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| Context | | Although the actual war and invasion took place during 1882, its origins can be traced to 1869 with the opening of the Suez Canal. The Canal, initially dismissed as unworkable by the British, later became strategically important as a shortened trade route to her other great colonies in the East. Indeed, by 1875, the British Government had acquired a 40% joint ownership of the Canal, the other being the French, another regional colonial power. Further reasons for British involvement was the large and growing Egyptian Government debt owed to British interests and, to a lesser extent, the Sudanese slave trade to which the Egyptian authorities turned a blind-eye.
As a nation Egypt was in limbo. Although legitimately a province of the Turkish Empire it neither governed nor cared for Egyptian affairs, because of its own internal decline. Consequently, Egypt had been looted and misgoverned for decades by the Khedives, the Egyptian rulers, hence the huge debts. Since 1875, in order to protect their debt and its payments, the British and French governments had jointly managed Egypt’s finances and internal affairs through a ‘Dual Control’ administration.
From 1881 however, Egyptian resentment grew against the European domination. This was particularly strong within the officer corps of the Egyptian army, which after a long simmering period eventually erupted into open revolt against the foreigners, commanded by the popular and nationalistic Colonel Ahmed Arabi. This led to violent civil disorder in the major towns with Europeans being attacked, their homes burnt, and in one incident in Alexandria the deaths of fifty expatriates. In a deteriorating situation and lack of governmental control Colonel Arabi seized power as virtual dictator of Egypt.
The British Government sensing further escalation of the rebellion ordered 61 ships to the area from Malta, Cyprus, Gibraltar, India and England. The French, already busy with their own colonial problems in Algeria and Tunisia, refused to participate in the campaign to re-establish order; therefore the British did it on their own.
| | | Invasion | | The sight of the British fleet offshore precipitated a threatening reply by Arabi’s army who began installing two hundred artillery batteries along the Alexandrian shoreline. After rejecting a British ultimatum on the 11th July to remove those guns, war began with a ten-hour bombardment from the nineteen British warships of its Mediterranean fleet, destroying all the batteries. This led Arabi to set up a new camp further west at Tel-el-Kebir, between Cairo and the Canal, to make a final defence against the British invasion.
In overall command of the invasion was Lieutenant-General Sir Garnet Wolseley who commanded 40,000 regular troops. The first objective was to secure the Suez Canal, which was duly achieved without a shot being fired. The rest of the offensive to regain British control would take a little over two months.
With the Canal secure, the land phase of the war commenced on 28th August 1882. The main British forces pushed on from Ismailia, half way down the Canal, east of Tel-el-Kebir to engage with Arabi. Another force of 2,000 men, landing at Alexandria, westwards of Tel-el-Kebir, acted as a diversionary tactic and decoy to confuse Arabi. This force was met at Mahuta and twice at Kassassin with weak resistance to stop their advance. Notable from the first Kassassin engagement was a brilliant charge of the Household Cavalry and with sabres flashing quickly had the Egyptian forces scattered. The second Kassassin attack took place on the 9th September, this time the 13th Bengal Lancers distinguishing themselves. Unable to stop the British advance the remainder of Arabi’s forces withdrew to join their comrades at the heavily defended camp of Tel-el-Kebir, totalling 20,000 Regulars, 6,000 Irregulars and 75 cannons of different calibre.
The decisive battle of the war commenced on the night of 12/13th September with the main British force of 17,500 men and sixty guns crossing the desert towards Tel-el-Kebir. British intelligence had learned that Egyptians did not fully maintain their defences after dark, hence the night march. The whole five-mile crossing was undertaken without a sound above a whisper since surprise was imperative as Arabi believed that this force was still near Kassassin.
