ABSTRACT

Historically Somali coastal towns played a critical role in the underacknowledged Indian Ocean/Red Sea trade. Since before the tenth century various ports in Ethiopia, Yemen, Somalia, and the Sudan were in fierce competition with one another as rich, sophisticated, cosmopolitan entrepots. The Sayyid's movement, which began by targeting Ethiopian troops, wound up precipitating a colonial war, perhaps as much the result of mutual misunderstanding as any master plan. As a war, the British and Italian engagement of the Sayyid and his followers is probably best summarized as a prolonged series of encounters. Once the Sayyid was defeated the European Powers had little reason to dispute in, or over, the Somalilands again until after World War I. And then the tussles were purely diplomatic; Italy felt it deserved territorial rewards for its allied participation in the Great War and was finally granted a minor one in 1924.