Page 21 - GAHS Journal Volume 9

GREYSTONES ARCHAEOLOGICAL & HISTORICAL SOCIETY JOURNAL VOLUME 9

try his hand at politics and unsuccessfully contested Birmingham
as a Tory-Democrat. In 1882 he was disappointed at not seeing
active service in the Egyptian Campaign but participated in the
Suakin Campaign in 1884 and was wounded at El Teb while
serving as an intelligence officer under General Valentine Baker.
When the force to relieve General Gordon was established, he
was given a post by Lord Wolseley and met his death at the
Battle of Abu Klea.

Background

In 1881 Muhammed Ahmad bin Abd Allah, an apprentice
boat builder, declared himself to be the Mahdi
('Guided One' or 'Saviour of the people of
Sudan') and he initiated a Jihad or Muslim
Holy War against the Khedive of Egypt, then
the ruler of Sudan, and his Egyptian garrisons
across the country. The Khedive resolved to
evacuate his garrisons from Sudan and leave
it to the Mahdi but his problem was finding
someone who could carry out this difficult
operation.

In 1883, acting on the advice of the British Government of
William Gladstone, the Khedive had appointed General Charles
Gordon, to conduct the withdrawal from Sudan but he was not
provided with exact terms of reference. General Gordon had
acted successfully as governor of Sudan in the early 1880s and
had left office with a high reputation and it was the belief of the
British Government that General Gordon would arrange the
evacuation of the Egyptian forces and then leave Sudan without
endangering himself.

Late in 1883 a force of 4,000 Egyptians, armed with single
shot rifles, was overwhelmed near El Obeid (present day Al
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