The Battle of Omdurman-Sudan 1898

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[Sparta]

If you want on or off the Western Civilization Military History ping list.

[Asclepius]

... "The valiant blacks prepared themselves with delight to meet the shock, notwithstanding the overwhelming numbers of the enemy"- Winston Churchill ...

Churchill, in his book The River War, also praises the defenders of Obdurman for their bravery and strategy in the field. Their only mistake, writes Churchill, is that they underestimated the range and power and accuracy of the more modern weapons the British carried with them.

[Argus]

Chinese Gordon bump.

[gridlock]

I'll get on that list!

[Sparta]

Traditional West vs the Religion of Peace ping!!!

[Fiddlstix]

Good Article

[MoGalahad]

Thanks, Sparta. It does my heart good to read about men who valued honor above gain. Please keep me on the list if I am already on it and if not please place me on it.

Be good and live free,
MoGalahad

[walkingdead]

Put me on that ping list if you don't mind. Thanks.

[Andy Ross]

My Early Life: W.S.Churchill 1930

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and can heartily recommend it.

His description of his own part in this particular battle is very well written, and has stuck in my mind. He was involved in a cavalry charge, and was not at all bashful about describing his own confusion in this fight.

Just a short note of another part of this book that I recall. Shortly after this battle, he was on a ship home, or maybe to another posting. He wrote a section about how he had to donate portion of skin from his forearm to help an injured comrade. His description made it sound excruciating.

Andrew

[LS]

The amazing thing about this battle, RE "Carnage and Culture," is that the Muslims had relatively modern weapons---at least rifles and some cannons. But not one Madhist got within 30 yards of the British squares. Only when the 17th lancers charged out of the square, thinking that the battle was over, did they run into a gully where the dervishes laid a trap. (This was Curchill's unit).

Naturally, the best painting of this battle was the near massacre of the 17th Lancers---something about the Brits, they always save their best art for the defeats (Balaclava, Isandlwana).

[45Auto]

An interesting aside (to movie buffs) was that this little episode in British colonial history was more or less chronicled in the novel "The Four Feathers" by A.E.W. Mason. A number of movie versions based on this book were made, the best (in my opinion) being the 1939 version directed by Zoltan Korda. There has been a very recent re-make this year, which is not too bad, either. Serious students of history might not be impressed, however.

[Maedhros]

You gotta hate Kitchener. He was the butcher responsible for introducing the modern world to concentration camps, in the form of disease ridden slaughterhouses for Boer women and children. The British were definitely on the wrong side of that conflict: the Boers were completely justified in their self defense against the arrogant British imperialists.

BTW, how did the British get gunboats up the Nile? What about the cataracts?

[VadeRetro]

BTW, how did the British get gunboats up the Nile? What about the cataracts?

Dragged through rapids, portaged around the cataracts. There's a good book on the topic, Omdurman, Philip Ziegler, Dorset Press.

[river rat]

Bump, for a hell of a story..
Semper Fi

[F-117A]

Please add me to the WCMH list!

[VadeRetro]

Also, the gunboats themselves were custom for the Nile.

Kitchener would have hesitated to venture even so far unless he had complete command of the river. The fact that he enjoyed this advantage was due, above all, to his fleet of gunboats. These lumbering, armour-plated Leviathans, slow in movement, inelegant in lines, still carried an amoury capable of demolishing any Arab fort which they might encounter along the banks of the Nile. Kitchener started with four of them, antiquated by the standards of what was to come, but still quite formidable enough to have maintained Gordon indefinitely in Khartoum if he had had the good luck to include them in his armoury. [But Gordon had been murdered in 1885. -- VR] Then came a new and yet more fearsome model, designed especially for the campaign, crated in a myriad of containers and carried laboriously by train, camel and steamer up the Nile to the assembly point. One hundred and forty feet long and 24 feet wide, these boats could steam at twelve miles an hour and draw only 39 inches of water. Each carried a twelve-pounder quick-firing gun, two six-pounders, a howitzer, four Maxim guns and, what was to prove as useful as anything, a battery of searchlights. They provided the most formidable concentration of firepower in the Sudan.

Fat-fingered in from Ziegler's book. Typos mine, British-isms his.

[archy]

Naturally, the best painting of this battle was the near massacre of the 17th Lancers---something about the Brits, they always save their best art for the defeats (Balaclava, Isandlwana).

Well, not Just the Brits. There must be at least a dozen artistic impressions of Lt. Danjou and the French Foreign legion battle at Camerone in Mexico, and there are many U.S. versions of the Last Stand at the Alamo and of Custer's last fight. But several of the renditions of the 17th Lancers interesting bad day at Omdurman are quite good.

[LS]

Great artwork. Where do you get such pictures at the drop of a pith helmet?

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Whats the matter? Was Mohammed's allah so weak that he had to rely on dervishes to carry out his goal for the world? If the mahdi was a true prophet and if Mohammed's allah were a true god he would have won.

[Sparta]

Ummm, we're not discussing the Boer War, but thanks for the suggestion. I'll try to get back to you on the gunboats.