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Omdurman
The death of General Gordon in Khartoum at the hand of the Dervishes serving the fanatical Mahdi is one of the most celebrated events in the history of the 19th century. Equally dramatic and colourful, but perhaps less well-known, is the extraordinary battle fourteen years later in which Kitchener avenged the murder of Gordon at Omdurman, just across the Nile from Khartoum. General Kitchener amassed his Anglo-Egyptian troops in Cairo and set off into the desert with a motley army which, as time went on, included the Grenadier Guards, the Rifle Brigade and kilted Highlanders; the Camel Corps with 5,000 camels; infantry packed into trucks on the newly constructed railway line; and a flotilla of gunboats overloaded with cavalry and supplies. The going was often tough and the opposition from the Government in London seemed sometimes as obdurate as that provided by the Dervishes. But, in 1898 the army at last came in sight of Omdurman, capital of the Mahdi's successor, the Khalifa. The story of the battle which followed, a clash between spears, swords and frenzied courage on the one hand and the grim application of rifle and gunboat fire on the other, is breathtaking, bizarre and beautifully handled by the author. Towards the climax came the last great cavalry charge in history, that of the 21st Lancers, made memorable by one of the young officers who led it, Winston Churchill.
- GenresHistory
241 pages, Hardcover
First published January 28, 1974
14 people want to read
About the author
Philip Ziegler
78 books41 followersPhilip Ziegler was a British biographer and historian known for his meticulously researched works on historical figures and events. After studying at Eton and New College, Oxford, he served in the British Foreign Service, with postings in Laos, South Africa, Colombia, and NATO. He later transitioned into publishing and writing, eventually becoming a distinguished biographer.
His notable works include Mountbatten: The Official Biography, Edward VIII: The Official Biography, and The Black Death. He also wrote about figures such as Lord Melbourne, Harold Wilson, and George VI. Over the years, Ziegler contributed to major publications like The Spectator, The Times, and History Today.
His personal life was marked by tragedy when his first wife was killed during a home invasion in Bogotá in 1967. He later remarried and continued his literary career until his passing in 2023 at the age of 93.
His notable works include Mountbatten: The Official Biography, Edward VIII: The Official Biography, and The Black Death. He also wrote about figures such as Lord Melbourne, Harold Wilson, and George VI. Over the years, Ziegler contributed to major publications like The Spectator, The Times, and History Today.
His personal life was marked by tragedy when his first wife was killed during a home invasion in Bogotá in 1967. He later remarried and continued his literary career until his passing in 2023 at the age of 93.
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February 1, 2025
NEWS UPDATE: And continuing to pray for Sudan, where just today yet another unprovoked paramilitary attack killed 54 and wounded 158 innocent civilians in an attack on an open market in Omdurman. Can see details here: https://apnews.com/article/sudan-rsf-...
ORIGINAL REVIEW: Excellent book and the perfect companion to The First Jihad: The Battle for Khartoum and the Dawn of Militant Islam, in that while Jihad covers the whole history of Islam in the Sudan and the rise (and fall) of the Mahdi, with only the last 30 pages devoted to the Khalifa and Omdurman; Ziegler here does the opposite — just a brief intro on the Mahdi, and then a lengthy blow-by-blow accounting of the British effort to "avenge" the death of Gordon in Khartoum and the battle of Omdurman itself, much like Michael Sharra's The Killer Angels. Or actually, more like his son Jeff's story of the Mexican-American war, Gone For Soldiers, which featured many of the famous Civil War generals (Lee, Grant, Jackson, Longstreet, and a surprisingly robust Winfield Scott) in their earlier years; since Ziegler here introduces us to similarly junior versions of Kitchener, Haig, and a particularly obnoxious young lieutenant named Winston Churchill.
