Featured Video: 1898 Battle of Omdurman
Excerpt from Feature Film Young Churchill (U.K., 1972)
Just the sort of battle the British public loved to read about -- and just the sort of battle the British film industry has re-created so well ever since. In 1885 Gen. Charles Gordon, seconded to the Egyptian government, was slaughtered at Khartoum when traitors within the walls opened the gates of the city to followers of the Mahdi, an Islamist fundamentalist tribesman and charismatic leader of a Sudanese tribal revolt against Egyptian/British rule. A British relief expedition under Lord Woolsley was only 2 days from the city when this tragic end came about. The Liberal government in London under William Gladstone refused to intervene further at this point.
But things were quite different 14 years later. Imperialism was in full flood, and the European Powers assembled at Berlin had just signed an historic agreement partitioning all the remaining territory in Africa amongst themselves. The Mahdist tribesmen still controlled Khartoum, but their charismatic leader had died in the meantime. Lord Horatio Kitchener, who had been part of the relief column in 1885, set out to avenge Gordon's death. Laying rails through the desert to ensure fresh supplies, and accompanied by a fleet of armored gunboats (one of which was commanded by David Beatty, future commander of the Grand Fleet and First Sea Lord), Kitchener's forces advanced on Khartoum. On Sept. 2, 1898 at Omdurman, just across the river from Khartoum (and today a suburb of the capital), the British and Sudanese forces met in a bloody and decisive battle in the desert. Commanding the Mahdist army was Abdullah al-Taashi, loyal lieutenant and designated successor of the Mahdi, and a cunning military mind. Completing the cast of characters, the young Winston Churchill, on leave from his regiment in India in order to cover the campaign for several newspapers, was assigned to the 21st Lancers. Churchill managed to cover himself with glory, participating in the last full-on cavalry charge in British military history, beautifully shown in this 1972 feature film. It was to take another year's hard fighting before the Mahdist tribesmen were subdued and the Union Jack could float uncontested over the vast desert of Sudan. The Omdurman victory was to prove the foundation of the Kitchener legend -- cemented a few years later by his performance commanding in the Boer War under Lord Roberts.