Paintings:The Battle of Abu Klea by William Barnes WollenThe Death of General Gordon, by George W. J

Paintings:The Battle of Abu Klea by William Barnes WollenThe Death of General Gordon, by George W. Joy. Major General Charles George Gordon, 1833 – 1885, aka Chinese Gordon, Gordon Pasha, and Gordon of Khartoum. published c. 1900Portrait of Charles George GordonThe Battle of Abu Klea, or the Battle of Abu Tulayh took place between the dates of 16 and 18 January 1885, at Abu Klea, Sudan, between the British Desert Column and Mahdist forces encamped near Abu Klea. The Desert Column, a force of approximately 1,400 soldiers, started from Korti, Sudan on 30 December 1884; the Desert Column’s mission, in a joint effort titled “The Gordon Relief Expedition”, was to march across the Bayuda Desert to the aid of General Charles George Gordon at Khartoum, Sudan, who was besieged there by Mahdist forces.The Sudan was a dependency of Egypt, which in 1882 was invaded and occupied by the British to safeguard their strategic interests. Though the British oversaw the majority of Egypt’s affairs, they allowed its khedive and his ministers to continue governing the Sudan. Years of Egyptian misrule there fueled a popular revolt led by al-Mahdī. Madhist forces defeated the Egyptians at El Obeid (Al-Ubayyiḍ) in 1882 and overran Kordofan and Darfur in 1883, which prompted discussion of the matter in Britain’s Parliament. However, hoping to avoid the cost of British intervention, Gladstone did not intercede. Sir Evelyn Baring, the British consul general in Cairo, ordered Gordon to oversee the evacuation of Egyptians from the Sudan. He succeeded in evacuating some 2,000 women, children, and sick or wounded soldiers before al-Mahdī’s forces closed in on Khartoum.Gordon, despite British orders to abandon the Sudan, intended to defeat the Mahdists before they would be able to take Egypt as well. He held a defensive line at Khartoum and requested reinforcements but was denied. The Siege of Khartoum commenced on March 13, 1884. Mahdist forces quickly surrounded the city, and Gordon was in need of supplies and troops.On January 26, 1885, some 50,000 Mahdists, taking advantage of a gap in the ramparts along the White Nile and bursting through the Masallamiyyah Gate, stormed the city, overwhelming the defenders. The city’s garrison, having been reduced from some 7,000 men, was butchered, Gordon with it; he was decapitated, and his head was put on a pike. -- source link

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