The shortest war ever recorded in world history was a military conflict fought for just 43 minutes in 1896 between Great Britain and Sultan Khalid Barghash, the then self-confessed ‘King’ of clove-rich Zanzibar Island off the Indian Ocean’s tropical coast of East Africa.

The intriguing story of what had caused hostilities to break out between the two countries was first brought to my attention in 1955 by Sultan Khalid’s living ancestor and grandson, one Prince Mohammed Khali Barghash, who believed he was his grandfather’s heir apparent and pretender to Zanzibar’s solid gold throne.

As a result, he believed he should immediately follow in the shoes of his royal family’s previous leader who, at the time, was starting to face certain political difficulties over having a slave market in his backyard after this heinous practise had already been outlawed internationally in 1865.

Knowing I was about to visit the United Nations in New York to report on Tanganyika’s early bid for Independence, I was duly asked by the prince to take a special written plea on his behalf for personal delivery to the U.N. Trusteeship Council.

My new Zanzibar royal acquaintance told me how his grandfather had become the island’s Sultan following the suspicious murder of a leading member of a competing royal family and how the Sultan had disagreed with the British that Zanzibar should immediately abolish its continuing capture and sale of African slaves to Arab traders from the Middle East.

It was, in fact, on 27 August of the Sultan’s fateful year of 1896 that grandfather Khalid advised the English consul on Zanzibar Island that he intended to take up arms over the slavery issue against the then British Empire of Queen Victoria.

The Sultan had sent his message of war to the English envoy shortly before 9am on that day but, unknown to him, two armed British naval ships were cruising not far from his elaborate palace. Within a whisker of time, the British battleships received word of the Sultan’s hostile declaration by means of semaphore flag signals which immediately sealed his fate.

One of the British naval captains had picked up these signals of war and had urgently ordered his crew to turn their cruiser’s big guns on to the Sultan’s palace and harem — and let fire on behalf of Queen and country.

With total accuracy, the cruiser’s canons instantly demolished and set a section of the palace on fire — and Sultan Khalid took the hint, instantly surrendering and fleeing through the back door of his palatial home before being secretly smuggled into Tanganyika. There, the German administration hid him in exile for many years, just across the water from his old island domain.

Although the Sultan had fled in fear of losing his life, members of his household guard attempted to repay the British onslaught with small canon and rifle fire. Unfortunately for them, 150 British marines, who had previously been landed elsewhere on the island, quickly finished off the war and over 500 Zanzibaris, palace guards and slaves were killed. By comparison, the British Navy only registered one seaman having been injured by small handgun fire.

From the moment of his sudden declaration of war against the British, who held legal protection rights over his diminutive island country in the Indian Ocean, the Sultan’s war lasted for just 43 minutes. It soon became known as the shortest battle ever waged by anyone anywhere. It is said that the Sultan’s palace clock stopped at exactly 9.45am.

When I subsequently visited the U.N. in New York after meeting with Prince Mohammed Khali Barghash, I duly handed his special petition in to the relevant U.N. authority, but I and the world never heard any more of him.

This maybe just as well for the would-be royalist as I saw Zanzibar’s later Sultan Jamshid bin Abdullah being forcefully dethroned in 1964 by pro-Communist forces, and Zanzibar later being forced to become a part of an independent Tanganyika under the two countries’ present name of Tanzania.

Throughout the 1950s, I visited Zanzibar on several occasions as a foreign correspondent to cover the island’s political news as it had become a centre for growing pro-Soviet Communist sympathies. On one such trip, I attended a Zanzibar Legislative Council meeting held in a local park under the shade of overhanging trees, a very unparliamentary experience not likely to happen anywhere else in the world.

Another interesting sight to behold in those times was when, at sunset each day, the Sultan was driven around his domain in his post-box red Rolls Royce limousine on an inspection tour of his not so always loyal subjects.

The power of this particular sultan could also be plainly observed at the iron gates of his re-built palace. On rare occasions, an amputated hand could be seen on display as a warning to everyone that theft was not tolerated anywhere on Zanzibar. The Sultan was true to his word, being a strong proponent of Muslim justice and Sharia law.

All this, of course, was somewhat different to the morning of 12 January 1964 when the fairly extensive Zanzibar police force was unexpectedly overrun by Communist insurgents who quickly overthrew the Sultan, his family and government members.

These acts of violence were the start of what became the Zanzibar Revolution in which several thousand more Zanzibar subjects were massacred and raped with their homes and businesses raised to the ground.

Official migration statistics show that over 10,000 additional Zanzibar citizens fled in sheer fear from their island home as a result of the revolution. Most of them escaped to Tanganyika on the African mainland and to Britain.

The highly destructive Zanzibar revolution of 1964 thus saw the end to 250 years of sultanate government and dominance on the still famous clove island.

Zanzibar was always dubbed locally as “Toothache Territory” as the oil from its main crop always figured well with people throughout the world suffering from bouts of sore teeth.