Siege of Khartoum

Infobox Military Conflict
conflict=Siege of Khartoum
partof=The Mahdist War
(War of the Sudan)
campaign=


caption=A painting of the death of General Gordon
date=March 12, 1884 – January 26, 1885
place=Khartoum, Sudan
casus=
territory=
result= Decisive Mahdist victory
combatant1=flagcountry|United Kingdom
flagcountry|Egypt|Ottoman
combatant2=Mahdist Sudan
commander1=Charles George Gordon†
commander2=Muhammad Ahmad
strength1=7,000 Egyptian troops
strength2=50,000 warriors
casualties1=Entire garrison killed
casualties2=Unknown

The Battle of Khartoum or Siege of Khartoum lasted from March 12, 1884 to January 26, 1885. It was fought in and around Khartoum between Egyptian forces led by British General Charles George Gordon and a Mahdist Sudanese army led by the Mahdi Muhammad Ahmad. Khartoum was besieged by the Mahdists and defended by a garrison of 7,000 Egyptian and loyal Sudanese troops. After a ten-month siege the Mahdists finally broke into the city and the entire garrison was killed.

The appointment of General Gordon

Since the 1882 Anglo-Egyptian War, the British military presence ensured that Egypt remained a "de facto" British protectorate. However, the administration of Sudan was considered a domestic matter, and left to the Khedive's government. [Strachey, Lytton (1918), "Eminent Victorians" [http://www.bartleby.com/189/] p.38] As a result, the suppression of the Mahdist revolt was left to the Egyptian army, who suffered a bloody defeat at the hands of the Mahdist rebels at El Obeid, in November 1883. The Mahdi's forces captured huge amounts of equipment and later overran large parts of Sudan, including Darfur and Kordofan.

These events brought Sudan to the attention of the British Government, and of the British public. The Prime Minister William Gladstone and his War Secretary Lord Hartington didn't wish to become involved in Sudan. Accordingly, the British representative in Egypt, Sir Evelyn Baring, persuaded the Egyptian Government that all their garrisons in Sudan should be evacuated.

General Gordon was then a popular figure in Great Britain and, having already held the Governor-Generalship of Sudan in 1876, he was appointed to accomplish this task.

Gordon's ideas on Sudan were radically different from Gladstone's: he believed that the Mahdi's rebellion had to be defeated, or he might control the whole of Sudan, and from there sweep over Egypt. His fears were based on the Mahdi's claim to dominion over the entire Islamic world and on the fragility of the Egyptian army, which had suffered several defeats at the hands of the Sudanese. Gordon favoured an aggressive policy in Sudan, in agreement with other imperialists such as Sir Samuel Baker and Sir Garnet Wolseley, and his opinions were published in The Times in January 1884.Monick, S.; "The Political Martyr: General Gordon and the Fall of Kartum"; in Military History Journal - Vol 6 No 6 [http://rapidttp.com/milhist/vol066sm.html] ]

Despite this, Gordon pledged himself to accomplish the evacuation of Sudan; he was given a credit of ₤ 100,000 and was promised by the British and Egyptian authorities "all support and cooperation in their power." [Churchill, Winston S. (1952); "The river war - an account of the Reconquest of the Sudan"; Eyre and Spottiswoode, p.40]

When in Cairo, Gordon met Al-Zubayr Rahma Mansur, a former slave trader who had once controlled a semi-independent province in southern Sudan. The two men had a troubled history, as Gordon had been instrumental in destroying Zubayr's influence. Passing over their previous enmity, Gordon became convinced that Zubayr was the only man with sufficient energy and charisma to counter the Mahdi. [Strachey, p.55]

On his way to Khartoum, with his assistant Colonel Stewart, Gordon stopped in Berber to address an assembly of tribal chiefs. Here he made one cardinal mistake by revealing that the Egyptian government wished to withdraw from Sudan. The tribesmen became worried by this news, and their loyalty wavered. [Strachey, p.57]

The siege begins

Gordon made a triumphal entry in Khartoum on February 18, 1884, but instead of organizing the evacuation of the garrisons, set about administering the city.

His first decisions were to reduce the injustices caused by the Egyptian colonial administration: arbitrary imprisonments were cancelled, torture instruments were destroyed, and taxes were remitted. To enlist the support of the population, Gordon legalised slavery, despite the fact that he himself had abolished it a few years earlier. This decision was popular in Khartoum, where the economy still rested on the slave trade, but caused controversy in Britain. [Strachey, p.58]

