A Modern History of the Somali. I. M. Lewis
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in this period, describes his administration at Berbera as ‘parental’.5 Under Walsh, building material which was scarce in the town was obtained by issuing camel drivers with a rope sling by means of which they were to bring two boulders into Berbera whenever they came in from the interior. Before entering the town, the nomads of the hinterland were encouraged to deposit their weapons at the police station and an ingenious procedure was devised to discourage violence. If two men were caught fighting, they were separated and deprived of their arms. They were then obliged to dig a grave. When this was completed to the satisfaction of the police, their arms were returned and they were urged to resume their dispute on the understanding that the victor would bury his adversary. Walsh found that under these conditions the most bellicose of warriors preferred to forget their differences, at least temporarily: the whole story was then broadcast in the town by the town crier.
With such methods as these and the aid of a small force of about a hundred Somali Coast Police armed with rifles, order was maintained quite effectively at Berbera and Bulhar. The safety of trade with the interior was ensured by the activities of an irregular force of armed caravan guards paid by the merchants whose caravans they escorted. And at Berbera the Ayyal Yunis, and at Bulhar the Ayyal Ahmad were still the officially recognized agents for all foreign traders: they exercised a monopoly in the organization of caravan trade with the interior.
Farther inland the maintenance of order sometimes required punitive expeditions organized with the aid of supplementary forces from Aden. Here the normal conditions of periodical raiding and looting between clans and upon caravans were aggravated by popular sympathy for the Mahdi’s cause in the Sudan. This was furthered by the activities of local agents of the Senusi Muslim Order and by Mahdist emissaries: fortunately for the British, however, these were often at loggerheads and thus did not make the immediate impact they might otherwise have done. Early in 1885, however, the Zeila police who had been taken over from the Egyptians mutinied; but serious trouble was averted by the intervention of the Indian Infantry who had been stationed at Zeila to cover the Egyptian withdrawal from Harar. A minor riot followed at Berbera. To counteract the effects of religious propaganda, a pro-British sheikh was unobtrusively appointed as the official Muslim judge in place of two ‘self-styled’ Kadis who were both Arabs and extremely anti-British.
While this modest but surprisingly effective administration was being established, the Egyptian garrison withdrew from Harar without serious incident in 1885 and ‘Abdallah Muhammad, a Harari, was left as governor of the city with a British adviser. At the same time, the French were active at Obock: and their rivalry with the British, especially through their intrigues at Zeila conducted by the enterprising French Consul with the support of the Danakil governor, had become acute. Here the position of the local British officials was complicated by their government’s reluctance to come to a decision on the future status of Zeila.
Under the inspiration of the forceful Lagarde, the French station had been extended to the northern shore of the Gulf of Tajura after the departure of the Egyptians. Early in 1885 the French asserted that their dominion extended beyond Tajura to close on Jibuti, and Britain replied with a counter notification of her Somali Protectorate from Berbera to a point within the sphere claimed by France. Having gained a treaty of perpetual friendship (which included an unambiguous and total cession of land to France) with the ‘Ise of Ambado and Jibuti, France answered by extending her claim to the latter port.
This wrangle, conducted without regard for the interests of the local inhabitants, now looked as though it might lead to open conflict; and indeed by the end of 1885 Britain was preparing to resist an expected French landing at Zeila. Instead, however, of a decision by force, both sides now agreed to negotiate. The result was an Anglo-French agreement of 1888 which defined the boundaries of the two protectorates as between Zeila and Jibuti: four years later the latter port became the official capital of the French colony. The effect of this new arrangement was, of course, to divide the ‘Ise with whom both France and Britain had treaties of ‘protection’, the British treaties being designed to protect the ‘independence’ of the clan and giving Britain no outright claim to ‘Ise territory.