The attack went in at dawn led by the Highland Brigade on the left, the Guards Brigade in the centre and the Royal Irish Guards on the right. They quickly entered the outer trenches and with fixed bayonets carried out hand to hand fighting and soon had overwhelmed the Egyptian defences. British losses were 339 men, with 243 alone from the Highland Brigade, whilst Egyptian dead amounted to many hundreds. Arabi and the remains of the Egyptian army fled to Cairo, where Arabi was caught by the British Cavalry the next day. Arabi was tried and sentenced to death, but commuted to exile in Ceylon (Sri Lanka). With Arabi caught all other Egyptian resistance crumbled.
| | | Aftermath | | | With Colonel Arabi removed Egypt became a British protectorate for the next seventy-two years, with its own later conflicts. However, a more immediate difficulty presented itself. Having acquired Egypt, Britain also gained Sudan, Egypt’s own problematic dependent territory. With one crisis resolved an even greater one was about to begin. | |
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Anglo-Sudan war, 1884-1898 |
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| Context | | | Sudan is almost the size of Europe and so any governance over this country requires a huge amount of troops, resources and determination. Egyptian rule of Sudan was maintained by 40,000 troops deployed in scattered garrisons, the largest at Khartoum, the capital. These troops were poorly trained and, together with the Egyptian administrators, spent much of their time supporting or dealing in slaves from Central Africa.
Occasionally uprisings of local people vented anger and frustration at their foreign masters, but these local rebellions generally just petered out. However, from 1881 a nationwide revolt, partly religious, began to grow to remove all foreign domination, whether Egyptian or British. The uprising, although poorly equipped, possessed great fire and determination, was led and inspired by the charismatic Mohammed Ahmed, the Mahdi (the Expected One). Three attempts by Egyptian forces to quell the rebellion were soundly repelled by the Mahdi’s army, sometimes called Dervish or ‘Ansar’, (a Koranic word for follower or helper), composed of mixed tribal, racial and ethnic groupings. So successful were the Dervish that by November1883 much of Sudan’s western and southern provinces were under the Mahdi’s control. | | | Evacuation | | The British Government, after much wavering, eventually decided, in early 1884, to send out General Charles Gordon to lead the evacuation of British and Egyptian armies along with the many expatriates. Concurrently a small force, commanded by General Gerald Graham, had landed at Trinkitat on 28th February to maintain control of the important Red Sea ports, vital for any general evacuation. This force of little over a brigade in number first regained control of El Teb on 29th February, against fierce resistance led by Osman Digna, the Mahdi’s General in Eastern Sudan. The British losses were surprisingly light with five officers and thirty-four men killed against 1,500 Dervish. Graham’s forces continued to advance and on 3rd March retook the town of Tokar unopposed.
However at Tamai, on 13th March, Graham’s troops encountered severe resistance, again led by Osman Digna, with the Ansar breaking the British defences. This led to hand-to-hand combat at its most brutal. Eventually, after a close-run battle, the Dervish fled leaving 4,000 of their comrades dead, with the British losing five officers and over a hundred men killed, along with many more wounded. Unfortunately, nothing was gained by this British bravery as Graham’s forces were ordered to return to Cairo, his troops re-deployed and consequently, by April 1884, the territory was retaken by the Mahdi’s forces. Therefore Graham’s campaign could be seen purely as a punitive exercise against the Dervish to restore British military pride.
Gordon having arrived in Khartoum, quickly realised that any evacuation and retreat would be hazardous with the potential for numerous deaths as the Ansar were close to Khartoum. Therefore he resolved to stay with his 7,000 troops and made preparations for the inevitable siege, including fortifying defences and accumulating food. Gordon’s heroic, perhaps foolhardy, decision, with its subsequent ill-fated attempt to relieve him and the garrison has become known as the relief of Khartoum. | | | Unsuccessful Relief of Khartoum | | After much deliberation the British Government finally sent General Wolseley, commanding a relief army of 10,000 men and a vast quantity of supplies, who arrived in Cairo on 9th September. Part of these relief forces, the Desert Column, went overland where they repelled attacks at the oases of Abu-Klea and Abu-Kru, both north of Khartoum. Although Abu-Klea was one of the shortest battles in military history, lasting only fifteen minutes, within that period extreme violence occurred that turned ‘the sand of the desert sodden red’ with the blood of over 1,000 Dervish and nine British officers and 72 men, and over 100 wounded. The British defences had been breached but had just managed to fend off the attack, which finally withdrew back into the scrub. The next day the British force was again attacked at Abu-Kru with further losses, including the death of General Stewart, its Column commander.
