British Somaliland

British Somaliland was an overseas protectorate of the United Kingdom that existed from 1884 until 1960. It was located in the Horn of Africa, a peninsular region in northeastern Africa that encompasses the present-day countries of Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia. Contained entirely within the borders of what is now Somalia, British Somaliland was established as a strategic response to the 1869 opening of the Suez Canal, which connects the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea and the open waterways of the Indian Ocean. British Somaliland's coast, which ran along the protectorate's northern edge, bordered on the Gulf of Aden. This gave Britain a strong bilateral presence in the region's vital marine routes, as the United Kingdom also controlled the Aden Protectorate, a peninsular state located across the Gulf of Aden from British Somaliland in what is now Yemen.

Occupied by Italian forces during World War II (1939–1945), British Somaliland went on to achieve independence in 1960, when it became part of Somalia. However, in 1991, Somaliland became a self-declared independent state, breaking its ties with Somalia and establishing its own internal government based in the de facto capital city of Hargeisa.

Background

In 1839, Great Britain occupied Aden, a port city in the southwest corner of the Arabian Peninsula on the north shore of the Gulf of Aden. The move gave the British secure access to its valuable colonial holdings in India, and created a useful intermediary harbor and coaling station between London and Bombay. Aden's strategic importance increased significantly after the Suez Canal opened in 1869. The canal created a new sea route linking mainland Europe to northern Africa and the Middle East via the Mediterranean Sea. Running through Egypt, the Suez Canal exits into the Red Sea, which leads into the Gulf of Aden, the Arabian Sea, and the Indian Ocean.

Aden came to function as an important commercial hub and military outpost, but the corresponding Horn of Africa on the other side of the Gulf of Aden was poorly controlled. Most of these areas were technically under Egyptian administration as part of the Ottoman Empire, but in practice, they were largely lawless and thus posed potential security threats to British commercial and military interests. Thus, Britain sought to take control of them to protect the shipping lanes and naval routes that connected British India to its European motherland.

In 1882, Egypt came under British control when Great Britain overpowered the Egyptian army in the Battle of Tel-el-Kebir. The resultant political arrangement technically instituted joint British and Egyptian rule of Egypt, but Britain was functionally in command. As such, Britain acquired Egypt's claims over the territories along the Gulf of Aden coast in mainland Africa. However, Britain would not secure these claims unopposed. Islamic armies were organizing in what is now Sudan, leaving Britain's top-ranking official in the region, Major-General Charles George Gordon, stranded and in imminent danger. Britain dispatched military units to rescue Gordon, and they stayed on to secure British claims to the wider region. The resulting protectorate, British Somaliland, was declared in 1884 and initially functioned as a subordinate state to the adjacent Aden Protectorate.

Overview

Although Britain sought unilateral control over the Horn of Africa, other European countries, including France and Italy, also had interests in the region. In 1883, France established the protectorate of French Somaliland, which is now known as Djibouti. Italy gradually acquired territory in what is now northeastern, central, and southern Somalia through a succession of treaties, culminating in the formal creation of Italian Somaliland in 1889. These territories, along with Ethiopia, bordered British Somaliland. In total, British Somaliland encompassed an area of about 68,000 square miles (176,119 square kilometers) and had an estimated population of approximately 155,000 people. The coastal commercial port city of Berbera functioned as British Somaliland's administrative capital, and the territory was initially ruled by the governorship of the nearby Aden Protectorate.

British Somaliland's importance was strategic, not economic. Its dry and untamed lands were not well suited to agricultural production, and the protectorate was largely sustained by subsidies. Britain's investment in British Somaliland generated returns in the form of secure commercial shipping from British India through the Horn of Africa. In 1915, British Somaliland's commissioner Sir Geoffrey Francis Archer noted that the people of British Somaliland appeared to appreciate the security brought by Britain's military presence, which secured them from outside attack and helped broker peaceful resolutions to intertribal conflicts. However, the Somali people did not universally accept British control of their homeland. Sayyid Mohammed Abdullah Hassan, a Somali religious leader, rallied his followers to launch what he considered a "holy war" against the British. Although Hassan's campaign did not result in many direct military confrontations, it remained an ongoing problem for British Somaliland's government until Hassan was finally defeated in 1920.

Otherwise, British Somaliland was largely unaffected by World War I (1914–1918), during which Britain was forced to reduce its military commitments to the protectorate. This left British Somaliland vulnerable to outside aggressions, but fears that the territory could come under Ottoman- or German-backed attack did not materialize. However, in 1940, Italy invaded British Somaliland as part of World War II. By that time, Italy's presence in the Horn of Africa had expanded beyond Italian Somaliland to include Ethiopia, which came under Italian control in 1936. Italy went on to seize British Somaliland, holding it until British military forces drove the Italians out in March of 1941.

Following the defeat of the Italians, Great Britain left a military government in charge of British Somaliland until 1948. In April of 1960, the protectorate's legislative council presented a motion proposing a union between it and the Trust Territory of Somalia, which was the territory formerly known as Italian Somaliland. The resultant agreement created a unified Somalia, and the united regions became the independent Somali Republic on July 1, 1960.

However, Somalia's history as an independent nation has been beset with ongoing internal strife, culminating with the outbreak of a civil war in the 1980s. As of 2017, this civil war has yet to reach a definitive conclusion and has left Somalia severely destabilized. The territory formerly known as British Somaliland seceded from Somalia in 1991, becoming the self-declared state of Somaliland. However, the legitimacy of Somaliland's declared independence has yet to be officially recognized by the international community.

Bibliography

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"British Somaliland." National Archives, livelb.nationalarchives.gov.uk/first-world-war/a-global-view/africa/british-somaliland/. Accessed 13 Oct. 2017.

"British Somaliland." Robinson Library, 27 June 2017, www.robinsonlibrary.com/history/africa/eastern/somalia/british.htm. Accessed 13 Oct. 2017.

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Millman, Brock. British Somaliland: An Administrative History, 1920–1960. Routledge, 2013.