In the circumstances, the Ethiopian Emperor Menelik proposed joint action and Lt-Colonel E. J. E. Swayne who with his brother (H. G. C. Swayne) had had considerable experience in the Protectorate was appointed to organize a British expeditionary force. The onset of the rains delayed preparations, but on 22 May, 1901, Swayne’s force consisting of a Somali levy 1,500 strong with twenty-one officers of the British and Indian armies set out from Burao which at this time was still unadministered. The operations against Sayyid Muhammad, who was soon dubbed ‘The Mad Mullah’, had begun. Their course which, until the outbreak of the Great War in 1914, kept British war correspondents busy as well as providing an exciting field for adventurous British soldiers, has been fully recorded elsewhere7 and need only be summarized here. Between 1900 and 1904 – with from time to time active Ethiopian support and Italian co-operation – four major expeditions were mounted. These though resisted bravely and brilliantly by the daring guerilla tactics of the Dervishes, who secured a number of notable victories (such as that at Gumburu Hill on 17 April, 1903, when 9 British officers and 189 men were killed), had by the close of 1904 so reduced the Dervish strength and morale that Sayyid Muhammad, who had evaded all attempts at capture, agreed to a peace.
He had now prudently withdrawn into the Italian Majerteyn protectorate, where there was no resident Italian administrative official, and which was controlled still from the Italian Consulate at Aden. The Sayyid stipulated four main conditions:
1 That he should have a fixed residence on Italian territory;
2 That he should govern his followers;
3 That he should enjoy religious liberty; and,
4 That he should have freedom to trade.
These conditions were accepted and a treaty was signed by the Sayyid and Cav. G. Pestalozza, the Italian Consul from Aden, at Illig on 5 March, 1905. Sayyid Muhammad had agreed to remain at peace with Italy, Britain, and Ethiopia, and to accept Italian protection – for what it was worth – being allocated a wedge of territory between the lands of the northern Majerteyn Sultanate, and the Sultanate of Obbia to the south. Although thus banished from the British Somaliland Protectorate, by agreement between the British and Italian governments, the Sayyid and his followers were granted grazing and watering rights for their livestock within the Protectorate up to the wells at Halin, Hudin, Togale, and Danod (the last of which, incidentally, lay outside British territory in the Ogaden).
This somewhat lame conclusion to the third and fourth British expeditions which together had cost some five and a half million pounds recognized that the Dervishes had not been completely eliminated, but assumed that they no longer constituted any serious threat. Or so at least it was convenient to think. And in the meantime, Sayyid Muhammad and his surviving adherents had been established as a kind of small theocratic state, sandwiched between the powerful northern Majerteyn under Boqor ‘Isman, and the southern Majerteyn and Hawiye who recognized the Sultan of Obbia, Yusuf ‘Ali Kenadid. Both these latter were under Italian protection, directed from the Italian Consulate at Aden, and subject to little direct control or interference except that provided by the periodical visits of Italian gunboats along the coast. To the west, between Sayyid Muhammad and his followers and the British ‘friendly’ clans subject to effective control from Berbera, the Dulbahante and Warsangeli provided a convenient if insecure buffer. At least the British could congratulate themselves on having transferred their stormy opponent to the custody of their allies the Italians, and both powers hastened to divest themselves of any responsibility for the Sayyid’s actions towards the Ethiopians by a supplementary Anglo-Italian agreement of 19 March, 1907.8
While it is not difficult to understand British satisfaction, however guarded, at the conclusion of this arrangement, the Italian readiness to assume even such limited responsibilities as they had done for the Sayyid requires some explanation. It is possible that, even at this early date, the Dervishes were regarded hopefully as a potential aid to the extension of Italian interests into the Ethiopian sphere. But, probably of more significance, is the fact that Britain had in January 1905 enabled Italy to convert her lease of the Benadir coast from the Sultan of Zanzibar into an outright purchase conferring full rights of possession. In any event, the explanation given at the time to the Italian parliament by Tommaso Tittoni, the Minister responsible, was that the Illig agreement establishing peaceful relations between Italy and Sayyid Muhammad would greatly facilitate the extension of Italian authority in the Benadir. Events were soon to show how thoroughly mistaken this appreciation of the situation was.
From Illig to Taleh and defeat
The peace lasted until 1908,9 Sayyid Muhammad ostensibly respecting the terms of the Illig agreement while using this period of respite to recoup his strength and influence. A widespread network of spies and agents were operating in the British Protectorate, seeking to undermine the loyalty of the clans and to attract them to the Dervish cause. At the same time, Sayyid Muhammad was pursuing a minor and rather desultory war against Yusuf ‘Ali, the Sultan of Obbia who, though changeable and equivocal in his attachments, was during this period generally hostile to the Dervishes. Not so the Warsangeli clan within the British Protectorate on the eastern coast, who, under their spirited leader Garad Mahamud ‘Ali Shirre (d. 1960), had now decided to throw in their lot with the Dervishes and in January 1908 fired on a British dhow as it was landing on their coast. This incident provoked a hostile exchange of letters with the Consul at Berbera and it was evident that the Dervishes would soon be on the march again.
Meanwhile, before the next round of battles, the British Administration was presented with a convenient opportunity of countering the formidable barrage of propaganda unleashed against it by the Sayyid, whose scathing poems, which spread like wild-fire, constituted so formidable a weapon. Haji ‘Abdallah Sheheri of the Habar Tol Ja’lo clan who had hitherto acted as the Sayyid’s agent at Aden, and had played an important part in the negotiations with the Italian Consul Pestalozza leading to the Illig treaty, had gradually come to lose faith in the Dervish mission. He was thus readily persuaded by the Italian authorities to participate in a mission to Sayyid Muhammad Salih, the founder and head of the Salihiya Order, which obtained from this religious dignitary a letter referring to Muhammad ‘Abdille Hassan’s reported violations of Islamic law and threatening to repudiate him if he did not mend his ways. The contents of this somewhat mild denunciation were widely publicized by the British and Italians and the letter itself was delivered to the Sayyid at his headquarters in March, 1909.10
It appears likely that this manœuvre was jointly engineered by the British and Italian authorities, although there is little doubt also that Haji ‘Abdallah Sheheri, like many other former adherents, now regarded the Dervishes as fanatics who paid scant attention to the ordinances of Islam or the rules of the Salihiya Order. Yet although this move undoubtedly had some effect, so great was the personal charismatic power of Sayyid Muhammad, and his reputation as a quite unique figure in Somali eyes so thoroughly established, that the damage to his position was by no means such as to seriously weaken his movement. The situation indeed called for more direct action.
But having already expended large sums of money totally out of proportion to their limited interest in the Somali coast, the British government decided that before any further military operations were undertaken a new appraisal of the whole situation was necessary. A fresh opinion, it was felt, was called for; and to supply this General Sir Reginald Wingate, Governor-General of the Sudan, was appointed to visit Somaliland to assess the situation and if possible to treat directly with Sayyid Muhammad. In this latter respect the Wingate mission was singularly unsuccessful,