Britain’s Somaliland commitments ballooned far beyond its minimal original aims

Evidence

When Britain, not without reluctance, assumed Egypt’s place on the northern Somali coast, there was no intention of extending her dominion into the interior and hinterland. Britain’s interest was strictly limited to seeing that no hostile power held the shore opposite Aden and to ensuring that the Aden garrison’s meat supplies from the Somali coast were unhampered. The long-drawn out, costly, and unrewarding operations against the Dervishes, which were not by-products of any attempt to carry the British flag inland, caused the British government to assume greater responsibilities in Somaliland than had ever been foreseen and which were out of all proportion to Britain’s very secondary interest in this area. — I.M. Lewis, I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of the Somali_ Nation…, 249

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth chasing: how did this unwelcome expansion of British responsibility shape later colonial administration and the eventual independence settlement in Somaliland?
• XREF: connects to: Britain valued the Somaliland Protectorate mainly for Aden’s meat supply; Britain’s Somaliland empire grew as an unintended consequence of the Dervish war; A fixed trusteeship deadline forced Somalia while British Somaliland drifted (+5 more)

Related

• Britain’s Somali interest was solely the meat supply for Aden (similarity 0.90)
• Britain’s Somaliland involvement was purely a meat-provisioning auxiliary to Aden’s garrison (similarity 0.89)
• Britain’s Somaliland empire grew as an unintended consequence of the Dervish war (similarity 0.87)
• Britain valued the Somaliland Protectorate mainly for Aden’s meat supply (similarity 0.85)
• British Somaliland abandoned caretaker governance for active development after 1941 (similarity 0.85)
• Britain nearly abandoned its Somaliland Protectorate over cost concerns. (similarity 0.84)
• The Dervish war left British Somaliland undeveloped and bitterly mistrustful (similarity 0.84)
• Britain relinquished the Protectorate almost unconditionally (similarity 0.83)
• Britain abandoned Somali unification because its strategic stakes there were too low (similarity 0.82)
• Britain in 1897 nearly abandoned its Somaliland protectorate (similarity 0.82)
• British Somaliland’s budget remained pitifully small as late as 1937 (similarity 0.81)
• Nominal Abyssinian pressure made Britain deem its Somali territory overextended. (similarity 0.81)
• Britain promised Somalis during WWII that Somalia would never return to Italian rule. (similarity 0.80)
• British goodwill cheaply surrendered its Somaliland Protectorate in 1960. (similarity 0.80)
• No acceptable power wanted the evacuated Somali ports, forcing British action (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• British Somaliland abandoned caretaker governance for active development after 1941 #qualifies (0.50) — I.M. Lewis, I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of the Somali_ Nation…, 359