Product Description

The British campaign in the Sudan in Queen Victoria's reign is an epic tale of adventure more thrilling than any fiction. The story begins with the massacre of the 11,000 strong Hicks Pasha column in 1883. Sent to evacuate the country, British hero General Gordon was surrounded and murdered in Khartoum by an army of dervishes led by the Mahdi. The relief mission arrived 2 days too late. The result was a national scandal that shocked the Queen and led to the fall of the British government. Twelve years later it was the brilliant Herbert Kitchener who struck back. Achieving the impossible he built a railway across the desert to transport his troops to the final devastating confrontation at Omdurman in 1898. Desert explorer and author Michael Asher has reconstructed this classic tale in vivid detail. Having covered every inch of the ground and examined all eyewitness reports, he brings to bear new evidence questioning several accepted aspects of the story. The result is an account that sheds new light on the most riveting tale of honour, courage, revenge and savagery of late Victorian times.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #19541 in Books
• Published on: 2006-11-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

Anthony Sattin, Sunday Times
'It is hard to see how this bloody conflict could be more conclusively and convincingly told'

Philip Ziegler, Telegraph
'This is the most complete picture of the Sudanese campaigns that has yet been published . . . a vigorous and engrossing narrative'

Guardian
'A staggering achievement. Asher has delivered a scintillating tale of a period of history that deserves to be remembered'

Customer Reviews

You Feel You're There
There have been quite a few books written on the subject of the British adventure in the Sudan in the closing years of the last century. None of them captures the atmosphere like Michael Asher's book KHARTOUM. This is probably because Asher lived in the Sudan for ten years, a lot of the time actually with the nomads who formed the Mahdi's army 100 years earlier, but whose way of life was unchanged.
When Wolseley's Camel-Corps marches across the desert to do battle with the dervishes, you can almost taste the dust and smell the camels. His description of the incredible clash between the British soldiers and the Mahdi's forces at Abu Klea was so moving, with amazing courage on both sides, that I read it with tears in my eyes.
Asher has his heroes - Kitchener, who spoke fluent Arabic and Turkish, who started life as an Intelligence Officer spying behind enemy lines disguised as an Arab, and who became Sirdar of the Egyptian Army; Gordon, a mystic masquerading as a soldier, who followed his inner convictions rather than his orders; Sir Evelyn Baring, an honest man who was genuinely trying to get a better deal for the Egyptian peasants; Winston Churchill, the cheeky cavalry subaltern who took part in the last regimental cavalry charge ever made. He also has his villains: the brave but incompetent Burnaby, the inefficient Buller, the society navy officer Beresford, obsessed with his Gardner machine-gun. But Asher's true heroes are the ordinary soldiers on both sides whose guts and dogged determination seem, in retrospect, almost unbelievable.
This is a stunning story, told with the panache and detail of an epic novel, but all the better for being true. Read it!

Best book on the Sudan campaigns by far
What makes Michael Asher's book superior to all the other books covering the British military experience in the Sudan at the end of the 19th Century is his knowledge of the Sudanese side of the conflict. He is able, therefore, to paint a much more complete picture of both sides of the war where previous authors have tended to stick to the European sources and have lacked the first hand experience of the Sudan itself and its many, varied tribes.

Asher has a slightly unusual (but convincingly argued) take on many of the personalities of the story, especially senior British military figures. For instance, he is very critical of Fred Burnaby and Redvers Buller but has a high opinion of Charles Wilson who was made the scapegoat for the failure to break the siege of Khartoum. Again this is an example of Asher's own professional experience allowing him to sidestep the contemporary prejudice for and against these men - Asher served in both the Paras and the SAS and clearly has little time for the amateurish, if colourful, attitudes of many Victorian officers.

Written in a gripping style and about as complete an account as you could hope to find Khartoum cannot be recommended too highly for readers interested in 19th Century history.

From another era
Asher has provided a fast paced, interesting take on the great Gordon saga. His contempt for the higher echelons the British Army echoes is strong again this book - along with his others. The book covers the start of the Mahdi and finishes with the funeral service held after Omdurman.

It was good to read a book where Gordon is held as an example and a hero rather than a delusional drunkard. It has become popular to attack the image of Gordon, who in all fairness was thoroughly stuffed by his own side from the start.

Asher also defends Wilson quite strongly saying he was unfairly held accountable for Wolsey's failings. Asher also provides a good account on the 'who was to blame' question.

All in all a great read with some terrific battle descriptions.