This Is the Shortest War in History

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published May 13, 7:30AM EDT

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This Is the Shortest War in History — © Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons

Americans have fought in many short wars. World Wars I and II were conflicts in which the United States participated for less than five years each. The Civil War was similarly short. Yet, over the course of history, some wars have been much shorter than these.

To determine the shortest war in history, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed a list of major international conflicts that lasted less than a month, as compiled by The Independent.

The shortest wars in history span all different time periods and locations on the globe. One conflict on this list occurred nearly 1,000 years ago, while another ended in 2008. These wars took place in Europe, Asia, Africa, Central America and the Middle East.

It can be difficult to pin down exactly when many wars started, given that their beginnings are often messy and irregular. Sometimes they begin with small skirmishes before they evolve into full-on conflicts.
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These brief wars are not the norm. Often, armed conflicts can drag out for months, if not years. Also, many wars are the result of long-simmering conflicts that devolved into war, with countries fighting on and off for generations.

The shortest war in history is the Anglo-Zanzibar War. It lasted 38 minutes on Aug. 27, 1896.

In the late 19th century, Zanzibar was a British protectorate. The sultan of Zanzibar died in 1896, leaving several potential successors in line for the throne. The British wanted Hamud ibn Mohammed to ascend to the throne because they thought he would be friendly to the Empire, but Prince Khalid ibn Barghash seized the palace.

A British Royal Navy admiral ordered Barghash out of the palace, but he refused to leave. The Zanzibari forces were hopelessly outgunned by the far superior British naval forces and hundreds were killed, while only one British troop was even wounded. The war ended in under 40 minutes with Barghash’s surrender.
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Click here to read about all the shortest wars in history.

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.