About this ebook
Perhaps one of the most dramatic events of the late Victorian period was the death of General Charles ‘Chinese’ Gordon at the hands of the Mahdi’s fanatical warriors as they finally broke their way into the Sudanese city of Khartoum. The story is well-known, recounted in numerous books and celebrated in the film Khartoum (1966) starring Charlton Heston. However, what is perhaps less well-known is the subsequent – and far more successful – campaign fought by the British against the Mahdi’s successor, the Khalifa, by General Kitchener, the Sirdar of the Egyptian Army, over a decade later.
The Sirdar and the Khalifa: Kitchener’s Re-conquest of Sudan, 1896-98 examines Kitchener’s belated campaign to reconquer the Sudan and avenge the death of General Gordon, a war that began in 1896 and ended less than two years later with the epic Battle of Omdurman. The true story of the Omdurman campaign is a classic tale of British soldiers battling a fanatical Dervish enemy in the harsh terrain of the desert. It is also the campaign that made Kitchener a household name, one that would last to this very day.
68 colour illustrations and 7 maps
About the author
Mark Simner has been interested in British military history since childhood, having widely read and researched the period of 1700 to 1945. In 2007, he setup the incredibly successful Victorian Wars Forum, which was followed by the equally popular Napoleonic Wars Forum in 2011. His first book, An Illustrated Introduction to the Battle of Waterloo, was published in May 2015 and he has since written a number of other titles and articles. Pathan Rising: Jihad on the North West Frontier of India 1897-1898 was his first book for Fonthill Media.
