped history at gmail.com okay so if you've got an opinion and this is the hill you want to die on please just make sure that it's not against the yeah yeah sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't no one really no one can really know for sure yeah and they get real pissy about it and they keep coming calling their bluff like they're gonna do it we know they're gonna do it from personal experience yeah they don't mess around yes hide your artifacts hide your wife yeah let's go okay