There is a lot of great history here, as well as much great writing, including anecdotes like this description of a local survivor of a dervish sword attack:
Ziegler concludes that the "Anglo-Egyptian Reconquest of Sudan" expedition was for many (if not all) intents and purposes "…the last flourish of confident imperialism; free from nagging pangs of conscience or irritating doubts about the ethics of a colonial enterprise. Few stopped to ponder on the real worth of the achievement, to calculate the odds or to wonder whether the glory had not been too dearly bought. Self-glorification, rampant and unabashed, enjoyed what was to be almost its last fling." And so having just finished Charles Allen's Duel in the Snows: The True Story of the Younghusband Mission to Lhasa, this of course brought to mind that somewhat less successful enterprise, which followed Omdurman by just four years.
There has been much criticism leveled against the British "invasion" of Tibet, but one has to bear in mind that while Britain hadn't fought any "major" wars (i.e., against competing powers like France, Germany or Russia) since Napoleon and Crimea; in just the twenty years leading up to Omdurman, they had engaged in near continuous colonial wars against (among others) the Shanti and Zulu in Africa, the Afghans (for a second time), the Taipings (and shortly the Boxers) in China and finally here the Madhists, all of whom were proud warrior cultures. And so it is perhaps understandable that the British expected the Tibetans to also be a more fearsome — if not ferocious — foe than they turned out to be.
Anyway, back to Africa — both this book and First Jihad are immensely recommended, and even doubly so if read together. Brilliant way to start the year!!
MANDATORY PERSONAL NONSENSE: I have been fortunate enough (and am now old enough) to have visited an eclectic selection of "great" 19th Century battlefields, including Gettysburg (and other nearby Civil War sites like Antietam and Manassas, which I currently drive past every week when I visit my son), Waterloo (which I drove past every workday when living in Belgium), and also then Omdurman — which I only visited the once (thank goodness!) when we sneaked off during a 2016 State Dept. visit to Khartoum. The battlefield itself isn't much memorialized or even marked (understandably, as it was in fact a major defeat for Sudan, and most of it was fought in shifting desert sands), but we were taken to the following site, which was identified in the second photo as one of the "well-equipped defence sites which were supposed to stop the river fleet," emphasis being on "supposed":
However, the tomb of the Mahdi — razed at the time by the British — has been rebuilt, and remains about the only culturally or architecturally interesting site in the area:
...since Sudan remains a desperately poor and criminally mismanaged country that has only gotten worse since my visit 😥
ORIGINAL REVIEW: Excellent book and the perfect companion to The First Jihad: The Battle for Khartoum and the Dawn of Militant Islam, in that while Jihad covers the whole history of Islam in the Sudan and the rise (and fall) of the Mahdi, with only the last 30 pages devoted to the Khalifa and Omdurman; Ziegler here does the opposite — just a brief intro on the Mahdi, and then a lengthy blow-by-blow accounting of the British effort to "avenge" the death of Gordon in Khartoum and the battle of Omdurman itself, much like Michael Sharra's The Killer Angels. Or actually, more like his son Jeff's story of the Mexican-American war, Gone For Soldiers, which featured many of the famous Civil War generals (Lee, Grant, Jackson, Longstreet, and a surprisingly robust Winfield Scott) in their earlier years; since Ziegler here introduces us to similarly junior versions of Kitchener, Haig, and a particularly obnoxious young lieutenant named Winston Churchill.
There is a lot of great history here, as well as much great writing, including anecdotes like this description of a local survivor of a dervish sword attack:
"…Beatty and Fergusson had no medical training, but a British officer, they reckoned, should be ready for any eventuality. They…discovered a ball of thick red twine of a kind used for mending sails. Beatty held the head in place while Fergusson sewed it on with a heavy sail-needle. Incredibly the man survived and at all subsequent meetings always greeted Fergusson as his saviour. His head, however, was noticeably crooked. Beatty blamed Fergusson's performance with the needle; Fergusson claimed that Beatty had failed to hold the head on straight."The final battle itself gets a bit complicated, like watching a quick-moving chess game with unfamiliar pieces — and so it becomes increasingly confusing trying to keep track of players like Macdonald's 3rd Brigade vs. Maxwell's 2nd Brigade…and don't even get me started on the various Arab forces. But it ultimately all works, and unlike other books I've read recently includes a lot of really helpful maps, both large- and small-scale.
