WITH KITCHENER TO KHARTOUM

G. W. STEEVENS

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD
1898

Fifteenth edition.
Nearly fourteen years after Gordon had been murdered in Khartoum, the British fought their way through to bury him. Under Sir Herbert Kitchener, later 1st Earl of Khartoum, an Anglo-Egyptian army at last in 1898 managed to conquer the fearsome forces of Mahdism under Mahmud. In April came the Battle of Atbara, when Mahmud's forces, hitherto unresisting, chose to stand firm. Kitchener's forces, arranged in a huge bow with the British on the left and the Egyptians on the centre and right, opened the battle with artillery and then advanced. The dervishes defended the Fort vigorously, but by the end of the day Atbara had fallen to Kitchener and Mahmud was a prisoner.
Pressing along the Nile, and now reinforced, Kitchener faced the last and greatest stand by the Mahdi forces. Early in September he attacked at Omdurman. At first the dervishes fell back, but then forces hidden in the hills fell upon Kitchener's army with renewed vigour and the outcome looked in doubt. Kitchener's men prevailed, but as Steevens writes: "The Dervishes were superb — beyond perfection. It was their largest, best and bravest army that ever fought against us for Mahdism and it died worthy of the huge empire that Mahdism won and kept so long.' Over 11,000 dervishes died to a few hundred on the British side.
This classic and stirring account relives those days with vivid descriptions of the combat, of the way of life in the Soudan and above all of the men who lived and fought there.

19 x 13 cm. xviii + 326 pp + map plates + publisher's catalogue (dated 10/98).

Very good condition. Corners of the boards bumped and lightly worn. Endpapers age tanned. Some light foxing, mainly to the page edges, otherwise clean and tidy, binding sound.