The British public opinion was shaken again shortly after by Gordon's demand that Zubayr Pasha be sent to help him. Zubayr, as a former slave trader, was very unpopular in Britain; the Anti-Slavery Society contested this choice, and Zubayr's appointment was denied by the government. [Churchill, p.43] Despite this setback, Gordon was still determined to "smash up the Mahdi". He requested that a regiment of Turkish soldiers be sent to Khartoum (Egypt was still nominally a province of the Ottoman Empire). When this was refused, Gordon asked for a unit of Indian Muslim troops and later for 200 British soldiers to strengthen the defenses of Khartoum. All these proposals were rejected by the Gladstone cabinet, which was still intent on evacuation and refused absolutely to be pressured into military intervention in Sudan.This drove Gordon to resent the government's policy, and his telegrams to Cairo became more acrimonious. On April 8, he wrote: "I leave you with the indelible disgrace of abandoning the garrisons" and added that such a course would be "the climax of meanness". [Churchill p.46] When these criticisms were made public in Britain, the conservative opposition seized on them and moved a vote of censure in the House of Commons, that the government won by only 28 votes. [Churchill p.58]

Knowing that the Mahdists were closing in, Gordon ordered the strengthening of the fortifications around Khartoum. The city was protected to the north by the Blue Nile and to the west by the White Nile. To defend the river banks, he created a flotilla of gunboats from nine small paddle-wheel steamers, until then used for communication purposes, which were fitted with guns and protected by metal plates. In the southern part of the town, which faced the open desert, he prepared an elaborate system of trenches, makeshift land mines, and wire entanglements. Also, the surrounding country was controlled by the Shagia tribe, which was hostile to the Mahdi. ]

In April 1884, the tribes north of Khartoum rose in support of the Mahdi, and cut the Egyptian traffic on the Nile and the telegraph to Cairo. Communications were not entirely cut, as runners could still get through, but the siege had begun and Khartoum could only rely on its own food stores, which could last only five or six months.

As of September 10 1884, the civilian population of Khartoum was about 34,000. ["Journals at Khartoum", p8]

The fall of Khartoum

Gordon's plight excited great concern in the British press, and even Queen Victoria intervened on his behalf. The Government ordered him to return, but Gordon refused, saying he was honour-bound to defend the city. By July 1884, Gladstone reluctantly agreed to send an expedition to Khartoum. However, the expedition, led by Sir Garnet Wolseley, took several months to organize and only entered Sudan in January 1885. By then, Gordon's situation had become desperate, with the food supplies running low, many inhabitants dying of hunger and the defenders' morale being at its lowest.

The relief expedition was attacked at Abu Klea on January 17, and two days later at Abu Kru. Though their square was broken at Abu Klea, the British managed to repel the Mahdists. The Mahdi, hearing of the British advance, decided to press the attack on Khartoum. On the night of the 25th to the 26th of January, taking advantage of the low level of the Nile, which could be crossed on foot, an estimated 50,000 Mahdists rushed into the town. The entire garrison was slaughtered, as were 4,000 of the town's inhabitants, while many others were carried into slavery. According to one version, when Mahdist warriors broke into the governor's palace, Gordon came out in full uniform, and, after disdaining to fight, he was speared to death -- in defiance of the orders of the Mahdi, who had wanted him captured alive. [Strachey, p.84] In another version, Gordon was recognised by Mahdists while making for the Austrian consulate and shot dead in the street. [Alfred Egmont Hake in Eva March Tappan (ed.) "The World's Story: A History of the World in Story, Song and Art" (Boston, 1914) vol. III, p.249.] What appears certain is that the dead General's head was cut off, put on a pike, and brought to the Mahdi as a trophy.

Advance elements of the relief expedition arrived within sight of Khartoum two days later. Following the fall of the city, the surviving British and Egyptian troops withdrew from the Sudan, with the exception of the city of Suakin on the Red Sea coast, leaving Muhammad Ahmad in control of the entire country.

Consequences

The British press put the blame of Gordon's death on Gladstone, who was charged with excessive slowness in sending relief to Khartoum. He was rebuked by Queen Victoria in a telegram which became known to the public, and an acronym applied to him, G.O.M. (Grand Old Man) was changed to M.O.G.(Murderer Of Gordon). His government fell in June 1885, though he was back in office the next year. However this public outcry soon paled, firstly when press coverage and sensationalism of the events began to diminish and secondly when the government released details of the £11.5 million military budget cost for pursuing war in the Sudan.

In reality, Gladstone had always viewed the Egyptian-Sudanese imbroglio with distaste and had felt some sympathy for the Sudanese striving to throw off the Egyptian colonial rule. He once declared in the House of Commons: "Yes, those people are struggling to be free, and they are rightly struggling to be free." [Strachey, p.65] Also, Gordon's arrogant and insubordinate manner did nothing to endear him to Gladstone's government.

After his victory, Muhammad Ahmad became the ruler of most parts of modern day Sudan, and established a religious state, the Mahdiyah, that was governed by a harsh enforcement of Islamic law (Sharia). He died shortly afterwards, in June 1885, though the state he founded survived him.

In Britain, Gordon came to be seen as a martyr and a hero. In 1898, an expedition against the Mahdists led by Horatio Kitchener was sent to avenge his death and reconquer Sudan.

Cultural depictions

These events are depicted in the 1966 film "Khartoum", with Charlton Heston as General Gordon and Laurence Olivier as Muhammad Ahmad.

References

Further reading

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