Ziegler concludes that the "Anglo-Egyptian Reconquest of Sudan" expedition was for many (if not all) intents and purposes "…the last flourish of confident imperialism; free from nagging pangs of conscience or irritating doubts about the ethics of a colonial enterprise. Few stopped to ponder on the real worth of the achievement, to calculate the odds or to wonder whether the glory had not been too dearly bought. Self-glorification, rampant and unabashed, enjoyed what was to be almost its last fling." And so having just finished Charles Allen's Duel in the Snows: The True Story of the Younghusband Mission to Lhasa, this of course brought to mind that somewhat less successful enterprise, which followed Omdurman by just four years.
There has been much criticism leveled against the British "invasion" of Tibet, but one has to bear in mind that while Britain hadn't fought any "major" wars (i.e., against competing powers like France, Germany or Russia) since Napoleon and Crimea; in just the twenty years leading up to Omdurman, they had engaged in near continuous colonial wars against (among others) the Shanti and Zulu in Africa, the Afghans (for a second time), the Taipings (and shortly the Boxers) in China and finally here the Madhists, all of whom were proud warrior cultures. And so it is perhaps understandable that the British expected the Tibetans to also be a more fearsome — if not ferocious — foe than they turned out to be.
Anyway, back to Africa — both this book and First Jihad are immensely recommended, and even doubly so if read together. Brilliant way to start the year!!
MANDATORY PERSONAL NONSENSE: I have been fortunate enough (and am now old enough) to have visited an eclectic selection of "great" 19th Century battlefields, including Gettysburg (and other nearby Civil War sites like Antietam and Manassas, which I currently drive past every week when I visit my son), Waterloo (which I drove past every workday when living in Belgium), and also then Omdurman — which I only visited the once (thank goodness!) when we sneaked off during a 2016 State Dept. visit to Khartoum. The battlefield itself isn't much memorialized or even marked (understandably, as it was in fact a major defeat for Sudan, and most of it was fought in shifting desert sands), but we were taken to the following site, which was identified in the second photo as one of the "well-equipped defence sites which were supposed to stop the river fleet," emphasis being on "supposed":
However, the tomb of the Mahdi — razed at the time by the British — has been rebuilt, and remains about the only culturally or architecturally interesting site in the area:
...since Sudan remains a desperately poor and criminally mismanaged country that has only gotten worse since my visit 😥
November 15, 2025
This was my favorite war book of all time. The imagery the author uses is brilliant. Below is my summary of what I learned from the book:
Khartoum is situated where the White Nile and the Blue Nile meet. During the Scramble for Africa, the British fought to control Egypt. It was where they put their canal and they were not about to let Egypt be independent, nor would they let anyone else control it. Neighboring Sudan was an area of contention and Charles Gordon had been placed in control in Khartoum. Gordon was a war hero from the Taiping Rebellion in China and the British public was divided over whether they wanted responsibility over Sudan. At that time, Sudan was threatened by the Mahdi- a fanatical Muslim leader.
When the Mahdi threatened to take Khartoum, he had wanted Gordon unharmed. Even some of the British wanted Gordon to give up. Yet Gordon would not budge. When he was killed defending his post in 1885, many believed he had intentionally made himself a martyr. Others loved him and condemned their prime minister, William Gladstone, for his slow, half-hearted relief which had failed. A casual plan to retake Khartoum was made but it wouldn't be for another 13 years.
