#herbertkitchener

Battle of Omdurman: Britain's Vengeance for the Death of General Gordon

Kitchener now had around 25,000 men at his disposal as he camped near the city of Omdurman, but still by the safety of the Nile. There were infantry regiments, artillery units, horse cavalry, and the Camel Corps. The Mahdist army numbered as many as 50,000 men. Thousands were equipped with older, breech-loading rifles and muskets, but the majority were armed with huge double-edged swords and spears. Although most Mahdists wore the jibba, some wore chain mail and steel helmets. This was, perhaps, one of the last great medieval-era armies seen on a battlefield. Kitchener and his high-tech late-19th-century army waited patiently for the enemy to come within firing range. The fate of the Mahdist infantry attack was inevitable; even groups of Mahdist cavalry were cut down before they could get anywhere near Kitchener's men. Men charging machine guns were effectively committing suicide.

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Fashoda Incident: When Britain and France Almost Went to War in Africa

Preoccupied with their increasingly paranoid rivalry, neither the British nor the French governments were very much concerned with the fate of the Africans living in the states they dreamed of controlling. Sudan had very little to offer any colonial power other than prestige, but prestige feeds vanity, and it was this vice, both in Britain and France, that underpinned the game of diplomatic charades played out in the final months of 1898. France had made such a bold opening move in Sudan by occupying Fashoda that only a total rebuttal could be tolerated by the British.

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Bataille d’Omdourman: La vengeance britannique suite au décès du général Gordon

Le 2 septembre 1898, la bataille d’Omdourman vit le général Kitchener conduire une armée anglo-égypto-soudanaise à la victoire contre 50 000 Mahdistes au Soudan. Le décès du général Gordon, au cours du siège de Khartoum 13 ans auparavant, venait enfin d’être vengé, et ce, en grande majorité grâce à des armes ultramodernes et supérieures de bien loin à celles de l’ennemi. Un an plus tard, les Britanniques remportèrent la guerre des mahdistes (ou guerre du Soudan, 1881-1899), puis dirigèrent le Soudan comme un protectorat.