Following the killing of Acting Consul-General James Phillips and most of his party at Ugbine on 4 January 1897 (Phillips had marched on Benin against the Oba's explicit instruction during the sacred Ague festival), the British launched the Punitive Expedition: ~1,200 Royal Marines and Niger Coast Protectorate Forces under Admiral Sir Harry Rawson took the city on 18 February 1897 after eight days of fighting.
The city was burned. Oba Ovonramwen was exiled to Calabar where he died in 1914. Some 3,000–5,000 sculptural objects — the Benin Bronzes — were taken as loot, auctioned in London to defray expedition costs, and dispersed worldwide. The British Museum still holds over 900 pieces; the Metropolitan Museum of Art ~160; the Ethnologisches Museum Berlin ~530.
Restitution efforts intensified after 2020. Germany formally transferred title to 1,130 Benin objects in 2022; the University of Aberdeen, Jesus College Cambridge and the Smithsonian have returned individual pieces. The British Museum continues to refuse return, citing the 1963 British Museum Act.