The Italian sphere
The Italians, used conveniently as allies in the face of French opposition, were now in a position to extend their claims inland from their colony of Eritrea. The effect of this with the added menace of the Mahdia in the Sudan was, like the earlier Egyptian invasions, to give a further impetus to Abyssinian unity. To counter the growing Abyssinian resistance to their expansion, the Italians sought to play off King Menelik of Shoa against John of Tigre who held the title of King of Kings. Italy supported Menelik and armed and encouraged him to contest John’s title. The two leaders, however, concluded a dynastic alliance, agreeing to a division of their anticipated conquests, and John accepted that on his death Menelik should take the title of Emperor. In 1887, after the ardent Muslim ruler of Harar, ‘Abdallah Muhammad, had conveniently caused his soldiers to massacre a party of Italian explorers, Menelik seized the city and appointed his cousin Ras Makonnen as governor. In a message to the British at Aden, Menelik made it clear that he regarded ‘Abdallah Muhammad as a latter-day successor to the sixteenth-century Muslim conqueror Ahmad Gran, and that ‘Abdallah’s defeat, like Gran’s, was a vindication of Christian sovereignty.
Meanwhile King John was engaged in keeping both the Mahdists and the Italians at bay. After what amounted to an Italian victory, although an indecisive one, in 1888, John was killed in the following year on the battlefield of Metemma against the Dervishes; and the Italians succeeded in making the treaty of Ucciali with Menelik who had now assumed John’s title. The Italian version of this treaty was interpreted as making Abyssinia an Italian protectorate, but Menelik claimed that the Amharic version did not oblige him to conduct all his external relations through Italy. This inconsistency, however, was not to come to light until later. For the moment, the Italians, who had gained formal recognition of their sovereignty over Eritrea, felt confident of their position and made arms and ammunition freely available to Menelik: loan capital was also granted, and in 1890 Italy sponsored Abyssinian membership of the Brussels General Act which empowered her as a Christian state to import munitions legally. French merchants had already long been engaged in the lucrative arms trade with the Abyssinian rulers, having paid little attention to an Anglo-French convention of 1886 prohibiting the import of arms. France’s ally, Russia, which vied with Italy to make Ethiopia her protectorate, likewise poured arms and military advisers into the country. This influx of war material which on the Italian reading of the Ucciali treaty accorded with Italian interests, was in succeeding years to be applied to the consolidation of Menelik’s realm, and finally enabled the Emperor to assert his country’s independence. In the process, Somali clans which hitherto had lain outside the ancient Abyssinian hegemony were incorporated in the new Ethiopian empire.
In the year in which the ambiguous treaty of Ucciali was concluded, Italy established direct claims to the Somali coast on the Indian Ocean to the east of the British sphere. In February, a treaty was concluded between Vincenzo Filonardi, the Italian Consul at Zanzibar, and Yusuf ‘Ali, the Majerteyn Sultan of Obbia,6 by which the latter placed his country and his possessions under the ‘protection and government’ of Italy in return for an annuity of 1,800 tallers. Two months later, a similar convention was signed with Yusuf ‘Ali’s kinsman ‘Isman, the hereditary Sultan of the Majerteyn clan at Alula. And at the end of the year (1889) Italy rounded off these new Somali acquisitions when the Imperial British East Africa Company sublet the southern Benadir ports which it held in lease from the Sultan of Zanzibar. The Somali territory to the south of the Juba remained within the British Company’s domain, until 1895 when, after the suppression of the rebellion which the incompetence of its officials had provoked, the I.B.E.A.C. surrendered its charter, and the establishment of British colonial rule was proclaimed. Thus Jubaland, as the area was called, became for the time being part of the British East Africa Protectorate.
The Italian claim to the Benadir coastal strip, for this was all it was, was strengthened in 1892 when the Sultan of Zanzibar ceded the ports of Brava, Merca, Mogadishu, and Warsheikh directly to Italy for a term of twenty-five years, the annual rent being fixed at 160,000 rupees. The Italians were free to derive what profit they might from the coast and to administer it, but it still remained the property of the Sultan. In the interval, Filonardi had deserted