In those 13 years, the capital was moved across the river to Omdurman, the Mahdi died, and a massive tomb was built for him there. He was succeeded by the Khalifa, who wasn't much different in his religious zeal or the way he treated human beings. Yet he was not a total monster either, despite the inflated report made by Slatin Pasha, who had been imprisoned there and had escaped. It was this report, combined with the fear that the French might get control of the area, that helped spark renewed imperialist sentiment and the desire to retake Khartoum. But first the British army had to take out the Khalifa in Omdurman. This meant sending slow-moving gunboats upriver and taking out any resistance along the way. The man in charge of the expedition was Horatio Herbert Kitchener, who kept an immensely tight budget and seemed to have no compassion whatsoever. His army slowly made their way up the Nile and reached the outskirts of Omdurman on September 1st, 1898.
The British soldiers, combined with Egyptian soldiers and loyal Sudanese had about 25,000 men. The Khalifa referred to the British as 'Turks' and his own army of dervishes was over 50,000 strong. He saw keeping control of Omdurman as a god-ordained task, and his enemy as infidels. Between a few hills and the plain north of Omdurman, a crescent-shaped zariba (thorn wall) was built on the western bank of the Nile, with the British and their allies inside it. Their gunboats had already taken out most of the resistance on both sides of the river and could defend them from behind. Despite being outnumbered, British had Maxim machine guns and more firepower than practically any area in Africa.
Few battles in history were so one-sided. Almost 80,000 men collided north of Omdurman. The Khalifa's army had the overwhelming numbers. The British had the overwhelming firepower. It was the firepower that won the day. While the British were still using some outdated maneuvers that had been used to defeat Napoleon, the dervishes under the Mahdi were stuck using tactics from 700 years prior- some even wore armor confiscated during the Crusades. The British guns mowed down the opposition, yet the dervishes kept charging. While it was a one-sided battle, this does not mean that the British soldiers were not terrified. Had they run out of ammunition, there was nothing to protect them from the dervish swords, the charging hordes, and brutal execution by an enemy that considered them infidels.
After his initial attack on the zariba failed, the Khalifa's army divided and attacked isolated elements of the British army in the hills to the north and south. One group in the British army, the 21st Lancers, became famous when they charged at what appeared to be a thin line of dervishes, only to discover that there was a much larger force hidden in a khor (a recess in the ground) behind it. Winston Churchill was part of this charge, and his records of the battle made the charge famous. Reinforcements would eventually come on either side for the British, and the Khalifa's army was decimated. Many in the British army had looked down those in Africa as an inferior race. Yet in the eyes of many who were less prejudiced, the dervishes proved their bravery in the face of an opposition which merely had better technology.
The Khalifa, who had been practically a demigod before the battle, was now the commander of a rapidly deserting multitude who realized that God had not been on his side. He fled to the city into his temple to pray. Of the immediate dead, there were at least 10,000 dervishes and only about 50 from the British/Egyptian/Sudanese side. The ground was covered with rotting corpses. Where the Khalifa's flag had been, the bodies were piled three-deep. As the British army proceeded to Omdurman, they passed through this carnage and a few dying dervishes rose up and attacked them. This produced much fear among the conquerors, and while Kitchener didn't totally sanction killing the wounded, that is what happened.
The next step for the victors was to take the city of Omdurman, which was believed to be the most dangerous task. They feared that it would be heavily defended and that fighting would be house-to-house. But most of the enemy had fled, most of the population was peaceful, and when the Khalifa saw the enemy approaching, he fled the city. He would be caught and executed a few days later. Kitchener desecrated the Mhadi's tomb, threw his body into the Nile, and soldiers pillaged the city. Queen Victoria condemned her commander for this extreme vengeance, and eventually the tomb was rebuilt. The army proceeded to the ruins of Khartoum and a long funeral ceremony was held for Charles Gordon.
It is hard to evaluate this battle without mixed feelings. The Mahdi and the Khalifa were both Muslim theocrats who had forced their religion on the population, tortured captives to death and abused women. There had been slavery in the Sudan, which Charles Gordon had opposed. In many ways he was a hero. Yet the battle was not just about avenging Gordon, nor was it a fair fight. The British had destroyed the enemy, not by superior fighting, but by weapons which were far more advanced. Imperialism was about controlling the world, and while it brought order and Christianity, it did so at a great cost. Every war has its propaganda of moral justification. Sometimes it is about survival but usually there are selfish motives mixed in. The only just war is about survival, and mankind tends to take even survival too far.
