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The Turco-Egytian Army in Sudan on the Eve of the Mahdiyya, 1877–80

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Alice Moore-Harell
Alice Moore-Harell
Affiliation:
Alice Moore-Harell is Lecturer in Middle East History at the University of Haifa, Mount Carmel, Haifa, Israel.
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Extract

The causes for the mahdi's revolt in Sudan have been fully studied by modern historians and point to economic, social, religious, and administrative short-comings of the sixty-year Turco-Egyptian domination there. As for the timing, one must look attwo factors that together had a decisive influence. First, Egypt's financial difficulties subjected it to increasing European control and, consequently, to the deposition of the Khedive Ismaʿcil in June 1879 and the appointment to the throne of his son Tawfiq, a puppet of the great European powers, thus damaging the prestige of Muhammad ʿAli's dynasty. Further, Cairo was preoccupied throughout 1880–82 by a confrontation between the government and the nationalist movement of the native Egyptian officers in the army, led by Ahmad ʿUrabi, resulting among other things in the lack of a clear policy as regards Sudan. Second, there was the resignation in January 1880 of Colonel Charles Gordon, the governor-general of Sudan, who enjoyed wide political and economic autonomy, and the appointment of Muhammad Raʿuf Pasha, who was subordinated directly to the government in Cairo, as his successor in Khartoum. While Gordon, who had an energetic, enterprising, and authoritative personality, left Sudan in the midst of reforms in almost all fields, Muhammad Raʾuf Pasha had a different nature altogether. He was a mild and gentle ruler whose authority was narrowed by Cairo, where the political state of affairs was turning into chaos.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , February 1999 , pp. 19 - 37
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1999

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References

Notes

Author's note: I thank Prof. P. M. Holt for his valuable comments that have helped me to improve this article.

1 For the early military operations against the mahdi, see Holt, P.M., The Mahdist State in the Sudan 1881–1898 (London: Oxford University Press, 1958), 47–50.Google Scholar

2 Shuqayr, Naʿūum, Taʾrikh al-SūdĀn, reprint (Beirut: DĀr al-Jil 1981), 319–20.Google Scholar

3 For further details regarding modernization of Middle Eastern armies, see Yapp, M., “The Modernization of Middle Eastern Armies in the Nineteenth Century: A Comparative View,” in War Technology Society in the Middle East, ed. Parry, V.J. and Yapp, M.E. (London: Oxford University Press, 1975),330–66.Google Scholar

4 One of Muhammad ʿAli's main reasons for conquering Sudan in 1820–21 was to recruit black soldiers into his newly built army.

5 The origin of the word is Turkish. Literally it means “crack brained.” As to the circumstances in which the Shayqiyya were recruited, see Hill, R., Egypt in the Sudan 1820–1881 (London: Oxford University Press, 1959), 9.Google Scholar

6 Ibid., 27.

7 For further details about Muhammad ʿAli's Nizām al-Jadid and Sudan, see Ibid., 24–28.

8 Ibid., 26; Marsot, Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid, Egypt in the Reign of Muhammad Ali (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Hill, Egypt in the Sudan, 47.

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12 Especially his command over the Chinese army, which fought the Taiping rebels in 1863–64. Gordon is considered by some to be “a soldier for all times” who never held a command over British troops: see Tidrick, K., Empire and the English Character (London: I.B.Tauris &Co.Ltd., 1992), 139Google Scholar. Others were skeptical as to his leadership abilities: see Richardson, F.M., Mars Without Venus (Edinburgh: William Blackwood, 1981), 111Google Scholar. Yet, he was thought by many to be an excellent soldier: see Blunt, W.S.,Gordon at Khartoum (London: Stephen Swift & Co. Ltd., 1911), 89Google Scholar; Sands, E.W.C., The Royal Engineers in Egypt and the Sudan (Chatham: Institution of Royal Engineers, 1937), 125.Google Scholar All of this does not alter the fact that Gordon's education was basically a military one, and he was an officer of the British Royal Engineers.

13 Muhammad ʿAIi's most notable appointment of a foreigner was the Frenchman, Col. O. A. J. Seve, known as Sulaiman Pasha al-Faransawi, who arrived in Egypt in 1816 and was charged with the creation and organization of Egypt's new army.

