The military history of Somalia encompasses the major conventional wars, conflicts and skirmishes involving the historic empires, kingdoms and sultanates in the territory of present-day Somalia, through to modern times. It also covers the martial traditions, military architecture and hardware employed by Somali armies and their opponents.
In the early Middle Ages, the Ajuran Empire expanded its territories and established its hegemonic rule through a skillful combination of warfare, trade linkages and alliances,Horn and Crescent: Cultural Change and Traditional Islam on the East African Coast, 800-1900 (African Studies) by Pouwels Randall L - pg 15 and defeated the Portuguese many times in the Indian Ocean. The Kingdom of Ifat successfully conquered the Kingdom of Shewa in the same time-period. A hundred years later a major conventional war would commence during the Conquest of Abyssinia pitching the Kingdom of Adal allied by the Ottoman Empire against the Solomonic Dynasty supported by the Portuguese Empire. The conflict is the earliest example of cannon and matchlock warfare on the continent.
The early modern period saw the rise and fall of the Gobroon Dynasty, a southern military power that successfully subdued the Bardera militant's and forced the Omanis to pay tribute. This period also saw an increased focus by Global Empires on colonial expansion. The three major imperial powers of Britain, Italy and France consequently sought and signed various protectorate treaties with the ruling Somali Sultans, such as Mohamoud Ali Shire of the Warsangali Sultanate, Osman Mahamuud of the Majeerteen Sultanate and Yusuf Ali Kenadid of the Sultanate of Hobyo. Supplied with military hardware by the European powers, the Ethiopian Empire also sought to expand its own influence in the Horn region. These competing influences gave birth to the Dervish State, a polity wherein the monarch was Diiriye Guure, whilst its emir was Sayyid Mohammed Abdullah Hassan ("The Mad Mullah"). The Dervish forces successfully repulsed the British Empire in four military expeditions and forced it to retreat to the coastal region, remaining independent throughout World War I.Encyclopedia of African history - Page 1406 After a quarter of a century of holding the British at bay, the Dervishes were finally defeated in 1920, when Britain for the first time in Africa used airplanes to bomb the Dhulbahante garesasFerro e Fuoco in Somaliland, da Francesco Saverio Caroselli, Rome, 1931; p. 272. at the Dervish capital of Taleh, Somaliland.Said S. Samatar, Oral Poetry and Somali Nationalism (Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 131, 135
World War II saw many Somali men join Italian forces during the Second Italo-Abyssinian War and during the East African Campaign; and later also British forces in the Pacific War. After independence, the Somali Republic adopted an irredentist foreign policy with the intention to reconstruct the pre-WW2 borders (of Somalia Governorate) and establish an all-encompassing Greater Somalia. This culminated in several conventional wars and border skirmishes in the form of the 1964 Border War, the Shifta War, the Ogaden War, the Rhamu Incident, and the 1982 Border war, which pitched the Somali military against other forces. The fallout from these various conflicts also forged new partnerships. By the end of the 1980s, Somalia's initial friendship with the Soviet Union and subsequent partnership with the United States enabled it to build the largest army on the continent.Oliver Ramsbotham, Tom Woodhouse, Encyclopedia of international peacekeeping operations, (ABC-CLIO: 1999), p. 222 . The armed forces largely disbanded with the onset of the civil war in the early 1990s, but were later gradually reconstituted in the 2000s (decade) with the establishment of the Transitional Federal Government.
Ancient
Ancient Somali In the northern Dhambalin region, a depiction of a man on a horse is postulated as being one of the earliest known examples of a mounted huntsman. A 17th-century BC text found in a tomb in El Kab, belonging to the local governor, Sobeknakht II, mentions “a huge attack from the south on El Kab and Ancient Egypt by the Kingdom of Kush and its allies from the Land of Punt”. In ancient times northern Somalis was known to the Chinese as the "country of Pi-pa-lo", which had four departmental cities each trying to gain the supremacy over the other. It had twenty thousand troops between them, who wore cuirasses, a protective body armor.Eastern African History By Robert O. Collins Pg 53
Middle Ages
Ifat-Solomonic Wars In the early Middle Ages, the Muslim and Christian kingdoms of modern Somalia and Ethiopia enjoyed friendly relations for centuries. The conquest of Shewa by the Ifat Sultanate ignited a rivalry for supremacy between the Christian Solomonids and the Muslim Ifatites which resulted in several devastating wars. After the wars, the reigning king had his minstrels compose a song praising his victory, which contains the first written record of the word "Somali". Sa'ad ad-Din II's family was subsequently given safe haven at the court of the King of Yemen, where his sons regrouped and planned their revenge on the Solomonids.
