The Rise of the Mahdi
In 1881 a highly respected religious teacher by the name of Mohammed Ahmed Ibn el Sayyid Abdulla, the 33 year old son of a Dongolawi boat builder, proclaimed himself to be the Mahdi el Muntazer - the Expected One. He was soon to be known throughout history simply as “The Mahdi”. He raised the standard of Jihad - Holy War - in South Kordofan, and called on his followers (Ansar), to unite and drive out the hated Egyptians, or “Turks” as they were known. He was just the catalyst the Sudanese people were waiting for after suffering over sixty years of corrupt and despotic Egyptian occupation. The people flocked to his banner. The Mahdiya had begun.
To the north, following years of catastrophic government, Egypt was itself in a sorry state. The country was bankrupt, with endemic corruption, and on the point of social collapse. In May 1882 the Egyptian Army, unpaid and ill-disciplined, mutinied under the leadership of a nationalist officer by the name of Ahmed Arabi, and seized control of the country from Khedive Tewfik. In June several Europeans were killed in Alexandria, and in July France, still believing itself a major influence in Egypt, formally abrogated any further responsibility for any Egyptian affairs. However, as the newly built Suez Canal was the key to India, the British government felt forced to protect its own interests and reluctantly intervene. Once the decision was made, events moved rapidly. Alexandria was bombarded by the Royal Navy to destroy its formidable defences, and General Wolseley’s Anglo-Indian army routed Arabi’s forces at the battle of Tel-el-Kebir in September. The disgraced, miserable and unreliable Egyptian Army was then dissolved. By the autumn of 1882 the British were, however reluctantly, de facto masters of Egypt, and quickly restored Tewfik to power. The Egyptian Khedivate was however still a more or less independent state under the nominal suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire, a situation that Britain was happy to live with.
On taking nominal control, amongst the first things the British did was take steps to rebuild and reorganise the Egyptian Army under the command of British officers. Although not evident at the time, events were beginning to roll inexorably towards a British involvement in the Sudan.
While all this was going on in Egypt, the Mahdiya in the Sudan was spreading like wildfire. Consequently the British advised the Khedive that it was best to withdraw all Egyptian garrisons from the Sudan, or at least from the south, and leave the majority of the country to the Mahdists. But Khedive Tewfik, on hearing of the dreadful privations suffered by the inhabitants during the siege and capture of El Obeid by the Mahdi’s ansar, decided against British advice to avoid sending a relief force to the Kordofan, even though the British wanted no part of it.
As a result, early in 1883, Tewfik sent a shambolic field force of half trained men, under the command of Colonel William Hicks, an experienced ex-Indian Army officer, to re-capture El Obeid. When Hicks arrived in the Kordofan, the Mahdi skilfully drew him further and further away from the Nile, his only source of supply and avenue of retreat. On 5 November, in dense scrubland at Sheikan, not far from El Obeid, the Mahdi’s shock troops, known as Jihadaya, ambushed the poorly disciplined, and by now greatly demoralised Egyptians. Hicks and his staff were killed and his army of over 8,000 totally destroyed. This disaster settled the fate of the Sudan. The British quickly decided that, with the Mahdi now armed with the considerable amount of modern weaponry lost by Hicks at Sheikan, Egypt should now cut her losses and abandon the Sudan altogether. The Egyptians by now agreed to do whatever the British decided was best for them. One man however had different ideas.
Gordon and the Fall of Khartoum
Now that the decision to evacuate had been made, someone had to be sent to organise the withdrawal. One name, trusted by both the Egyptians, and many Sudanese, immediately sprang to mind. Soon Gordon Pasha was once again on his way south to sort things out. He arrived in Khartoum on 18 February 1884 with orders to organise the evacuation of the Egyptian garrison. Once there, however, Gordon, being a devout Christian, felt that he could not just take the troops and leave the rest of the population of 30,000 to its fate. He felt that he should try to reach some sort of accommodation with the Mahdi, and even overstretched his authority by offering the Mahdi the Governorship of Kordofan! The idea was doomed to failure, and in March 1884, the Mahdi, with over 50,000 Ansar under his command, laid siege to Khartoum. Gordon had 8,665 men, of which only 2,316 were regulars, to defend the city.
As already stated, the British government really did not want to get involved in the Sudan, and only a concerted press campaign, coupled with a vociferous public outcry to "save Gordon", eventually goaded Prime Minister Gladstone into reluctantly agreeing to mount a relief expedition using British troops. After nine months of siege, aware of the slow but remorseless advance of General Wolseley’s relief expedition, and seeing that the seasonal fall of Nile had exposed the city’s defences, the Mahdi decided to wait no longer. Khartoum was assaulted by the Ansar, led by Jihadaya storm troops, on 25 January 1885, and its defenders and over 4,000 citizens slaughtered. The survivors were enslaved and the city sacked. Amongst the dead was Gordon Pasha, who according to his surviving Aide-de-Camp, went down fighting, sword in one hand and pistol in the other. His head was paraded through the city and presented to the Mahdi - who had actually instructed that the Pasha was not to be harmed. The advance steamers of the relief force arrived in sight of the city just 48 hours later, saw the Mahdi’s flags flying over the walls of the city, and turned back. The siege had lasted 320 days. With the death of “Chinese” Gordon, who would now gain immortality as “Gordon of Khartoum”, the Gladstone government saw no reason for any further expensive adventures in the Sudan, which Egypt could not afford to pay for, and recalled Wolesley. The returning expeditionary force acquitted itself honourably in battle at Kirbekan, and won a very near run victory at Tofrek in the east. The Mahdi, was now master of virtually all of the Sudan.
The Mahdi’s dream of ruling a great Islamic state from Khartoum to Cairo to Mecca was not to be. Just four months after the death of Gordon Pasha, the Mahdi himself was dead. He was probably a victim of the ever endemic smallpox, although the Egyptian propagandists spread rumours that it was caused by over-indulgence in his harem. The Sudan was now left in the hands of the Mahdi's successor, Abdullahi Ibn Sayid Hammadulla, known as the Khalifa, or “he who follows”, a Baggara tribesman from Darfur. With the decision having already been made to evacuate the country, all troops, with the exception of the garrisons of Wadi Halfa and Suakin, were withdrawn as already planned. Even with the subsequent further rise in Sudanese military power, it was considered sufficient just to patrol the frontier and ensure that the Dervishes, as the Sudanese were known by the British, kept to their own side of the fence - The Hadendowa from the Eastern Sudan were known as “Fuzzy-Wuzzys” because of their distinctive hair style.
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