First class read!
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One of the best popular histories I've read in a lomg time. Gripping. My admiration for 'Tommy Atkins' grows apace! These boys need a statue somewhere!
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Over-enthusiastic account of the Empire's bloodiest campaign
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Michael Asher, ex-Parachute regiment and SAS, has written a vivid account of the Sudan campaigns of 1883-98. In 1883, at Shaykan, Sudanese forces killed 11,000 Egyptian troops under British command. Asher calls this defeat a massacre.
The victory meant that the Mahdist state in Sudan became `the first modern Islamic realm, and the only African nation ever to win independence from a colonial power by force of arms'. It lasted just 14 years.
In 1884, the government sent General Charles Gordon to Sudan. He had been part of the 1859 Anglo-French expedition to Peking to impose the Treaty of Tientsin, forcing China to buy opium from British traders, hence his media nickname of `Chinese' Gordon. He had arrived too late for the fighting, but in time to help destroy Peking's beautiful Summer Palace.
When the government sent Gordon to Sudan, his orders were to withdraw from Sudan. But the ruling class wanted to keep Sudan, whether the government wanted to or not. Gordon lied to his political masters that he accepted the policy of withdrawal. He decided to stay in Khartoum, trying to make the government change its policy.
In 1884, British-led forces killed 2,000 Sudanese in each of the battles of Tamaai and et-Teb. In the 1885 battle of Kirkbekan, they killed another 2,000 Sudanese. Asher accurately sums up these campaigns, "10,000 men, British and Sudanese, had died in vain."
In 1896, the government ordered Herbert Kitchener, Sirdar of the Egyptian army, to reconquer Sudan. At the battle of Nukhayla, 558 British soldiers were killed and 8,000 Sudanese. At Omdurman, in 1898, Kitchener used heavy artillery and the new Maxim machine-guns against the Sudanese: none got within three hundred yards of the British guns. 11,000 Sudanese were killed and 16,000 wounded.
Asher does not call this a massacre. In fact he describes this 15-year war, the bloodiest of all the Empire's colonial wars, as `the last great romantic adventure of the imperial age'.
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simply awesome
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I picked this book up by accident in King's Cross when my train was delayed and boy, am I glad I did. My only real knowledge of the subject prior to reading this was from the four feathers, young winston and khartoum movies, and a few AWFUL pro victorian accounts. As a novelist myself, it's inspired me to set my next book in this campaign.
Now, the book itself is both entertaining and informative and covers all 3 angles, sudanese, turco-egyptian and british.The way the author goes from the easy mahdist victory over Hicks's terrified egyptians at shaykan , to the slaughter of omdurman , via the charles gordon saga, makes this my book of the year.
particular praise to the author for his accurate depiction of the whole 'Billy Hicks' episode and the weaknesses of egypt's soldiers without british help.
outstanding.
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review of Khartoum
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I could not put this book down. Beautifully written, fascinating subject. Asher effortlessly takes us back to an erea about which relatively little is printed and brings it richly to life.
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A gripping read
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This book is a wonderful read. Michael Asher writes a gripping tale and like a good thriller, the reader finds himself eager to turn the page to discover what happened next. The battles scenes are rivetting and between these the author provides a detailed and fascinating account of the military planning and evocative sketches of the leading characters and the formidable landscapes of the Sudan. But make no mistake, this is not trash faction but a meticulously researched and properly referenced historical account. The book undoubtedly benefits from the author's experience as a solder and his command of military history and strategy, as well as his familiarity with the territory in which the events described took place.
I found it difficult to fault this book (hence the top marks) . That said, I do think the author is guilty of an overly charitable and romantic assessment of Gordon himself, the `tragic hero' around whom the tale unfolds. Gordon, we are told, was `in a sense a mystic masquerading as a soldier' and a man whose reputation deserves reassessment.. In fact, the bald facts as recounted by the author suggest otherwise. Gordon emerges as a rather arrogant and over-confident figure, who exceeded his authority in an effort to force a reluctant British government to reverse its policy of abandoning the Sudan. In the end, driven by a mistaken belief in his own destiny, Gordon over-reached himself, bringing about his own downfall and the deaths of thousands of Khartoum civilians who might otherwise have made a peaceful accommodation with the Mahdi. That said, this is a wonderful book and I would unequivocally recommend it to anyone.
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