The mad mullah who shamed us in Somaliland. 

American troops are now scouting the Al Qaeda net of Somalia. Eighteen US Rangers were murdered in 1993 in Mogadishu, the capita and America may now settle the score. But as in Afghanistan, so in Somalia did we Brits precede the Yanks.    It was in 1899 that mad Mullah Mohamed bin Abdillahi Hassan declared a Jihad.  The territory, then known as British Somaliland, was our protectorate, but the Mullah wanted us out. 

The Mullah was a precursor of Osama bin Laden.  Initially our ally in various tribal skirmishes he turned on us after he had collected some 5 militants. Promising his followers eternal paradise on dying in battle, the Mullah wrote to British vice-consult at Berbera, the local capital “I like war, you do not”. Actually, we British are a violent bunch; we do like war, and b 1904 we had driven the Mullah into exile in Italian Somaliland. But in 1909 he returned, bolstered by fresh men and renewed propaganda: “The country is a useless jungle. There are many stones. There are many ants heaps. The sun is very hot. Shamefully, on the Mullah’s return, we withdrew our soldiers from the interior. But the Mullah’s cruelties drew us back to re-establish order, and in 1912 the Camel Constabulary marched on him out. Yet it took until 1920 and deaths on both sides before we eventually rooted him out. He hid in caves, and only after the RAF bombed him did he again retreat into Italian Somaliland.  There he died, of the flu. 

The best account of these campaigns can be found in the memories of Lord Ismay, published in 1960. General Hasting “Pug” Ismay was one of Britain’s great military administrators, rising to be Churchill’s chief of staff during the Second World War and later, secretary general of Nato.  Churchill wrote that they were friends who “worked for many years hand in glove”. 

Ismay was decade and half younger than Churchill and, having as a youth read Churchill’s books, he modeled his own career on his.  Like Churchill, Ismay attended an excellent school (Charterhouse to Churchill’s Harrow) and, like Churchill, he was fiercely intelligent. But he was another duffer at exams, so he was reduced to following Churchill into an Indian Army cavalry regiment, then an unintellectual brach of military life.   It was on India’s unruly North-West Frontier, facing Afghanistan, that Ismay learnt to fight – and where like Churchill before him, he played much polo, but in 1914 Ismay was sent to Somaliland and, despite his many requests to transfer to France he was kept there until 1920. It was thought, because he was fighting the mullah and not the Germans that he survived the First World War.

On returning to Britain, Ismay discovered that he loved high-level staff work, but despite his eminence he could not save British Somaliland from subsequent misadministration.  He was appalled when in 1940, in face of Italian. Aggression, we yet again withdrew our soldiers from interior to Berbera.  There the Italians overwhelmed us, whereas we could have held out indefinitely in the hills with friendly tribes.

We eventually retook the protectorate, but after the war – anxious to shed our imperial burdens – we gave it remarkably perhaps, to the Italians. They left in 1960. Ismay always felt that, had British rule been maintained without disruption, the region would have been pacified and tribal warfare could been expunged.

If America moves in now, let it show the commitment we did not, Let it prepare for a long involvement, and let it establish the institutions of order, secure government and the rule of law that we failed to implant firmly.

The author is vice – chancellor of the University of Buckingham