Sudan: A Land in Constant Turmoil

As the latest civil war rages in Sudan with terrible loss of life and huge population displacement, it raises the question of how did it come to this?

James Grant, Cassell's History of the War in Soudan, 1886

Partly it has its origins in the wars between the British and Egyptian forces with Sudan in the 1880’s and 1890’s. The first phase saw the Mahdist revolt against oppressive colonial rule by Egypt which led to the Siege of Khartoum (1884-85), in which General Gordon was sent to relieve the city. It all went terribly wrong and Gordon was killed. The Mahdists then controlled the region for the next ten years. The best visual record of these events is found in Cassell’s History of the War in the Soudan, circa 1886. Full of maps, views and portraits, this gives one of the best contemporary accounts of the War and is very readable. Our copy is beautifully bound and really looks the part.

Ernestine Sartorius, Three Months in the Soudan, 1885

An interesting perspective on life in the Sudan at that time is provided by Ernestine Sartorius, wife of General George Sartorius, who accompanied her husband on his posting to Suakim. Ernestine and her stepdaughter were the only European women in the town and life was very basic. She describes going to the market and only finding camel meat. She was not impressed. Three Months in the Soudan (1885) is a scarce title, nicely illustrated, and here attractively bound in red morocco.

Henry Russell, The Ruin of the Soudan, 1892

Henry Russell, a journalist with the Daily Telegraph and fluent in Arabic, in The Ruin of the Soudan, cause, effect and remedy (1892) gives us a different take on the War. He provides a recap of the previous few years, largely taken from British Government official publications, and looks forward to the British reconquest of the region with its huge potential trade benefits owing to the fertile soil and the trustworthiness of the Sudanese population, whom he saw as people we can do business with. A well-argued book backed up with statistical data, we offer a copy in the original handsome cloth binding.

Winston Churchill, The River War, 1899

The reconquest of the Sudan was an event with unforeseen consequences. A bit like the old lady who swallowed a spider to catch the fly.  To protect Egypt it was necessary to protect the waters of the Nile (mainly from French interference), and to do that, the British had to retake Sudan. Having pacified the Islamic North, and brought in some modernisation, they largely ignored the more unruly Christian South, leading to a great imbalance between the two halves of this vast country. This would eventually lead to the establishment of South Sudan as a separate country in 2011. A great example of Donald Rumsfeld’s ‘unknown unknown’.

The major event in the reconquest was the Battle of Omdurman (1898), in which an Anglo-Egyptian force of 25,000 troops defeated the 60,000 strong Mahdist army. Omdurman was also notable because one of its participants was the young Winston Churchill, who took part in the last great cavalry charge of the British army as part of the 21st Lancers. This was a reckless episode, much like the Charge of the Light Brigade in the Crimean War, that Churchill was fortunate to survive, and his bravery saw him awarded Sudan Medals by both Queen Victoria and the Khedive of Egypt. Truly a defining moment in Churchill’s life. His magisterial account of the wars in the Sudan is given in The River War, 1899, a masterpiece of war reporting and one of his finest works. Ours is a super example in original cloth.

Count Gleichen, The Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, 1905

After the wars, the British Government produced a vast compendium on the Sudan, a sort of East African Domesday Book. Compiled under the editorship of Lord Gleichen who had served in Egypt and Sudan for twenty years, this photographically illustrated survey provides us with a superb record of Sudan at the beginning of the twentieth century, The Anglo-Egyptian Sudan: a compendium prepared by Officers of the Sudan Government. Official Copy, 1905. Done in quite a small edition and largely aimed at an institutional market, it is now quite a scarce work.