Sultanate of Mogadishu
Invasion of Madagascar
In a 1609 book written by Jerome Megiser, Jerome Megiser describes an event in which the rulers of Mogadishu and Adal sailed to the island of Madagascar with huge fleet of between twenty-five to twenty-six thousand men, in-order to invade the rich island of Taprobane, (Sri Lanka) or Sumatra, but a tempest threw them of course and they landed on the coasts of Madagascar, conquering it and signing a treaty with the inhabitants. They remained there for eight months and erected at different points of the island eight pillars on which they engraved "Magadoxo", a name which later, by corruption became Madagascar. Jan Huyghen van Linschoten, a Dutch traveler who copied Portuguese works and maps, confirmed this event by saying "Madagascar got its name from 'makdishu' (Mogadishu) whose "shayk" invaded it." Furthermore, recent genetic studies have revealed the Antemoro to possess the paternal Haplogroup T-M184 and could partially be descendants of the Somalis who settled in Madagascar in the 14th century and intermarried with the local population. In 2013 the Antemoro population was estimated at 500,000. Mogadishu was heavily present in Madagascar and was trading with the inhabitants. The Portuguese captain Manuel Barreto in 1654 requested 6 royal warships to stop ships coming from Mogadishu and Brava.
Sofala One of the oldest harbours documented in Southern Africa, medieval Sofala was erected and colonized on the edge of a wide estuary formed by the Buzi River (called Rio de Sofala in older maps). By the Somali merchants from Mogadishu, who then established a colony in Mozambique to extract gold from the mines in Sofala.pg 4 - The quest for an African Eldorado: Sofala, By Terry H. Elkiss
Early Adalite-Ethiopian confrontations The oldest son Sabr ad-Din II build a new capital eastwards of Zeila known as Dakkar and began referring to himself as the King of Adal. He continued the war against the Solomonic Empire. Despite his army's smaller size, he was able to defeat the Solomonid Abyssinians at the battles of Serjan and Zikr Amhara, consequently pillaged the surrounding areas. Many similar battles were fought between the Adalites and the Solomonids with both sides achieving victory and suffering defeat but ultimately, Sultan Sabr ad-Din II successfully managed to drive the Solomonic army out of Adal territory. He died a natural death and was succeeded by his brother Mansur ad-Din who invaded the capital and royal seat of the Solomonic Empire and drove Emperor Dawit II to Yedaya where according to al-Maqrizi, Sultan Mansur destroyed a Solomonic army and killed the Emperor. He then advanced to the mountains of Mokha where he encountered a 30 000 strong Solomonic army. The Adalite soldiers surrounded their enemies and for two months besieged the trapped Solomonic soldiers until a truce was declared in Mansur's favour.
Later on in the campaign, the Adalites were struck by a catastrophe when Sultan Mansur and his brother Muhammad were captured in battle by the Solomonids. Mansur was immediately succeeded by the youngest brother of the family Jamal ad-Din II. Sultan Jamal reorganized the army into a formidable force and defeated the Solomonic armies at Bale, Yedeya and Jazja (Campaigns of Jamal ad-Din II) Emperor Yeshaq responded by gathering a large army and invaded the cities of Yedeya and Jazja but was repulsed by the soldiers of Jamal. Following this success, Jamal organized another successful attack against the Solomonic forces and inflicted heavy casualties in what was reportedly the largest Adalite army ever fielded. As a result, Yeshaq was forced to withdraw towards the Blue Nile over the next five months, while Jamal ad Din's forces pursued them and looted much gold on the way, although no engagement ensued.
After returning home, Jamal sent his brother Ahmad with the Christian battle-expert Harb Jaush to successfully attack the province of Dawaro. Despite his losses, Emperor Yeshaq was still able to continue field armies against Jamal. Sultan Jamal continued to advance further into the Abyssinian heartland. However Jamal upon hearing of Yeshaq's plan to send several large armies to attack three different areas of Adal, including the capital returned to Adal where he fought the Solomonic forces at Harjai and according to al-Maqrizi this is where the Emperor Yeshaq died in battle. The young Sultan Jamal ad-Din II at the end of his reign had outperformed his brothers and forefathers in the war arena and became the most successful ruler of Adal to date. Within a few years, however, Jamal was assassinated by either disloyal friends or cousins around 1432 or 1433, and was succeeded by his brother Badlay ibn Sa'ad ad-Din. Sultan Badlay continued the campaigns of his younger brother and began several successful expeditions against the Christian empire. He recovered the Kingdom of Bali and began preparations of a major Adalite offensive into the Ethiopian Highlands. He successfully collected funding from surrounding Muslim Kingdoms as far away as the Sultanate of Mogadishu.pg 155 - The Cambridge history of Africa, Volume 4 By Richard Gray These ambitious plans however were thrown out the war chamber when King Badlay died during the invasion of Dawaro. He was succeeded by his son Muhammad ibn Badlay who sent envoys to the Sultan of Mamluk Egypt to gather support and arms in the continuing war against the Christian empire. The Adalite ruler Muhammad and the Solomonic ruler Baeda Maryam agreed to a truce and both states in the following decades saw an unprecedent period of peace and stability.
Ethiopian-Adal War
Sultan Muhammad was succeeded by his son Shams ad Din, while Emperor Baeda Maryam was succeeded by his son Eskender. During this time period warfare broke out again between the two states and Emperor Eskender invaded Dakkar where he was stopped by a large Adalite army who destroyed the Solomonic army to such an extent that no further expeditions were carried out for the remaining of Eskender's reign. Adal however continued to raid the Christian empire unabated under the General Mahfuz, the leader of the Adalite war machine who annually invaded the Christian territories. Eskender was succeeded by Emperor Na'od who tried to defend the Christians from General Mahfuz but he too was also killed in battle by the Adalite army in Ifat.