Battle of Umm Diwaykarat

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Battle of Umm Diwaykarat
Mahdist camel riders
Mahdist camel riders
date November 24, 1899
place Umm Diwaykarat in Sudan
output British victory
Parties to the conflict

United Kingdom 1801United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland United Kingdom Khedivat Egypt
Flag of Egypt (1882-1922) .svg

Ansar (Mahdists)

Commander

Reginald Wingate

Abdallahi ibn Muhammad

Troop strength
8,000 men 10,000 men
losses

3 dead and 23 wounded

1,000 dead and wounded
3,000 prisoners

In the battle of Umm Diwaykarat in Sudan on November 24, 1899, a British - Egyptian army defeated the supporters of Mahdi Muhammad Ahmad , who died in 1885, under his successor Abdallahi ibn Muhammad . The battle led to the final crushing of the Mahdi uprising .

prehistory

Since his appointment as sirdar of the Egyptian army in 1892 , Horatio Herbert Kitchener had worked on preparing the Egyptian army for the reconquest of Sudan . In 1898, a British-Egyptian expeditionary force was finally put on the march under his leadership, which defeated the Mahdists on September 2, 1898 at the Battle of Omdurman . Subsequently, Omdurman and Khartoum , destroyed by the Mahdi , were occupied, which was then rebuilt by Kitchener. After the Battle of Omdurman, the Mahdists fled south. Here they controlled the area from Darfur to the border with Ethiopia until 1899 .

The battle

In October 1899, Kitchener dispatched 8,000 soldiers under Colonel Francis Reginald Wingate to finally destroy the Caliph Abdallahi ibn Muhammad, the successor to the Mahdi. The caliph's army was 10,000 strong. At 5 a.m., the Mahdists began the attack. But they were repulsed by the fire of the Maxim machine guns . About 1,000 men were wounded or killed on the Mahdist side. The majority of them were captured, including the caliph's son. The caliph himself was killed. The only Mahdist leader who escaped was Osman Digna . He was not captured until 1900, was taken prisoner in Egypt until 1908 and died in 1926.

Result

The battle marks the end of the Mahdi uprising in Sudan, when the Mahdists were able to hold a few areas around Darfur until the 20th century. The reclaimed land was not returned to Egypt, but constituted as an Anglo-Egyptian condominium in 1899 with Kitchener as the first governor-general. Anglo-Egyptian Sudan existed until 1956.

literature

  • Donald Feathertone: Omdurman 1898. Kitchener's Victory in the Sudan . Osprey, London et al. 1993, ISBN 1-85532-368-0 .
  • Arthur Hodges: Kitchener Vorhut-Verlag Schlegel, Berlin 1937.
  • W. Dennistoun Sword, Henry SL Alford: Egyptian Soudan. Its loss and recovery. With Records of the Services of the Officers (1896-8) . Macmillan, London et al. 1898, (Reprinted by Naval & Military Press Ltd, Uckfield 2001, ISBN 1-84342-100-3 ).
  • Michael Barthorp: Blood-red desert sand. The British Invasions of Egypt and the Sudan 1882-98 . Cassell Military Trade Books, London 2002, ISBN 0-304-36223-9 .