ABSTRACT
Between 1938 and 1940, the Protectorate, along with the rest of the British Empire, braced itself for an inevitable war. In the aftermath of the fall of France, it was increasingly likely that war would come to the region, as Italy entered the fray. This period is instructive for our purposes in that it reveals very clearly the nature of imperial interest in the region: there was none. In many respects, 1940 saw the second abandonment of the Protectorate, followed by a second return every bit as hesitant as the movement back into the interior had been in 1913. It would be wrong, in any case, to omit description of the Protectorate’s war preparations and early war bad luck. To do so would be to eschew consideration of the Governorship of Vincent Glenday, British Somaliland’s least-fortunate and least-loved Governor.
