General Charles George Gordon (known as Chinese Gordon and Gordon Pasha) was an English military leader. He was born in 1833 at Woolwich and died in 1885 following his capture during the siege of Khartoum. He entered the Royal Engineers in 1852, and served in the Crimea from 1854 to 1856. During the Taeping rebellion in China Charles Gordon succeeded in completely crushing the revolt by means of a specially-trained corps of Chinese, exhibiting marvellous feats of skilful soldiership. On his return to England with the rank of colonel he was appointed chief engineer officer at Gravesend, where his military talents and philanthropy were conspicuously displayed.
From 1874 to 1879 he was governor of the Sudan under the Khedive. For a few months in 1882 he held an appointment at the Cape, and he had just accepted a mission to the Congo from the king of the Belgians, when he was sent to withdraw the garrisons shut up in the Sudan by the insurgent Mahdi. He was shut up in Khartoum by the rebels, and gallantly held that town for a whole year. A British expeditionary force under Lord Wolseley was despatched for his relief; an advance corps of which sighted Khartoum on the 24th of January, 1885, to find that the town had been treacherously betrayed into the hands of the Mahdi two days before, and Charles Gordon killed. Charles Gordon's character was marked by strong religious feelings, which latterly became so intensified as to make him somewhat of a religious enthusiast and fatalist. Research General Charles Gordon
Sir Charles Vere Francis Townshend was an English soldier and politician. He was born in 1861 and died in 1924. He entered the Royal Marines in 1881, and saw service in the Suakin operations and in the Nile Expedition. In 1886 he transferred to the Indian Staff Corps, and in 1891 accompanied the expedition against the Hunza and Nagar tribes. He came to prominence following his defence of Chitral for which he was awarded the CB. He was at Atbara and Khartoum in 1898 and served in the South African War from 1899 until 1900, when he was transferred to the British army, joining the Royal Fusiliers. After various commands in India, he became major-general in 1911 and commander of a territorial division in 1912. He returned to India in 1913.
Early in 1915 he was sent to Mesopotamia at the head of a division, and after gaining several victories, had to retreat to Kut, which he defended for five months.. Taken prisoner after the fall of Kut he was removed to Constantinople, and was interned in Prinkipo Island.
He was knighted in 1916 and resigned from the army in 1920, becoming an independent member of parliament for the Wrekin division, joining the Conservative Party in 1922. Research Sir Charles Townshend
The Battle of Abu Klea was an engagement between British forces and Dervishes in the Sudan on January 17th 1885 at Abu Klea, a group of wells on the track from Korti to Metemmeh. A camel corps with about 1800 troops under General Herbert Stewart, part of the British expedition to relieve General Charles Gordon in Khartoum, was attacked by 10000 Dervishes. The British force formed a square that was broken for a short time; it closed up again and beat off the attack, but ColonelFrederick Burnaby, a noted soldier and explorer, was killed in the battle. Research Battle of Abu Klea
The Royal Warwickshire Regiment was one of the five English regiments that suffered terribly at Almanza in 1707. It was raised as the 6th Regiment of Foot under the Dutch Government in late Stewart times, and returned to England with William of Orange in 1688. The regiment saw action at Echalar, Namur, Martinique, Rolica, Vimiera, Corunna, Vittoria, South Africa, Khartoum and during the Great War the 1st and 2nd Battalions were part of the original British Expeditionary Force. The Royal Warwickshiretitle was conferred in 1832. Research Royal Warwickshire Regiment
HMS Khartoum was a British Javelin Class destroyer of 1690 tons displacement launched in 1939 and sunk during the Second World War. She was armed with six 4.7-inch guns; six smaller guns and ten 21-inch torpedo tubes. She was powered by two Admiralty 3-drum type boilers providing a top speed of 36 knots and carried a complement of 183. Research Khartoum
Abu Klea is a group of wells, surrounded by steep, black mountains, about 120 miles from Khartoum, in the Sudan, where, on the 17th of January, 1885, Sir Herbert Stewart, with 1500 men, defeated the Mahdi's troops, numbering 10,000. Research Abu Klea
The Arab Republic of Egypt is a republic in north-east Africa. It has a total area of 1,001,450 km2. The climate is desert, extremely clear and dry, the temperature regular and exceedingly hot. The winter months are the most delightful part of the year; later, the ground becomes parched and dry, and in May the suffocating khamseen, or simoom, begins to blow from the desert plains. Rain is scanty except near the sea-shore; but at night the dews are heavy in lower Egypt, and the air cool and refreshing.
