at Assab, owned still by the Raffaele Rubattino shipping company, was consolidated and extended. At first the British reaction to these Italian moves was hostile; but by 1882 when under British pressure Italy had agreed to recognize Egyptian sovereignty to the north and south of her settlement, the Italian government felt sufficiently confident of its position to claim Assab openly and the port was bought from the company. Notwithstanding continued misgivings in some quarters as to Italy’s ambitions, the British government began to move towards the position of viewing Italian involvement as a convenient counterpoise to French expansion which was regarded as infinitely more threatening. The British Liberal government was by now in any case prepared to take more effective measures to safeguard the use of the Suez canal. By July 1882 British troops had occupied Suez, Ismailia, and Port Said. Yet the possibility still remained that the Mahdists would obtain control of the eastern Sudan and the port of Suakin. In an atmosphere of rumours of a French bid for the Eritrean port of Massawa after the withdrawal of the Egyptian garrison in 1885, Britain encouraged Italy to slip in and made the necessary juridical arrangements with the Turks. By February 1885 Italy had proclaimed her protectorate on the Eritrean coast from Assab to Massawa.
This establishment of the Italian colony of Eritrea well to the north of the farthest extension of the Somali area did not of course give Italy a stake amongst the Somali. But the further thrust of Italian expansion inland soon led to encroachments within Abyssinia and to the treaty of Ucciali signed between the two countries in 1889, a treaty which in the eyes of Italy established an Italian protectorate over Abyssinia. The same year saw Italy’s first direct acquisition of Somali interests, and Italian influence established on the littoral to the north-east and south-east of Abyssinia. By the treaty of Ucciali itself, moreover, Italy became directly concerned in the partition of the Somali nation.
The establishment of the British and French Protectorates
If from the British point of view Italy seemed to provide a suitable replacement to Egypt in Eritrea, the same solution was not applicable at Harar or on the Somali coast opposite Aden. The problem of the future status of these areas was complicated; no one friendly or fully acceptable to Britain seemed to want them.2 The Egyptians were not prepared to conduct the evacuation of their garrisons themselves; Turkey showed no willingness to resume control of Tajura and Zeila; and the local clans of the Somali coast, who of course were not consulted, were manifestly incapable of maintaining their independence and guaranteeing permanent peace and order at Berbera.
It seemed also likely that the Egyptian withdrawal itself would provoke disorder. Major Hunter, Assistant Resident at Aden and Consul for the Somali coast since 1881, reported that the sudden evacuation of the Egyptian garrison from Harar would be likely to lead to a struggle between the Somali and Oromo and that the retreating Egyptian forces would almost certainly be attacked by ‘Ise and Gadabursi Somali clansmen on the road to Zeila. Harar itself would be open to attack and would present an attractive target for the growing ambitions of King Menelik of Shoa. On the Somali coast the news from the Sudan was causing restlessness amongst the Somali at Berbera. Apart from the growing menace of the French at Obock, affairs at Zeila, however, were, momentarily at any rate, more placid. Yet the general effect of the Egyptian withdrawal was likely to be disruptive and to promote unrest.
In these circumstances it was reluctantly decided that direct British action was needed to ensure the safety of the trade-routes and to safeguard the Aden garrison’s meat supplies. A British mission led by Admiral Hewitt was dispatched to Abyssinia in 1884 to secure King John’s co-operation in the evacuation of the Egyptians from Harar. And after an Italian ironclad had visited Berbera and staged a somewhat equivocal incident at Zeila, Major Hunter was authorized to make the necessary arrangements with the local Somali clans for a British occupation. Tired of the Egyptian rule, and perhaps already sensing the expansionist moves of Abyssinia and of other foreign powers which they were soon to experience so much more forcibly, the Somali clans seem to have readily consented to British protection. By the end of the year formal treaties, replacing the earlier Anglo-Somali trade agreements, had been signed with the ‘Ise, Gadabursi, Habar Garhajis,3 Habar Awal, and Habar Tol Ja’lo clans.
These new Anglo-Somali treaties were presumably regarded by their Somali signatories as contractual alliances of the same sort as those used so extensively in internal Somali clan politics. Certainly little was ostensibly conceded to Britain. The preamble to each clan treaty explained that its purpose was, from the Somali side: ‘for the maintenance of our independence, the preservation of order, and other good and sufficient reasons’. The preambles to some of the treaties also alluded to the new situation created by the Egyptian withdrawal, stating that, ‘Whereas the garrisons of His Highness the Khedive are about to be withdrawn from Berbera and Bulhar, and the Somali coast generally, we, the undersigned Elders of the . . . tribe, are desirous of entering into an Agreement with the British Government for the maintenance of our independence, the preservation of order, and other good and sufficient reasons.’ Nor did the clans concerned expressly cede their land to Britain; they merely pledged themselves ‘never to cede, sell, mortgage, or otherwise give for occupation, save to the British Government, any portion of the territory presently inhabited by them or being under their control’.
The Somali clansmen did, however, grant to the British Government the right to appoint British Agents to reside on the Somali coast. A further supplementary treaty was signed with each of the five clans in 1886 which referred to the desire of each side for ‘maintaining and strengthening the relations of peace and friendship existing between them’, and which announced that the British government undertook to extend to the clansmen concerned and to their territories ‘the gracious favour and protection of Her Majesty the Queen-Empress’. A further clause obliged each clan not to enter into relations with any foreign power except with the knowledge and consent of Britain.4
Once these arrangements were completed the way was clear. But despite the enthusiasm of the Aden officials who had been preparing for an occupation of the Somali coast for some time, and who had especially trained a party of about forty members of the Aden police, instructions were issued that the occupation was to be as unobtrusive as possible: there was to be no attempt to extend British control inland. By the end of 1884 three British ‘Vice-Consuls’ were established on the Somali coast. One was stationed at Berbera with an assistant at Bulhar; and another at Zeila, where a joint condominium had temporarily been agreed to with Turkey, and Abu Bakr Pasha, the ‘Afar official, was still nominally governor of the port. These Vice-Consuls worked under the direct authority of the British Resident at Aden. They were given explicit directions that their duties were those of British agents in a native state: they were to keep the peace, but not to assume powers beyond this. No grandiose schemes were to be entertained; expenditure was to be limited to a minimum, and was to be provided by the local port revenues. All this was fully in accordance with Britain’s secondary interest in the Somali coast as a source of provisions for Aden.
L. Prendergast Walsh, undoubtedly one of the most flamboyant of the Vice-Consuls 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
