Battle of Sinkat

Battle of Sinkat

Part of: Mahdi uprising

Surroundings of Suakin

date	August 5, 1883
place	Sinkat (approx. 70 km west of Suakin )
output	egyptian victory

Parties to the conflict
Mahdists ( Ansar )	Khedivat Egypt
Commander
Osman Digna	Tawfiq Bey
Troop strength
approx. 300 warriors	about 70 soldiers supported by an unknown number of civilians
losses
high	low

In the Battle of Sinkāt , referred to in Mahdist sources as the Battle of Ūkāk , Egyptian soldiers fended off an attack by the Mahdists on Sinkat on August 5, 1883. The battle marked the beginning of the Mahdi uprising in eastern Sudan.

background

Since 1821 Sudan was under the rule of Egypt . On June 29, 1881 Muhammad Ahmad declared himself a Mahdi and called for a revolt against the Egyptians. With the support of his supporters, Muhammad Ahmad resisted arrest by Egyptian soldiers at the Battle of Aba . To get another arrest attempt earlier, he fled with his followers in the in the Nuba Mountains located Taqali . There he inflicted devastating defeats on two Egyptian armies sent after him ( First and Second Battle of Jebel Gedir ). Due to these successes, his movement experienced an enormous influx from the local population, which enabled Muhammad Ahmad to go on the offensive. In July 1882 he captured Kordofan with the exception of the cities of Bara and al-Ubayyid , whose garrisons only surrendered to the Mahdists after the siege on January 5 and 17, 1883.

Muhammad Ahmad's next goal was the conquest of Khartoum , the capital of Egypt's Sudan. To this end, he initially intended to cut off the city from the supply from the Egyptian heartland. Although Khartoum could also be supplied along the Nile valley , the interruption of the route from Suakin to Berber was particularly urgent for Muhammad Ahmad , since since the end of 1882 Egyptian troops from the Red Sea had come to Khartoum via this route to set up an expeditionary force directed against him. For this purpose, Muhammad Ahmad appointed Osman Digna , a merchant from Suakin, to his representative in East Sudan on May 8, 1883 and instructed him to move the tribes in this region to join the uprising.

On his way through Eastern Sudan, Osman initially had little success in gaining followers. The region was too far from the center of the Mahdi uprising to have any influence there. As a merchant, Osman did not appear credible to the locals as a religious leader. This changed, however, when Osman managed to convince Tahir al-Majdhūb to join him and the movement. In Eastern Sudan, Tahir was the representative of the Majdhūbīya , a religious order ( tarīqa ) with significant influence on the Hadendoa , the most powerful tribe in this region.

The governor ( muhafız ) of Suakin Province, Tawfiq Bey, was informed of Osman's agitation at the beginning of July 1883 and then moved from Suakin to Sinkat with about 70 soldiers to restore order in the region. To this end, he sent letters to Tāhir and to Ahmad Digna, either brother or cousin of Osman, in which he requested that Osman be taken. Instead of doing so, they informed Osman about it, whereupon Osman decided to move from Arkowit to Sinkat with his supporters.

Sinkat was a small, unpaved place and was about 70 km west of Suakin on the less important southern main road to Berber. The place was used as a summer residence by the wealthy merchants and the Egyptian officials Suakins and Tokars , as the climate there was more pleasant at this time of year due to the higher location.

course

Tawfiq Bey, commander of the Egyptian soldiers in Sinkat

On the morning of August 5, 1883, Osman reached the vicinity of Sinkat with around 1,500 warriors armed only with spears, clubs and a few with swords. Osman asked Tawfiq to hand over Suakin and Sinkat to him. Tawfiq tried to buy time to prepare the barracks where the Egyptian soldiers and some volunteer civilians barricaded themselves for the upcoming attack. So he asked Osman for a three-day armistice, so he pretended to get approval from a higher authority for the surrender. Osman granted a truce until noon and later extended it until the afternoon. When Osman saw that Tawfiq was trying to betray him, he demanded an immediate surrender, which Tawfiq refused. At around 4 p.m., Osman and his warriors marched towards the barracks. Arrived at a bed of water ( khor ) about 100 meters in front of it, the warriors paused. In the meantime, many lost their will to fight, so that Osman was able to continue the attack with only 300 warriors. The Egyptians first fired their rifles. Immediately succeeded the warriors enter the barracks, where there is a fierce melee came. However, after about an hour, the Egyptians managed to repel the attack and drive away the Mahdists.