The terrain is comprised of a vast desert plateau interrupted by the Nilevalley and delta. Natural resources are crude oil, natural gas, iron ore, phosphates, manganese, limestone, gypsum, talc, asbestos, lead, zinc. The religion is 94% Muslim (mostly Sunni), 6% Coptic Christian and other. The official language is Arabic with English and French also widely understood by the educated classes.
Egypt has an ancient history of civilisation. When Abraham entered the Delta from Canaan the Egyptians had been long enjoying the advantages of a settled government. They had built cities, invented hieroglyphic signs, and improved them into syllabic writing, and almost into an alphabet. They had invented records, and wrote their kings' names and actions on the massive temples which they raised. The arrangement of Egyptian chronology is still a much- disputed point amongst scholars. A list of the kings of Egypt, arranged In thirty dynasties, was given by the priest Manetho about 250 BC, and this division is still used. His list, however, is in a very corrupt condition and his method is not strictly chronological. Hence in the various systems of chronology adopted by Egyptologists the dates assigned to Mena (or Menes) vary from 5702 to 2440 BC.
According to tradition Mena formed the old empire of Egypt and founded its capital Memphis. The IVth Dynasty is distinguished as the 'Pyramid Dynasty.' Three of its kings, Khufu, Khafra, and Menkaura (according to Herodotus, Cheops, Chephren, and Mykerinos), built the largest pyramids. The date assigned to these kings in the chronology of Lepsius is 2800-2700.
About 2400 the government of the empire seems to have been transferred from Memphis to Thebes, and with the beginning of Dynasty XII the Theban line was firmly established. The chief princes of this dynasty are Amenemhat I (2380), who seems to have extended the power of Egypt over a part of Nubia; Usurtasan I, who made further conquests in this direction; and Amenemhat III (2179), who constructed Lake Meri (Mosris), a large reservoir for regulating the water supply of the Nile.
About 2100 Egypt was conquered by the Hyksos, or shepherd kings, who invaded Egypt from the east and established their capital at Tanis (Zoan). The Theban princes seem, however, to have preserved a state of semi-independence, and at last a revolt commenced which ended by the shepherd kings being completely driven out of Egypt by King Aahmes (Amasis) of Thebes (about 1600), the first of the XVIIIth Dynasty. With Aahmes and the expulsion of the shepherd kings began the reigns of those great Theban kings who built the magnificent temples and palaces at Thebes.
The kings of the other parts of Egypt sank to the rank of sovereign priests. Thutmes (or Thothmosis II.) added Memphis to his dominions by his marriage with Queen Nitocris. Under Thutmes III and his successors there were successful expeditions against the Syrians and the Ethiopians. Amenhotep III set up his two gigantic statues in the plain of Thebes, one of which the Greeks called the musical statue of Memnon.
The Ramessides form the XIXth Dynasty. They commence with Ramses I, who seems to have been of Lower Egyptian extraction. His grandson, the great Ramses II, or Sesostris, was successful against the neighbouring Arabs, and covered Egypt with magnificent buildings. Ramses II was probably the Pharaoh who oppressed the Hebrews, and the exodus may have occurred under his successor Meneptah or Merenptah. under the later Ramessides the Egyptian empire began to decay.
A new dynasty, XXI, came to the throne with King Hirhor. The seat of their power was Tanis in the Delta. During this period a great number of foreigners, Libyans as well as Asiatics, established themselves in Egypt. About 961 Sheshenk I, the Shishak of the Bible, of a Shemite family from Bubastis, established a new dynasty (XXII). He attempted to restore Egyptian rule in the East, and conquered and plundered Jerusalem. After his death Egypt was torn by civil wars, and eventually the Ethiopians under Shabak (Sabako) conquered it (XXVth Dynasty).
For a time Egypt was subject alternately to Ethiopian and Assyrian princes, but in the 7th century the kings of Sa'is once more restored its independence and prosperity to Egypt. Psamethik I (Psammetichus) warred successfully in Syria and Palestine. King Nekho (610-594) defeated Josiah, king of Judah, but his further progress was checked by Nebuchadnezzar. His sailors circumnavigated Africa. Uahbra (the Greek Apries, the Hophrah of the Bible); and Aahmes II (Greek Amasis) followed. About 523 Cambyses, King of Persia, overran Egypt and made it a Persian province. During the reign of Cambyses the Egyptians suffered much oppression. After the Persian defeat at Marathon the Egyptians rose and recovered their independence for a short time, but were again subdued, and, in spite of two other revolts, Egypt remained a Persian province until Persia itself was conquered by Alexander the Great in 332 BC.
