Mahdist War
Mahdist War
Muhammad Ahmad, the self-proclaimed Mahdi.
Date 1881-1899
Location Sudan, Egypt, Uganda
Result British/Egyptian victory:
Territorial
changes Sudan becomes an Anglo-Egyptian condominium
Belligerents
United Kingdom
• British India
• Australian colonies[1]
• Egypt
Italy[2]
Belgium[3]
Ethiopian empire[4]
Mahdist Sudan
Commanders and leaders
Charles George Gordon†,
Herbert Kitchener
Muhammad Ahmad
Abdullah (K.I.A.)
Casualties and losses
16,744+ killed[citation needed]
23,800-24,500+ killed[citation needed]
The Mahdist War (also called the Mahdist Revolt) was a colonial war of the late 19th century. It was fought between the Mahdist Sudanese and the Egyptian and later British forces. It has also been called the Anglo-Sudan War or the Sudanese Mahdist Revolt. The British have called their part in the conflict the Sudan Campaign. It was vividly described by Winston Churchill (who took part in its concluding stages) in The River War.
Background
Following the invasion by Muhammed Ali in 1819, Sudan was governed by an Egyptian administration. This colonial system was resented by the Sudanese people, because of the heavy taxes it imposed and because of the bloody start of the Turkish-Egyptian rule in Sudan.
Throughout the period of Turco-Egyptian rule, many segments of the Sudanese population suffered extreme hardship due to the system of taxation imposed by the central government. Under this system, a flat tax was imposed on farmers and small traders and collected by government-appointed tax collectors from the Sha'iqiyya tribe of northern Sudan. In bad years, and especially during times of drought and famine, farmers were unable to pay the high taxes. Fearing the brutal and unjust methods of the Sha'iqiyya, many farmers fled their villages in the fertile Nile Valley to the remote areas of Kordofan and Darfur. These migrants, known as black "Jallaba" after their loose-fitting style of dress, began to function as small traders and middlemen for the foreign trading companies that had established themselves in the cities and towns of central Sudan.
By the middle 19th century the Ottoman Imperial subject administration in Egypt was in the hands of Khedive Ismail. Although not a competent or devoted leader, Khedive Ismail had grandiose schemes about Egypt. His spending had put Egypt into huge debt and when his financing of the Suez Canal started to crumble, Great Britain stepped in and repaid his loans in return for controlling shares in the canal. As the canal took on a vast strategic importance as a control point for British trade with India, the need to ensure its security and stability became paramount. Thus, control of the canal required an ever increasing role in Egyptian affairs. With Khedive Ismail's spending and corruption causing instability, in 1873 the British government supported a program where an Anglo-French debt commission assumed responsibility for managing Egypt's fiscal affairs. This commission eventually forced Khedive Ismail to abdicate in favor of his son Tawfiq in 1877, leading to a period of political turmoil.
Ismail had appointed General Charles "Chinese" Gordon Governor of the Equatorial Provinces of Sudan in 1873. For the next three years, General Gordon fought against a native chieftain of Darfur, Zobeir,
Upon Ismail's abdication Gordon found himself with dramatically decreased support. He eventually resigned his post in 1880, exhausted by years of work, and left early the next year. His policies were soon abandoned by the new governors, but the anger and discontent of the dominant Arab minority was left unaddressed.[citation needed]
Although the Egyptians were fearful of the deteriorating conditions, the British refused to get involved, "Her Majesty’s Government are in no way responsible for operations in the Sudan", the Foreign Secretary Earl Granville noted.
Among the forces historians see as the causes of the uprising are ethnic Sudanese anger at the foreign Turkish Ottoman rulers, Muslim revivalist anger at the Turks' lax religious standards and willingness to appoint non-Muslims such as the Christian Charles Gordon to high positions and Sudanese Sufi resistance to "dry, scholastic Islam of Egyptian officialdom".
Mahdi Revolt
The Mahdist State (1881 – 1898)
In the 1870s, a Muslim cleric named Muhammad Ahmad preached renewal of the faith and liberation of the land, and began attracting followers. Soon in open revolt against the Egyptians, Muhammad Ahmad proclaimed himself the Mahdi, the promised redeemer of the Islamic world. The then-governor of the Sudan, Raouf Pasha, sent two companies of infantry with one machine gun to arrest him. The captains of the two companies were each promised promotion if their soldiers were the ones to return the Mahdi to the governor. Both companies disembarked from the steamer that had brought them up the Nile to Abba and approached the Mahdi's village from separate directions. Arriving simultaneously, each force began to fire blindly on the other, allowing the Mahdi's scant followers to attack and destroy each force in turn.
The Mahdi then began a strategic retreat to Kordofan, where he was at a greater distance from the seat of government in Khartoum. This movement, couched as a triumphal progress, incited many of the Arab tribes to rise in support of the Jihad the Mahdi had declared against the "Turkish oppressors". Another Egyptian expedition dispatched from Fashoda was ambushed and slaughtered on the night of December 9.
The Egyptian administration in the Sudan, now thoroughly concerned by the scale of the uprising, assembled a force of four thousand troops under Yusef Pasha. This force approached the Mahdist gathering, whose members were poorly clothed, half starving, and armed only with sticks and stones. However, supreme overconfidence led the Egyptian army into camping within sight of the Mahdist 'army' without posting sentries. The Mahdi led a dawn assault on June 7 which slaughtered the army to a man. The rebels gained vast stores of arms and ammunition, military clothing and other supplies.
Hicks Expedition
With the Egyptian government now passing largely under British control (See History of modern Egypt), the European powers became increasingly aware of the troubles in the Sudan. The British advisers to the Egyptian government gave tacit consent for another expedition. Throughout the summer of 1883, Egyptian troops were concentrated at Khartoum, eventually reaching the strength of 7,000 infantry, 1,000 cavalry, 20 machine guns, and artillery. This force was placed under the command of a retired British Indian Staff Corps officer William Hicks and twelve European officers. The force was, in the words of Winston Churchill, "perhaps the worst army that has ever marched to war" - unpaid, untrained, undisciplined and whose soldiers had more in common with their enemies than their officers.
El Obeid, the city whose siege Hicks had intended to relieve, had already fallen by the time the expedition left Khartoum, but Hicks continued anyway, although not confident of his chances of success. Upon his approach, the Mahdi assembled an army of about 40,000 men and drilled them rigorously in the art of war, equipping them with the arms and ammunition captured in previous battles. By the time Hicks' forces actually offered battle, the Mahdist army was a credible military force, which utterly annihilated the opposition at the battle of El Obeid. .........article continue tomorow...................azim
No comments:
Post a Comment