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10 - Egypt and the Sudan, 1881–1885

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 June 2021

Stephen M. Miller
Affiliation:
University of Maine, Orono
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Summary

The first part of the chapter analyses the disparity of the forces involved and Wolseley’s calculations once the intervention in Egypt had begun. It traces the manoeuvres of the belligerents, concluding with the Battle of Tel el-Kebir. The relative importance of British and Egyptian technology, cohesion, and command coherence is assessed. The Sudan campaign followed two distinct phases. The first was an attempt to restore Egyptian authority over its colony, and the ongoing resistance from the proclamation of Muhammad Ahmad bin Abd Allah as ‘Mahdi’ in 1881. The disaster of General Hick’s mission offers the opportunity to analyze the belligerents and their strategic designs, tactics, arms, and early manoeuvres. The second phase of the campaign was the attempted evacuation of Khartoum, and its fall in 1885 despite the relief efforts of Wolseley and his Anglo-Egyptian force. Despite the Victorian apotheosis of Gordon, the garrison commander, the focus here is the operational one, especially the evolution of Wolseley’s more scientific approach to campaigning. There are fascinating episodes, such as the Battle of Abu Klea, that challenge the technological-determinist arguments that are used to explain British military success.

Type
Chapter
Information
Queen Victoria's Wars
British Military Campaigns, 1857–1902
, pp. 187 - 219
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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References

Further Reading

Abu-Salim, Muhammad Ibrahim (ed.) Al-athar al-kamila lil-imam al Mahdi, 7 vols. Khartoum: Khartoum University Press, 1990–94.Google Scholar
Barthorp, M. J. War on the Nile. Poole: Blandford, 1982.Google Scholar
Blunt, Wilfred Scawan. A Secret History of the English Occupation of Egypt. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1907.Google Scholar
Major-General Brackenbury, Henry. The River Column: A Narrative of the Advance of the River Column of the Nile Expeditionary Force. Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood and Sons, 1885.Google Scholar
Burleigh, B. Desert Warfare, Being the Chronicle of the Eastern Soudan Campaign. London: Chapman and Hall, 1884.Google Scholar
Colville, Colonel H.E. History of the Soudan Campaign. London: Harrison and Sons, 1889.Google Scholar
de Cosson, Major E. A. Days and Nights of Service with Sir Gerald Graham’s Field Force at Suakin. London: J. Murray, 1886.Google Scholar
Elton, Lord (ed.) General Gordon’s Khartoum Journal. London: W. Kimber, 1961.Google Scholar
al-Gaddal, Muhammad Sa’id. Lawhali-tha’ir Sudani: al-imam al-Mahdi Muhammad Ahmed bin Abdallah (Portrait of a Sudanese Revolutionary: The Imam Muhammad Ahmed bin Abdallah). Khartoum: Khartoum University Press, 1985.Google Scholar
Gleichen, Count. With the Camel Corps up the Nile. London: Chapman and Hall, 1888.Google Scholar
Holt, Peter. The Mahdist State in the Sudan, 1881–1898, 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon, 1970.Google Scholar
Knight, Ian. Queen Victoria’s Enemies (2): Northern Africa. London: Osprey, 1989.Google Scholar
Kochanski, Halik. Sir Garnet Wolseley: Victorian Hero. London: The Hambledon Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Lehmann, John. All Sir Garnet. London: Jonathan Cape, 1964.Google Scholar
Mansfield, Peter. The British in Egypt. London: Victorian and Modern History Book Club, 1973.Google Scholar
Maurice, Col. J. F. A Military History of the Campaign in Egypt, 1882. London: HMSO, 1887.Google Scholar
Nichol, Fergus. The Mahdi of the Sudan and the Death of General Gordon. London: Sutton, 2004.Google Scholar
Robinson, Ronald and Gallagher, John. Africa and the Victorians: The Official Mind of Imperialism. London: Macmillan, 1961.Google Scholar
Robson, Brian. Fuzzy-Wuzzy: The Campaign in the Eastern Sudan. Tunbridge Wells: Spellmount, 1983.Google Scholar
al-Sayid-Marsot, A.The Occupation of Egypt’, in Porter, Andrew (ed.) The Oxford History of the British Empire: The Nineteenth Century: Volume III. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Symons, J. England’s Pride: The Story of the Gordon Relief Expedition. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1965.Google Scholar
Tylden, Major G. ‘Tel el Kebir’. Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, XXXI (1953): 5257.Google Scholar
Warner, P. Dervish: The Rise and Fall of an African Empire. London: TBS, 1973.Google Scholar
Williams, M. J.The Egyptian Campaign, 1882’. In Bond, Brian (ed.) Victorian Military Campaigns. London: Hutchinson, 1967.Google Scholar
Sir Wolseley, Garnet. In Relief of Gordon, ed. Preston, Adrian. London: Hutchinson, 1967.Google Scholar

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