Khartoum is situated where the White Nile and the Blue Nile meet. During the Scramble for Africa, the British fought to control Egypt. It was where they put their canal and they were not about to let Egypt be independent, nor would they let anyone else control it. Neighboring Sudan was an area of contention and Charles Gordon had been placed in control in Khartoum. Gordon was a war hero from the Taiping Rebellion in China and the British public was divided over whether they wanted responsibility over Sudan. At that time, Sudan was threatened by the Mahdi- a fanatical Muslim leader.
When the Mahdi threatened to take Khartoum, he had wanted Gordon unharmed. Even some of the British wanted Gordon to give up. Yet Gordon would not budge. When he was killed defending his post in 1885, many believed he had intentionally made himself a martyr. Others loved him and condemned their prime minister, William Gladstone, for his slow, half-hearted relief which had failed. A casual plan to retake Khartoum was made but it wouldn't be for another 13 years.
In those 13 years, the capital was moved across the river to Omdurman, the Mahdi died, and a massive tomb was built for him there. He was succeeded by the Khalifa, who wasn't much different in his religious zeal or the way he treated human beings. Yet he was not a total monster either, despite the inflated report made by Slatin Pasha, who had been imprisoned there and had escaped. It was this report, combined with the fear that the French might get control of the area, that helped spark renewed imperialist sentiment and the desire to retake Khartoum. But first the British army had to take out the Khalifa in Omdurman. This meant sending slow-moving gunboats upriver and taking out any resistance along the way. The man in charge of the expedition was Horatio Herbert Kitchener, who kept an immensely tight budget and seemed to have no compassion whatsoever. His army slowly made their way up the Nile and reached the outskirts of Omdurman on September 1st, 1898.
The British soldiers, combined with Egyptian soldiers and loyal Sudanese had about 25,000 men. The Khalifa referred to the British as 'Turks' and his own army of dervishes was over 50,000 strong. He saw keeping control of Omdurman as a god-ordained task, and his enemy as infidels. Between a few hills and the plain north of Omdurman, a crescent-shaped zariba (thorn wall) was built on the western bank of the Nile, with the British and their allies inside it. Their gunboats had already taken out most of the resistance on both sides of the river and could defend them from behind. Despite being outnumbered, British had Maxim machine guns and more firepower than practically any area in Africa.
Few battles in history were so one-sided. Almost 80,000 men collided north of Omdurman. The Khalifa's army had the overwhelming numbers. The British had the overwhelming firepower. It was the firepower that won the day. While the British were still using some outdated maneuvers that had been used to defeat Napoleon, the dervishes under the Mahdi were stuck using tactics from 700 years prior- some even wore armor confiscated during the Crusades. The British guns mowed down the opposition, yet the dervishes kept charging. While it was a one-sided battle, this does not mean that the British soldiers were not terrified. Had they run out of ammunition, there was nothing to protect them from the dervish swords, the charging hordes, and brutal execution by an enemy that considered them infidels.
After his initial attack on the zariba failed, the Khalifa's army divided and attacked isolated elements of the British army in the hills to the north and south. One group in the British army, the 21st Lancers, became famous when they charged at what appeared to be a thin line of dervishes, only to discover that there was a much larger force hidden in a khor (a recess in the ground) behind it. Winston Churchill was part of this charge, and his records of the battle made the charge famous. Reinforcements would eventually come on either side for the British, and the Khalifa's army was decimated. Many in the British army had looked down those in Africa as an inferior race. Yet in the eyes of many who were less prejudiced, the dervishes proved their bravery in the face of an opposition which merely had better technology.
