War Office

OFFICIAL HISTORY OF THE OPERATIONS IN SOMALILAND, 1901-04 Volume One War Office

This is the official history, compiled by the War Office, of four armed British expeditions, mounted in the Horn of Africa into some of the most inhospitable terrain on earth. The Somali expeditions were launched a century ago in territory which, then as now, is intractable and ungovernable - at least by foreigners. Although described by the War Office as 'Uncivilised and little-known' - Somaliland was situated in a key position on the western side of the Red Sea, dominating the southern approaches to the Suez Canal and thus sitting astride British communications with India, the Far East and Australasia. All the powers had an interest in Somaliland and three of them - Britain, France and Italy, - had, by the turn of the 19th/20th centuries, established 'protectorates' - small slices of territory to safeguard their interests there. Periodically the native tribes, known generally to the British as 'Dervishes', were stirred by their Mullahs to harass these territories, and it was to deter and drive back such hostile demonstrations that the four Somali operations were mounted. These two volumes recount the stories of these punitive expeditions in great detail, and are accompanied by many maps, charts and some fine quality photographs to tell the complete story of an almost forgotten 'small war'.