Eventually, part of the relief force reached Khartoum, but sixty hours too late to save Gordon and the garrison from massacre that had occurred on the night of 25th January 1885. During the relief attempt Britain would suffer the death of three Generals – Gordon himself, along with Stewart and Earle, each respectively leading the Desert and River Columns. Earle died at Kirbekan on 11th February, still advancing to Khartoum unaware of Gordon’s massacre, along with twelve of his men.
Concurrently, Graham, having earlier been instructed to leave the Suakin and Red Sea port area, returned in early 1885 in order to protect the construction of a military railway westwards to Berber on the Nile. This time his army was far larger eventually totalling 13,000 men, including the Royal Marines and Berkshire Regiment along with the first Australian force ever to serve under British command. The initial purpose of the railway was as an alternative, faster route to Khartoum and would be useful for continuing the fight further south after Khartoum was relieved. The construction work suffered from constant Dervish harassment, and so Graham attacked their stronghold at Tamai on 20th March 1885, two months after the fall of Khartoum. The action was inconclusive, although many Dervish were killed and Graham sustaining losses of 22 men. The next day, Graham was engaged with other ferocious fights, this time at the villages of Hashin and Tofrik. The bravery of the Berkshires was acknowledged by Queen Victoria who awarded the title ‘Royal’ to the Regiment. | | | Retreat and Re-build | | With Khartoum defeated this campaign was effectively over. The Government, reluctant to commit itself further to Sudan ordered Wolseley to stop all action, depart Sudan and return behind the Egyptian border. This was completed by late May 1885. Following this withdrawal the whole of Sudan fell under Mahdist control, except a British foothold at Suakin, a Red Sea port.
The Mahdi celebrated his victory with the decision to construct a new capital at Omdurman, west of Khartoum. However, in June 1885, the Madhi died from typhus before the building work had begun. He was replaced by his nominated successor Kalifa Abdulla, who ruled with popular support both firmly and fairly, but without the religious fervour offered to the Mahdi. Abdulla continued to clear Egyptian forces from Sudan particularly along the desert caravan routes and close to the Egyptian border forts.
However the British were not idle and during this period were busy re-training the Egyptian army using traditional British military methods of endless hours of drill, weapon practice and large-scale exercises. This along with development of individual self-respect, pride in their regiment and loyalty to comrades contributed to a re-vitalised and modernised Egyptian army. These forces would be vital for any successful attempt to re-conquest Sudan.
The border forts now housed those newly trained Egyptian troops who needed action in order to be ‘blooded’ in a successful battle. One such skirmish took place at Gennis, on 30th December 1885, led by Major General Evelyn Wood. It was a scrappy affair with small losses on either side but was to be the last battle involving British troops in Sudan for over ten years. The engagement also had historical military significance too. The British troops involved wore for the last time in action the traditional scarlet tunics. After this they dressed in the more practical and camouflaged desert battledress.
In 1886 Horatio Kitchener, then only major, was appointed Governor of Suakin. Immediately Kitchener commenced operations against Osman Digna who had harried Graham’s forces back in 1884. These offensives, composed almost entirely of Egyptian irregulars, were largely unsuccessful, but he did repel a Dervish siege at Suakin during December 1888. During one of these engagements, at Handub, Kitchener was shot in the jaw, but despite the great pain remained in command. After leave in Britain to recover, Kitchener returned and led another successful battle, on 3rd August 1889, at Toski where the Ansar were totally routed. These successes led to Kitchener being promoted, in 1892, to Sirdar or commander of the Egyptian army. | | | Re-conquest of Sudan | | In 1896 the British Government, partly because of a rising tide of British imperialism, partly due to political and military expansionist plans of Italy and France, ordered the re-taking of Sudan.
