Khartoum: The Ultimate Imperial Adventure

595 Pages·2005·7.54 MB·English

by  Asher Michael

PENGUIN BOOKS
KHARTOUM
Michael Asher is a graduate of the University of Leeds, and has served in both
the Parachute Regiment and the SAS. He is the author of sixteen books,
including works of travel, biography, military history, four novels and the best-
selling The Real ‘Bravo Two Zero’. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature,
he has won awards for desert exploration from the Royal Geographical and
Royal Scottish Geographical Society. He has also presented three documentaries
for Channel 4.
Michael Asher lived in the Sudan for ten years. A fluent speaker of both Arabic
and Swahili, he now lives near Nairobi, Kenya, with his wife, Arabist and
photographer Mariantonietta Peru, and his two children. Michael Asher currently
runs small-group, self-contained treks by camel in the deserts of the Sudan.
Access his website at www.lost-oasis.org
KHARTOUM
The Ultimate Imperial Adventure
MICHAEL ASHER
PENGUIN BOOKS
PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Group
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First published by Viking 2005
Published in Penguin Books 2006
1
Copyright © Michael Asher, 2005
All rights reserved The moral right of the author has been asserted
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject
to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent,
re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s
prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in
which it is published and without a similar condition including this
condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
EISBN: 978–0–141–91010–9
To the memory of the brave soldiers,
British, Sudanese, Egyptian and others, who fought and died in
the Nile Campaigns, 1883–9
Contents
List of Illustrations
List of Maps
Acknowledgements
Prologue
1 Part One
2 Part Two
3 Part Three
4 Part Four
5 Part Five
6 Part Six
7 Part Seven
Epilogue
Bibliography
Notes
Index
List of Illustrations
Section One
1. Mohammad Ahmad, the Mahdi or ‘Expected Guide’
2. Lieut. General William Hicks
3. Khartoum in 1885
4. The Khedive Tewfiq
5. Sir Evelyn Baring (later Lord Cromer)
6. Suakin, the Sudan’s main Red Sea port
7. Lieut. General Valentine Baker
8. Lieut. General Sir Gerald Graham, VC
9. Trinkitat Island, 30 January 1884
10. Captain Arthur Wilson, RN, at the second battle of et-Teb
11. The second battle of et-Teb, February 1884
12. ‘Osman Digna, dressed Haddendowa style
13. Tombs at et-Teb
14. The battle of Tamaai, Eastern Sudan, 13 May 1884
15. Burning ‘Osman Digna’s camp at Tamaai, 13 May 1884
16. Lieut. General Lord Garnet Wolseley, 1884
17. Major General Charles Gordon
18. Major (later Field Marshal Lord) Herbert Kitchener
19. Major General Sir Redvers Buller, VC
20. Major General Sir Herbert Stewart
21. The Desert Column under General Herbert Stewart
Section Two
22. The Desert Column waters at Jakdul Wells in the Bayuda desert
23. The Desert Column marching towards Abu Klea
24. Building a stone zariba above Abu Klea
25. Lieut. Colonel Sir Charles Wilson of the Royal Engineers
26. Lieut. Colonel Fred Burnaby of the Royal Horse Guards
27. The melée at Abu Klea
28. ‘The Gatling’s jammed and the colonel dead.’ Lieut. Colonel Burnaby lies
mortally wounded on the field of Abu Klea
29. Bird’s-eye view of the battle of Abu Klea
30. The British square at Abu Kru
31. Evacuating Herbert Stewart and other soldiers
32. The death of Charles Gordon
33. Charles Wilson’s gunboats arrive at Khartoum, 28 February 1884
34. Rudolf von Slatin and Reginald Wingate