The Mahdists lost around 200 to 250 men in this battle. According to Egyptian information, around 65 were among them, according to Osman, 60 dead. Among the dead was Ahmad Digna, Osman's brother or cousin. Osman himself was badly wounded and had to be carried off the battlefield by his supporters. As a result of this experience, Osman no longer took part in any fighting. According to Egyptian sources, 7 soldiers and 6 civilians were killed on the Egyptian side. 12 soldiers, including Tawfiq Bey, were wounded. Osman gave the dead on the Egyptian side with 57.

consequences

Osman and his followers withdrew to Arkowit. Tawfiq Bey stayed in Sinkat and built the fortifications. After the Sinkat garrison was reinforced to 600 men by troops from Suakin in early September, Tawfiq sent a 200-man unit to Arkowit to take Osman prisoner. This instead sent some warriors, as a result of the battle at Qubāb (Gabab) on September 14, 1883, which the Egyptians won. Osman's supporters were demoralized after the two defeats. The favorable opportunity to contain the uprising was not used, however, as the newly appointed Governor General ( mudīr umum ) of East Sudan, Sulayman Pascha Nyazi , forbade any further military action against Osman Digna and gave preference to diplomatic means. However, this strategy was interpreted by the insurgents and local tribes as a weakness of the Egyptian administration, so that Osman gained a lot of popularity and the initiative gradually passed to him.

From mid-October he not only succeeded in cutting off Sinkat from outside supplies, but also besieging the coastal city of Tokar, which is important for the local food supply . An attempt at relief failed when, on October 18 or 26, 1883, the Mahdists destroyed an Egyptian troop on their way from Suakin to Sinkat (Battle of Abint). Since Tokar was considered more important than Sinkat, the further military action of the Egyptians concentrated on the liberation of Tokar. The battalion sent by Sulayman was defeated on November 5, 1883 near El Teb . Sulayman had thus used up his available military forces. But the army sent from Egypt under the command of Valentine Baker was wiped out near El Teb on February 4, 1884 ( First Battle of El Teb ). An immediate liberation from Sinkat thus turned out to be unrealistic. With food supplies exhausted, Tawfiq decided to break out for Suakin. Sinkat had meanwhile been abandoned by the local population, so that only the Egyptian soldiers stayed there with their wives and children. The train left Sinkat on the night of February 8, 1884 and was hardly intercepted by the Mahdists as soon as it had left Sinkat. The Egyptian soldiers formed a square around the civilians for the upcoming battle . However, the Egyptian troops had no chance against the overwhelming power of the Mahdists and were completely wiped out.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Haim Shaked: The life of the Sudanese Mahdi: A historical study of Kitāb sa ' ādat al-mustahdī bi-sīrat al-Imām al-Mahdī (The book of the bliss of him who seeks guidance by the life of the Imam the Mahdi ) by Ismail by Isma_il b. ' Abd al-Qādir . Transaction Books, New Brunswick, NJ 1978, ISBN 978-0-87855-132-3 , pp. 129 .
2. ↑ PM Holt: The Mahdist State in the Sudan, 1882-1898 . Clarendon Press, Oxford 1958, pp. 73-74 .
3. ↑ Mekki Shibeika: The Independent Sudan . R. Speller, New York 1959, pp. 203 .
4. ↑ Mekki Shibeika: The Independent Sudan . S. 203-204 .
5. ↑ PM Holt: The Mahdist State in the Sudan, 1882-1898 . S. 74-75 .
6. ↑ Mekki Shibeika: The Independent Sudan . S. 204-205 .
7. ↑ PM Holt: The Mahdist State in the Sudan . S. 75 .
8. ↑ Brian Robson: Fuzzy Wuzzy: The Campaigns in Eastern Sudan 1884-85 . Spellmount, Tunbridge Wells 1993, ISBN 978-1-873376-15-7 , pp. 35 .
9. ↑ PM Holt: The Mahdist State in the Sudan . S. 75-76 .
10. ↑ Mekki Shibeika: The Independent Sudan . S. 205-206 .
11. ^ A. Paul: Tewfik Bey . In: University of Khartoum (Ed.): Sudan Notes and Records . tape 35 , no. 1 , June 1954, p. 132-133 .
12. ↑ ^{a b} H. C. Jackson: Osman Digna . Methuen & Co. Ltd., London 1926, p. 32 .
13. ↑ ^{a b c} A. Paul: Tewfik Bey . S. 133 .
14. ↑ ^{a b} Mekki Shibeika: The Independent Sudan . S. 205 .
15. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} P. M. Holt: The Mahdist State in the Sudan, 1881-1898. S. 76 .
16. ↑ HC Jackson: Osman Digna . S. 32-33 .
17. ↑ Mekki Shibeika: The Independent Sudan. S. 206 .
18. ^ A. Paul: Tewfik Bey . S. 134-137 .
19. ↑ PM Holt: The Mahdist State in the Sudan, 1882-1898 . S. 76-78 .
20. ↑ Mekki Shibeika: The Independent Sudan . S. 206-224 .