A war can leave lasting consequences after an extremely brief confrontation. On 27 August 1896, Britain and Zanzibar clashed in a conflict that Guinness World Records classed as the shortest war on record. His record retains a sequence between nine and nine forty-five hours.
The context is that of a succession to power, in a territory where the British have established a protectorate. The Royal Navy intervenes and bombards the positions of the suitor it wants to dismiss. The brevity of the action must not make us forget that it is a military and colonial intervention.
The figure of thirty-eight minutes often circulates in anecdotes. It does not correspond to the duration indicated in the reference used here. A stronger grip keeps the incontestable scale of this record: less than an hour. The paradox is already enough to intrigue, without turning a timing difference into absolute certainty.
What we know
The source consulted gives 45 minutes; the title does not take the figure of 38 minutes as a unanimously established duration.
To go to the source
References consulted on September 21, 2026. Linked pages may be in another language.
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