Before the Iran war, how empires fought for the Strait of Hormuz

Here’s a look at how various colonial powers have taken control of trade through the strait through the years.

16th century: Portuguese conquest

For centuries, the Strait of Hormuz was controlled by the Kingdom of Hormuz — one of the richest trading states in the world that was strategically located on the island of Hormuz.

Founded around the 11th century, it became a major hub linking India, Persia, Arabia and East Africa. In 1515, however, the Portuguese empire conquered Hormuz island and turned it into a heavily fortified tollgate that extracted tax from the Asian spice and silk trades. The Portuguese held the reins to the Strait of Hormuz through most of the 16th century.

By the early 17th century, however, the English East India Company (EIC) had grown keen to wrest the strait away from the Spanish ally. Around this time, the Safavids under Shah Abbas I forged a strategic partnership with the British East India Company to supplement their weak navy.

In 1622, with the Dutch East India Company providing support, the British and the Safavid empire defeated the Portuguese, captured Hormuz island and ended a century of Iberian control in the region.

17th and 18th century: Anglo-Dutch Rivalry

The expulsion of the Portuguese did not result immediately in British hegemony. Instead, it ushered in an era of fierce competition between the English and Dutch East India Companies.

The Dutch East India Company was essentially a quasi-sovereign actor and had been granted the legal right to wage war by the Dutch crown. Based out of its trading post in Bandar Abbas on the southern coast of what is now Iran, it remained the dominant force in the region for the better part of the 17th century. Boasting a superior fleet and aggressive commercial tactics, the Dutch monopolised the spice trade. With the progression of the 18th century however, they suffered from severe overextension of their resources.

This was worsened by rampant internal corruption within the bureaucracy and massive financial costs required to maintain their territorial holdings in the East Indies.

Following the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War (1780-1784), the bankrupt Dutch East India Company liquidated its holdings and withdrew from the Persian Gulf. Their exit created a power vacuum the British were only too happy to fill.

British hegemony

With their European rivals gone, the British realised their need to secure their maritime flanks connecting to British India — their richest colony.

Accusing the Al Qawasim confederation (today Ras Al-Khaimah, UAE) of rampant piracy, the British launched naval campaigns in 1809 and 1819 — destroying local fleets and bombarding coastal towns to ensure the route to Bombay remained secure.

Focusing now on permanently securing the strait without incurring massive financial burdens, Britain cultivated highly restrictive relationships with local Arab rulers through a series of treaties aimed at maximizing their control over foreign policy and trade routes while allowing the Sheikhdoms to retain domestic autonomy over their regions.

Essentially transformed into British protectorates, these states came to be known then as the ‘Trucial States’. Today, they are the United Arab Emirates.

A different model of control

Unlike the Portuguese model of militarisation and fortification, the British utilised a mixture of diplomacy and naval authority to subjugate the regions surrounding the Strait of Hormuz.

The Portuguese Empire built massive, expensive stone fortresses — such as the Castelo de Nossa Senhora da Conceição on Hormuz — and attempted to force all passing merchants to pay taxes at their custom houses. This highly militarised approach was financially unsustainable.

In contrast, the British bound the local Shiekhdom into the Trucial system, effectively outsourcing domestic governance while controlling the region’s foreign policy, defence strategy and economics.The chokepoint on the Persian Gulf was finally secured to effectively remove Indian wealth from the South Asian subcontinent while simultaneously facilitating the export of large quantities of British manufactured goods.

20th century: Anglo-Persian Oil Company

The turn of the 20th century, however, witnessed British rationale evolve from simply protecting their trade with India to ensuring the extraction of Persian Gulf energy. In 1901, British financier William Knox D’Arcy secured an exclusive concession to explore for oil in Persia.

This gamble paid off. George Bernard Reynolds, a British engineer and geologist, struck oil on May 26, 1908 at Masjed Soleyman — the first major commercial oil strike in the Middle East.

The following year, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC, the forerunner to oil supermajor BP) was formed.

With First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill transitioning the fleet from coal to diesel, the British government formally recognised the strategic value of oil and the Gulf. It purchased a 51% controlling stake in APOC by 1914.

The strait was now crucial for transporting West Asian oil to London.

With the British securing an uninterrupted flow of petroleum, the Strait of Hormuz transformed from a regional marine tollgate vital for trade movements into a waterway that facilitated the movement of oil, the latest energy source for the world. With the Second Industrial Revolution drawing to a halt by the conclusion of the First World War, Britain’s system of binding treaties allowed them to maintain a grip on the Gulf till the year 1971 when the military officially exited the region ending the time of the British Trucial States.