The River War - An Account of the Reconquest of the Sudan

Winston S. Churchill (1874 - 1965)

When the self-proclaimed Mahdi (“Guided One”) gathered Islamic forces and kicked the Anglo-Egyptians out of the Sudan, he unleashed a backlash. With the image of the heroic General Charles Gordon dying at Khartoum, the British public was ready to support a war to reclaim the lost territories. And when the political time was right, a British-Egyptian-Sudanese expedition led by the redoubtable Herbert Kitchener set out to do just that.

The river involved was the Nile. For millennia, its annual flood has made habitable a slender strip, though hundreds of miles of deserts, between its tributaries and its delta. Through this desolate region, man and beast struggled to supply the bare essentials of life. Though this same region, the expedition had to find and defeat an enemy several times larger than itself.

The young Churchill was hot to gain war experience to aid his career, and so he wangled a transfer to the 21st Lancers and participated in the last successful cavalry charge the world ever saw, in the climactic battle of Omdurman. He also had a position as war correspondent for the Morning Post, and on his return to England he used his notes to compose this book.

Genre(s): War & Military, History, Memoirs

Language: English

Section Chapter Reader Time
Play 01 The Rebellion of the Mahdi, Part 1 Mark F. Smith
00:42:19
Play 02 The Rebellion of the Mahdi, Part 2 Mark F. Smith
00:42:49
Play 03 The Fate of the Envoy, Part 1 Mark F. Smith
00:40:26
Play 04 The Fate of the Envoy, Part 2 Mark F. Smith
00:42:02
Play 05 The Dervish Empire Mark F. Smith
00:47:57
Play 06 The Years of Preparation Mark F. Smith
00:42:38
Play 07 The Beginning of the War Mark F. Smith
00:45:57
Play 08 Firket Mark F. Smith
00:21:16
Play 09 The Recovery of the Dongola Province Mark F. Smith
00:53:46
Play 10 The Desert Railway Mark F. Smith
00:49:55
Play 11 Abu Hamed Mark F. Smith
00:41:55
Play 12 Berber Mark F. Smith
00:36:45
Play 13 Reconaissance Mark F. Smith
00:30:39
Play 14 The Battle of the Atbara Mark F. Smith
00:29:18
Play 15 The Grand Advance Mark F. Smith
00:29:20
Play 16 The Operations of the First of September Mark F. Smith
00:27:35
Play 17 The Battle of Omdurman, Part 1 Mark F. Smith
00:31:58
Play 18 The Battle of Omdurman, Part 2 Mark F. Smith
00:45:03
Play 19 The Fall of the City Mark F. Smith
00:21:47
Play 20 The Fashoda Incident Mark F. Smith
00:33:51
Play 21 On the Blue Nile Mark F. Smith
00:44:23
Play 22 The End of the Khalifa Mark F. Smith
00:42:20
Play 23 Appendix Mark F. Smith
00:10:00