User:Washoe the Wise/sandbox/Battle of Abu Kru

Battle of Abu Kru
Part of The Mahdist War
Date 19 January 1885 Location Abu Kru, Sudan Result British victory
Belligerents
United Kingdom	Mahdist Sudan
Commanders and leaders
Herbert Stewart Charles William Wilson

The Battle of Abu Kru, or the Battle of El Gubat, occurred on 19 January 1885 between a small British expeditionary force under Sir Charles Wilson and a large number of Mahdist rebels near the village of Abu Kru in Sudan. The battle was won by the British column and secured their access to the Nile River, allowing their depleted supplies of clean water to be replenished and enabling their continued advance upriver.

The battle formed part of the Nile River Expedition or Gordon Relief Expedition, which embarked in August 1884 from Alexandria in order to rescue General Charles George Gordon and his beleaguered garrison in Khartoum. Gordon and a small troop of soldiers had been besieged in Khartoum since March 1884 by a large Mahdist army, as he refused to abandon the city after facilitating the evacuation of civilians and equipment from Sudan during the Mahdist rebellion.

At Korti the expedition's commander Sir Garnet Wolseley split his forces between a River Column to follow the Nile and a light Desert Column (or Camel Corps) to rapidly cross the desert toward Metemma, where several steamers would transport the advance group to Khartoum and sustain Gordon until the River Column's arrival. During the desert crossing, which proved slower and more arduous than anticipated, the famously impregnable British square battle formation was broken under the coordinated charge of some 10,000 Mahdist warriors at the Battle of Abu Klea on 17 January. The next two days of unbroken marching over waterless terrain brought the Desert Column within a day's reach of the Nile—but a renewed Mahdist army prevented their passage.

In the ensuing Battle of Abu Kru, named for a nearby village, a British square commanded by Sir Charles Wilson marched under heavy fire through the trees thickly bordering the river, leaving part of his troop behind at a zeriba, or brush-fort, containing supplies, artillery, and the wounded. After hours of deadly fire from Mahdist sharp-shooters, the main body of the Mahdist force sprung from the brush and, led by a few standard-bearing cavalry, charged the British soldiers now halted in square formation. Unlike the disaster at Abu Klea, the British formation held firm against the oncoming assault as successive volleys of rifle fire destroyed its momentum, until mounds of bodies impeded the Mahdists' progress and the survivors scattered.

Though the battle was a success for the Desert Column, their mission was not. Wilson regrouped his soldiers and met the awaiting steamers, which, after three days' rest, began the journey south transporting Wilson's advance party to Khartoum. They arrived on 28 January, two days after the Mahdi's followers had conquered the city and beheaded General Gordon.

Origins

The Mahdist Rebellion

In 1881 the renowned Islamic ascetic Mohammed Ahmad Ibn Abdullah proclaimed himself Islam's renewer, the Mahdi, and declared a jihad against the Egyptian government, which he denounced as corrupt, deferential to predatory European powers, and ridden with false believers. Other Islamic figures and brotherhoods rallied behind the Mahdi, and his rebellion soon attracted a sizable following of cattle herders resentful of taxation and moneyed slavers suffering in the government's crackdown on the trade. When later that year an attempt by the Egyptian army to arrest the Mahdi ended in catastrophic failure, his fame and credibility soared. The Mahdist movement swept like wildfire across southern Sudan, at that time controlled by Egypt, accumulating tribal allies and crushing two further Egyptian armies sent to destroy the rebellion. As the Mahdi's forces gained numbers, experience, and equipment Egypt's dominant foreign influence, Britain, grew concerned. The British government had exercised control over Egypt's economy for years as a result of the Khedive's massive spending and consequent debt, but worried about their position should a revolt oust the compliant ruler. Britain had invaded in 1882 to halt Ahmed Urabi's nationalist revolt against the Khedive, asserting unofficial political control over the Egyptian administration in the process, and resolved in 1883 to send a large army, around 10,000 Egyptian soldiers, led by the British commander William Hicks to finally eliminate the Mahdist threat. At the Battle of El Obeid on 3-5 November a huge Mahdist force of 40,000 obliterated Hicks' expedition, killing the commander and nearly every man in his army.

Shocked and dismayed, the British government under William Ewart Gladstone decided to abandon further efforts at quelling the rebellion, hoping also to avoid straining Egypt's gradually recovering finances. Instead, Gladstone's government sent former Governor-General of Sudan and war hero of the Far East General Charles George Gordon to Khartoum in early 1884 to oversee the evacuation of soldiers, loyal civilians, and equipment from Sudan. But upon his arrival in mid-February General Gordon concluded that, contrary to his orders, the only method by which all individuals currently in Sudan could be safely evacuated was the Mahdi's destruction. Mahdist forces besieged Khartoum in March, and multiple sources say Gordon could have easily escaped the well-fortified and garrisoned city until December 1884, but remained in the hopes of giving battle with the Mahdi. As supplies dwindled and the besieging army grew in numbers, Gladstone reluctantly acceded to the raving public's wishes for a relief expedition, but by mid-August many feared it could not possibly reach Khartoum in time.