Sudan Gallery

Battle of Abu Klea, 17 January 1885

Battle of Abu Klea, 17 January 1885. Oil on canvas signed and dated lower left: W B Wollen 1896, by William Barns Wollen (1857-1936), 1896. In a race against time to relieve General Gordon, besieged at Khartoum, a relief column under General Sir Garnet Wolseley set out from Cairo in October 1884. Realising that his infantry, travelling in boats up the Nile, might not reach Khartoum in time to save Gordon, Wolseley detached a Desert Column to travel overland by a faster but more dangerous route. On 17 Jan 1885 this Column, commanded by General Herbert Stewart, was attacked by the Mahdists at Abu Klea. The resulting battle was later described by Winston Churchill as the most savage and bloody action ever fought in the Soudan by British troops'. The British square broke and was closed only after desperate hand-to-hand fighting. The British suffered 168 casualties, the Mahdists about 1100. The Column finally reached Khartoum on 28 January, two days after the town had fallen. Date: 1885

© The National Army Museum / Mary Evans Picture Library

Map of Saudi Arabia with Flag

The map shows Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a desert country in southwestern Asia (Middle East) that occupies most of the Arabian Peninsula.
The kingdom is bounded by the Gulf of Aqaba and the Red Sea in the west and the Persian Gulf in the east. Border countries are Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Saudi Arabia shares maritime boundaries with Bahrain, Egypt, Eritrea, Iran, and Sudan.
The country is the largest Arab state with a land area of more than two million km?; compared, the sheikdom is about four times the size of France, or somewhat larger than one quarter the size of the contiguous United States

Sudan - A group of Hadendoa Warriors

Sudan - A group of Hadendoa Warriors. The Hadendoa is the name of a nomadic subdivision of the Beja people, known for their support of the Mahdiyyah rebellion during the 1880s to 1890s. The area historically inhabited by the Hadendoa is today parts of Sudan, Egypt and Eritrea. Their elaborate hairdressing (pictured here) gained them the name of "Fuzzy-wuzzies" among the British troops during the Mahdist War. Date: circa 1920s

© Mary Evans / Grenville Collins Postcard Collection