Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #402103 in Books
• Published on: 2006-01-14
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

Synopsis
This is the astonishing tale of Slatin Pasha (1857 - 1932), the Austrian soldier of fortune. Born near Vienna, the young Slatin had already fought in Bosnia when he was offered a high-ranking military post in the Sudan. This desert kingdom was ruled on behalf of the nearby Egyptian government by General Charles Gordon, the brilliant British soldier turned administrator. With a slim hold on power, Gordon was in need of strong, brave, linguistically talented, young men like Rudolf Slatin. If Slatin was looking for adventure as he rode his camel into Sudan's Darfur province in 1881 he got it in spades when one of the most spectacular wars of the 19th century broke out. Under the leadership of their leader known as the Mahdi, a vast native army arose to throw off their Egyptian overlords and cast out its foreign governors. Slatin was captured and enslaved. Gordon was surrounded at his capital in Khartoum and beheaded. After escaping from brutal slavery, Slatin was awarded military honours by Queen Victoria and returned to the Sudan to assist the very people who had held him in captivity.