Battle of Omdurman

The Battle of Omdurman, also known as the Battle of Karary, was fought during the Anglo-Egyptian conquest of Sudan between a British–Egyptian expeditionary force commanded by British Commander-in-Chief (sirdar) major general Horatio Herbert Kitchener and a Sudanese army of the Mahdist State, led by Abdallahi ibn Muhammad (the Khalifa), the successor to the self-proclaimed Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmad. The battle took place on 2 September 1898, at Kerreri, north of Omdurman.

Following the establishment of the Mahdist State in Sudan, and the subsequent threat to the regional status quo and to British-occupied Egypt, the British government decided to send an expeditionary force with the task of overthrowing the Khalifa. The commander of the force, Sir Herbert Kitchener, was also seeking revenge for the death of General Gordon, who had been killed when a Mahdist army captured Khartoum thirteen years earlier. On the morning of 2 September, some 35,000–50,000 Sudanese tribesmen under Abdullah attacked the British lines in a disastrous series of charges; later that morning the 21st Lancers charged and defeated another force that appeared on the British right flank. Among those present was 23-year-old soldier and reporter Winston Churchill as well as a young Captain Douglas Haig.

The victory of the British–Egyptian force was a demonstration of the superiority of a highly disciplined army equipped with modern rifles, machine guns, and artillery over a force twice its size armed with older weapons, and marked the success of British efforts to reconquer Sudan. Following the Battle of Umm Diwaykarat a year later, the remaining Mahdist forces were defeated and Anglo-Egyptian Sudan was established.

Background

On 13 September 1882, the British established their control over Egypt following the Battle of Tel el Kebir. In 1883 Muhammad Ahmad ibn as-Sayyid Abd Allah who called himself the Mahdi appeared in Sudan followed by thousands of Islamic warriors known to the Europeans as Dervishes and to the Mahdists as the Ansār. At El Obeid on 3 November 1883, an Egyptian force under General William Hicks, sent by the Egyptian government to put down the uprising, was defeated by the Mahdi's army during the Battle of Shaykan. Another force, this time sent by the British government, and led by Major General Charles Gordon proceeded to Khartoum where it was besieged by the Mahdists. On 26 January 1885, the Dervishes overcame Gordon's troops and massacred the entire garrison. After the Mahdi died in 1885, Abdallahi ibn Muhammad known as Khalifa 'Abdullahi' became the new ruler. The Mahdist state, the Mahdia, built on slavery and holy war, enforced a strict Islamic code imposing a reign of terror over the regions of Sudan.

In 1896 to protect British interests, in particular the Suez Canal, and to suppress the slave trade, the British government decided to reconquer Sudan. An Anglo-Egyptian army under British Commander-in-Chief of Egyptian Army Major General Herbert Kitchener marched south from Egypt. Kitchener captured Dongola on 21 September 1896, and Abu Hamed on 7 August 1897. At the Battle of the Atbara River on 7 April 1898, he defeated Mahdist forces led by Osman Dinga and Khalifa Abdullah, opening a line of march up the Nile. On 1 September 1898 Kitchener, supported by a powerful flotilla of gunboats, arrived to face the main Mahdist army at Omdurman, near Khartoum.

Battle

The battle took place at Karary, north of Omdurman. Kitchener commanded a force of 8,000 British regulars and a mixed force of 17,000 Sudanese and Egyptian troops. He arrayed his force in an arc around the village of Egeiga, close to the bank of the Nile, where a twelve gunboat flotilla waited in support, facing a wide, flat plain with hills rising to the left and right. The British and Egyptian cavalry were placed on either flank.

Abdullah's followers numbered around 50,000, including some 3,000 cavalry. They were split into five groups—a force of 8,000 under Osman Azrak was arrayed directly opposite the British, in a shallow arc along a mile (1.6 km) of a low ridge leading onto the plain, and the other Mahdist forces were initially concealed from Kitchener's force. Abdullah al-Taashi and 17,000 men were concealed behind Surkab Hill (in older sources often distorted to "Surgham" Hill) to the west and rear of Osman Azrak's force, with 20,000 more positioned to the north-west, close to the front behind the Kerreri hills, commanded by Ali wad Hilu and Osman Sheikh ed-Din. A final force of around 8,000 was gathered on the slope on the right flank of Azrak's force.

The battle began in the early morning, at around 6:00 a.m. After the clashes of the previous day, the 8,000 men under Osman Azrak advanced straight at the waiting British, quickly followed by about 8,000 of those waiting to the northwest, a mixed force of rifle and spear-men. The 52 quick firing guns of the British artillery opened fire at around , and later as a short episode in the 1972 film Young Winston, where Churchill takes part in the charge of the 21st Lancers. About that period too, Lance Corporal Jones mentions his own participation in the battle during the comedy series Dad's Army.

The battle was later made an incident in a few 21st century novels. The Triumph of the Sun (2005) by Wilbur Smith concentrates mainly on the siege of Khartoum and the fate of the defeated, but carries the story through to Kitchener's campaign. The 2008 novel After Omdurman by John Ferry is also partly set during the 1898 re-conquest of Sudan, with the book's lead character, Evelyn Winters, playing a peripheral role in the fighting. The main focus of Jake Arnott's The Devil's Paintbrush (2009) is the life of Hector MacDonald but also includes the battle and Kitchener's railway-building drive through Sudan.

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External links

Battle of Omdurman Original reports from The Times
Om Der Man! – an overview of the battle by the War Nerd
Sudanese honour warriors who fell fighting British – A report from battle commemoration, originally by Reuters
Bennet Burleigh, Khartoum Campaign or the Re-conquest of the Soudan, 1898