The Khalifa, who had been practically a demigod before the battle, was now the commander of a rapidly deserting multitude who realized that God had not been on his side. He fled to the city into his temple to pray. Of the immediate dead, there were at least 10,000 dervishes and only about 50 from the British/Egyptian/Sudanese side. The ground was covered with rotting corpses. Where the Khalifa's flag had been, the bodies were piled three-deep. As the British army proceeded to Omdurman, they passed through this carnage and a few dying dervishes rose up and attacked them. This produced much fear among the conquerors, and while Kitchener didn't totally sanction killing the wounded, that is what happened.
The next step for the victors was to take the city of Omdurman, which was believed to be the most dangerous task. They feared that it would be heavily defended and that fighting would be house-to-house. But most of the enemy had fled, most of the population was peaceful, and when the Khalifa saw the enemy approaching, he fled the city. He would be caught and executed a few days later. Kitchener desecrated the Mhadi's tomb, threw his body into the Nile, and soldiers pillaged the city. Queen Victoria condemned her commander for this extreme vengeance, and eventually the tomb was rebuilt. The army proceeded to the ruins of Khartoum and a long funeral ceremony was held for Charles Gordon.
It is hard to evaluate this battle without mixed feelings. The Mahdi and the Khalifa were both Muslim theocrats who had forced their religion on the population, tortured captives to death and abused women. There had been slavery in the Sudan, which Charles Gordon had opposed. In many ways he was a hero. Yet the battle was not just about avenging Gordon, nor was it a fair fight. The British had destroyed the enemy, not by superior fighting, but by weapons which were far more advanced. Imperialism was about controlling the world, and while it brought order and Christianity, it did so at a great cost. Every war has its propaganda of moral justification. Sometimes it is about survival but usually there are selfish motives mixed in. The only just war is about survival, and mankind tends to take even survival too far.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 1, 2022
I wasn't expecting a lot from Philip Ziegler's Omdurman beyond a slim, moderately engaging monogram about the climactic battle of the Mahdist Wars in Sudan - when Horatio Kitchener made his name and smashed the Khalifa's followers in a one-sided slaughter one writer proclaimed "not a battle but an execution." Fortunately, Ziegler (whom I know through his biographies of assorted British royalty) approaches this distasteful subject with a degree of detachment and light, bracing cynicism. While not a full-on revisionist, Ziegler does disillusion readers of any idea that the 1898 grudge match between England and the Sudan (loudly proclaimed as "revenge" for the death of General Gordon thirteen years earlier) was a glorious escapade, rather a grueling campaign undertaken for craven political reasons, mostly to check French ambitions in Central Africa. He spends a fair amount of time adding contours to the Khalifa, showing him a shrewd, capable leader who mostly failed to hold together a large, ethnically diverse empire (though his tactics of mass murder and attacking neighboring states certainly didn't help). He also deflates Kitchener's stoic image, showing him to be a bumbling technocrat obsessed to a fault with steamships, railways and modern technology. Even the battle was much more of a near-run thing than legend suggests; the Khalifa had a workable strategy of enveloping the Anglo-Egyptian lines which could have succeeded with better timing and coordination, but the errors of his subordinates and the steadfastness of a few imperial troops (namely Hector MacDonald, whose brigade of Sudanese riflemen singlehandedly repulsed an attack on Kitchener's flank) prevented this a victory The results, however, speak for themselves, with machine guns, cannon and modern rifles slaughtering tens of thousands of Mahdist soldiers, many armed with spears and swords for a pittance of their own casualties; Kitchener, MacDonald and a young war correspondent named Winston Churchill raised to glory; the memory of General Gordon avenged and the Mahdi's tomb defiled, his skull plundered for an inkpot and his country colonized for the next seven decades. Such are the wages of imperialism.
February 13, 2017
Interesting history, but somewhat like reading about the battle of Roark's drift if the British weren't outnumbered. "White guys with guns win again." - Would be a decent byline to the title. Perspective is everything, but you can't help but feel like you're rooting for the bad guys in this one.
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