Egypt now became a Greek state, many Greeks having been already settled in the country, and the Egyptians were treated as an inferior race. Alexandria was founded as the new Greek capital. On Alexander's death his general, Ptolemy, took possession of the throne and became the first of a Greek dynasty that for three hundred years made Egypt one of the chief kingdoms of the world. The Ptolemies were magnificent patrons of letters and arts. Theocritus, Callimachus, Euclid the geometrician, the astronomers Eratosthenes and Arafcus, etc, flourished under their rule. But while the Alexandrian Greeks managed to keep down the native Egyptians, they were themselves sinking under the Romans. Ptolemy Auletea went to Rome to ask help against his subjects, and the famous Cleopatra maintained her power only through her personal influence with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony.
On the defeat of Mark Antony by Augustus, in 30 BC, Egypt became a province of Rome. It was still a Greek state, and Alexandria was the chief seat of Greek learning and science. On the spread of Christianity the Old Egyptian doctrines lost their sway. Now arose in Alexandria the Christian catechetical school, which produced Clemena and Origen. The sects of Gnostics united astrology and magic with religion. The school of Alexandrian Platonics produced Plotinus and Proclus. Monasteries were built all over Egypt; Christian monks took the place of the pagan hermits, and the Bible was translated into Coptic.
On the division of the great Roman Empire in 395, in the time of Theodosius, into the Western and Eastern Empires, Egypt became a province of the latter, and sank deeper and deeper in barbarism and weakness. It was conquered in 640 by the Saracens under Caliph Omar. As a province of the caliphs it was under the government of the celebrated Abbasides - Harun-al-Rashid and Al-Mamun - and that of the heroic Sultan Saladin. The last dynasty was, however, overthrown by the Mamelukes in 1250; and the Mamelukes in their turn were conquered by the Turks during 1516 - 1517. The Mamelukes made repeated attempts to cast off the Turkishyoke, and had virtually done so by the end of the 18th century, when the French conquered Egypt and held it until 1801, when they were driven out by the British under Abercromby and Hutchinson.
On the expulsion of the French a Turkish force under Mehemet Ali Bey took possession of the country. Mehemet Ali was made pasha, and being a man of great ability administered the country vigorously and greatly extended the Egyptian territories. At length he broke with the Porte, and after gaining a decisive victory over the Ottoman troops in Syria in 1839 he was acknowledged by the sultan as viceroy of Egypt, with the right of succession in his family. Mehemet Ali died in 1849, having survived his son Ibrahim, who died in 1848. He was succeeded by his grandson Abbas, who, dying in 1854, was succeeded by his uncle Said, son of Mehemet. Under his rule railways were opened, and the cutting of the SuezCanal commenced.
After Said's death Ismail Pasha, a grandson of Mehemet Ali, obtained the government in 1863. His administration was vigorous but exceedingly extravagant, and brought the finances of the country into disorder. In 1866 he obtained a firman from the sultan granting him the title of khedive. In 1879 he was forced to abdicate under pressure of the British and French governments, and was replaced by his son Tewfik. In 1882 the 'national party' under Arabi Pasha revolted and forced the khedive to flee. On July 11 a British fleet bombarded Alexandria and restored the khedive, and at Tel-el-Kebir Arabi's forces were totally crushed on the 13th September. A rebellion in the Sudan under the leadership of Mohammed Ahmed, the so-called mahdi, now gave the government trouble.
In 1883 the mahdi's forces annihilated an Egyptian force in Kordofan. British troops sent to Suakin inflicted two severe defeats on the mahdi's followers; but the British cabinet resolved to abandon the Sudan, and General Gordon was sent to withdraw the garrisons. He was shut up in Khartoum by the mahdi's forces for nearly a year, and was murdered in January 1885 before the relief expedition under Wolseley could reach him. The country south of Wady Haifa was then given up, but was reconquered under LordKitchener, the crowning victory being at Omdurman, near Khartoum in 1898.
Egypt remained a kingdom until 1952 when King Farouk was overthrown in a coup and Egypt became a republic.
Abbreviations
Research General Charles Gordon
