page_title: Emirate of Ras Al Khaimah
section_title: 1819 campaign
hierarchical_section_title: Emirate of Ras Al Khaimah / History / Pirate coast / 1819 campaign
caption_attribution_description: العربية: القوات البريطانية و العمانية تهاجم رأس الخيمة في الحملة البريطانية الرابعة Deutsch: Britische Truppen im Gefecht vor Ras Al Khaimah 1800-1820
context_page_description: Ras Al Khaimah, also spelled as Ras al Khaimah or Ras al-Khaimah, is one of the seven emirates that make up the United Arab Emirates. The city of Ras Al Khaimah, sometimes simply abbreviated to RAK or RAK City, is the capital of the emirate and home to most of the emirate's residents. It is linked to the medieval trading port of Julfar.
  Its name in English means "top of the tent". The emirate borders Oman's exclave of Musandam, and occupies part of the same peninsula. It covers an area of 2,486 km² and has 64 km of beach coastline.
  As of 2020, the emirate had a population of about 191,753, of which about 31% were Emirati citizens.
  RAK city has two main areas - the Old Town and Nakheel - on either side of a creek that is home to mangroves and is framed by the North-Western Hajar Mountains. The emirate also consists of several villages and new gated residential developments, such as Al Hamra Village and Mina Al Arab. The emirate is served by Ras Al Khaimah International Airport. Its geography consists of a northern part and a large southerly inland exclave, and a few small islands in the Persian Gulf.
context_section_description: With the 1809 campaign concluded without significant treaty concessions, an 1815 arrangement was made between the British and the Al Qasimi. By 1819, it was clear the arrangement had broken down and so in November of that year, the British embarked on a second expedition against the Al Qasimi, led by Major-General William Keir Grant, voyaging to Ras Al Khaimah with a platoon of 3,000 soldiers. The British extended an offer to Said bin Sultan of Muscat in which he would be made the ruler of the Pirate Coast if he agreed to assist the British in their expedition. Obligingly, he sent a force of 600 men and two ships.
  The force gathered off the coast of Ras Al Khaimah on 25 and 26 November and, on 2 and 3 December, troops were landed south of the town and set up batteries of guns and mortars and, on 5 December, the town was bombarded from both land and sea. Continued bombardment took place over the following four days until, on the 9th, fortress and town of Ras Al Khaimah were stormed and found to be practically deserted. On the fall of Ras Al Khaimah, three cruisers were sent to blockade Rams to the North and this, too was found to be deserted and its inhabitants retired to the 'impregnable' hill-top fort of Dhayah.
  The British landed a force at Rams on 18 December, which fought its way inland through date plantations to the hilltop fort of Dhayah on the 19th. There, 398 men and another 400 women and children held out, without sanitation, water or effective cover from the sun, for three days under heavy fire from mortars and 12-pound cannon.
  The two 24-pound cannon from HMS Liverpool which had been used to bombard Ras Al Khaimah from the landward side were once again pressed into use and dragged across the plain from Rams, a journey of some four miles. Each of the guns weighed over 2 tonnes. After enduring two hours of sustained fire from the big guns, which breached the fort's walls, the last of the Al Qasimi surrendered at 10.30 on the morning of 22 December.
caption: Ras Al Khaimah under attack by the British Expeditionary force of 1819 in December 1819
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