Kitchener’s re-conquest of Sudan became a three-year campaign with the final objective of seizing Omdurman, the capital and Kalifa Abdulla’s main garrison. This time the British meant business. To enable men and supplies to be transported railroads were built, river steamers and gun-boats all used to cross this huge inhospitable country. The initial 15,000 British and Egyptian troops also had to contend with fierce heat, storms and floods.
The first towns retaken in 1896 were Firket, Hafir and Dongola, all on the Nile in north-western Sudan, using Egyptian troops commanded by Kitchener. British troops only re-entered Sudan in 1897. Kitchener had further successes at Abu Hamed and Berber, both southwards. Atbara became the next successful major battle site with Kitchener leading the advance of 16,000 men, machine-guns and artillery. After an initial bombardment Kitchener attacked the Dervish stronghold, resulting in hand to hand fighting with the British employing better weapons of revolver and bayonet against sword and dagger. After a ferocious battle, lasting only half an hour, the Ansar suffered 2,000 fatalities inside the camp with thousands more either dead or wounded outside the stronghold, caught attempting to escape the British onslaught. British losses amounted to 80 dead, and 479 wounded.
Following the success in Atbara, Kitchener did not immediately advance further to Omdurman but waited patiently until his railway, with its supplies chain, had brought sufficient troops and equipment to support an overwhelming victory. This took until August 1898 when, with over 26,000 men, Kitchener finally began the advance on the remaining 200 miles to Omdurman. | | | Battle of Omdurman | | On 2nd September Omdurman began, and was the climax of the whole of the Sudan re-conquest. One of the most dramatic actions of the battle concerns the last cavalry charge of the British army, the three hundred men of 21st Lancers. However, it was not a noble or triumphant end to a proud and illustrious element of the British army. After a frustrating lack of action, their commander Lieutenant-Colonel R. M. Martin, seeking to find glory merely got his regiment into a Dervish trap, which led to many unnecessary deaths of both men and horses. He charged at a supposedly small group of three hundred Dervish, who scattered to reveal more than 4,000 concealed in the undergrowth who now massed around the cavalry. The Lancers managed to hack and shoot their way out of the ambush, but not without the loss of twenty-two men, around fifty wounded and more than one hundred horses killed. Three Victoria Crosses were awarded for this action.
This charge was also noteworthy for another reason. It included a young officer, Lieutenant Winston Spencer Churchill who was an additional officer to the 21st Lancers, but in an unofficial capacity without command, and as war correspondent for the Morning Post. Yet he had been forbidden to come to Sudan by Kitchener on account of his previous articles critical of British campaign tactics. Nonetheless he was here anyway.
The main battle, starting at dawn and lasting all morning, was generally dominated by the British accuracy and fire-power with few of the Dervish reaching as close as 500 yards of the British lines. At one point, however, 20,000 Dervish charged a brigade of Egyptian and Sudanese troops, led by Colonel Hector MacDonald (‘Fighting Mac’) that could have changed the outcome. Without MacDonald’s cool bravery and tactical awareness in repelling this attack an entire flank of the main British force would have been cruelly exposed and vulnerable to being overrun by the main Dervish army.
Finally the greater British fire-power won through and the eventual one-sidedness of the battle is demonstrated by comparing the numbers of dead on both sides. The Dervish suffered more than 26,000 dead and wounded whilst the British losses amounted only to forty-eight dead and three hundred and eighty-two wounded. | | | Aftermath | | Consequently, Sudan again became re-occupied, officially ruled by the Khedive of Egypt, but who was solely a figurehead. In practice it stayed under British control and from January 1899 became known as Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. Later that year Kalifa Abdullah along with 5,000 men were found and attacked near Debreikat. The Kalifa and his deputies were killed but Osman Digna, the best Ansar General, was caught and held prisoner, and later became a revered figure for both the British and the Sudanese.
British control of Egypt and Sudan was the last colonial and occupying act of the Victorian age but, nonetheless, one which continued to exist until 1956 when the Republic of Sudan was declared. | |
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