14 Dye, W., Moslem Egypt and Christian Abyssinia, reprint (New York: Negro University Press, 1969),2–4.Google Scholar Dye himself was an American soldier who joined the Egyptian general staff as Stone's assistant in 1873. He was wounded at the battle of Gura in 1876, and his book is an account of that war. Stone was sacked following the British occupation of Egypt. He was criticized for failure to foresee the gravity of the situation caused by Ahmad ʿUrabi's revolt.

15 It should be noted that not all the foreign officers who joined the Egyptian general staff had combat duties. Some were employed as engineers and surveyors, such as the American Henry Prout Bey, who was also engaged in topographical surveys; others were employed for the purpose of geological missions, such as the Italian Francesco Emiliani del Danziger Bey.

16 Gordon claimed that this rank was equivalent to that of the Duke of Cambridge, who was a friend of his family and encouraged him to accept the position of governor-general of Sudan: Gordon, H.W.,Events in the Life of Charles George Gordon (London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 1886), 28Google Scholar; Gordon to Augusta, 11 March 1877, British Library Manuscripts (hereafter BLM), Add. 51, 294.

17 According to Gordon's letter of appointment as governor-general, he was not answerable to the Egyptian government but solely and directly to the khedive.

18 The only exception was with regard to tax-collecting, which the khedive refused to rescind as a duty of the army: see p. 31.

19 Mudir Dar Fur and Kordofan to Khairi Pasha, 5 Dhu-al-Qaʿda 1295 (10 November 1878), Dār al– Wathāʾiq (hereafter DW), Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia (hereafter ESE), box 20, 48/280.

20 Report on Egypt, 1876, Public Record Office, London WO33/;30.

21 al-Rafiʿi, ʿAbd al-Rahmān, ʿAsr lsmāʿil, 2 vols. (Cairo: Matbaʿat al-Nahda, 1948), 1:164Google Scholar; Shuqayr, Taʾrikh al-Sudan, 293. Egypt's sending forces to accommodate the Ottoman Empire's wars in the 19th century was not unusual. During the Crimean War, for example, Egypt sent an expeditionary force of about 20,000 men to assist the Ottomans; see Toledano, E.R., State and Society in Mid-Nineteenth Century Egypt (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 14.Google Scholar

22 Gordon to Gerald, 11 December 1877, National Army Museum (hereafter NAM), 7312/4.

23 ʿUthman Rifqi Pasha to Cabinet Secretariat, 12 Rabiʿ II 1295 (15 April 1878), DW, ESE, Box 20, 31/17; Gordon to Jenkins, 1 September 1877, Boston City Library (hereafter BCL), Ms. Eng. 411.

24 Ismaʿil to the manager of public works in Sudan, 15 Rabiʿ II 1294 (29 April 1877), DW, ESE, Box 19, 32/365.

25 One Egyptian pound was equal to 1.06 pounds sterling. At today's rate, one Egyptian pound of the late 1870s is equal to approximately 70 pounds sterling.

26 Wakil Massawa to the Ministry of War, 23 Shawwal 1295 (20 October 1878), DW, ESE, Box 20, 2933/107; Gordon to Augusta, 21 May 1879, BLM, Add. 51, 295; Gordon to Augusta, 29 May 1879, BLM, Add. 51, 295.

27 Gordon to Jenkins, 1 September 1877, BCL, Ms. Eng. 411; ʿUthman Rifqi Pasha to Cabinet Secretariat, 12 Rabiʿ II 1295 (15 April 1878), DW, ESE, Box 20, 31/17; Gordon to Cabinet Secretariat, 22 Rabic II 1295 (25 April 1878), DW, ESE, Box 20, 24/3; Gordon to Khairi Pasha, 17 Dhu-al-Qacda 1295 (12 November 1878), DW, ESE, Box 20, 40/452.

28 Dar Fur was occupied by the Egyptians in 1874. For further details, see Hill, , Egypt in the Sudan, 136–38.Google Scholar

29 Shuqayr, Taʾrikh al-ūudān, 294; Gordon to Augusta, 15 June 1877, BLM, Add. 51, 294; Vivian to Derby, 4 August 1877, FO141/107.

30 Gordon to Nygent, 18 July 1877, NAM, 7312/4; Rosset to Vivian, 31 October 1877, FO84/1473.

31 Decree to the manager of public works in Sudan, 4 Safar 1294 (18 February 1877), DW, ESE, Box 19, 18/25; Shibayka, Makki, al-Sūdān fi qarn 1819–1919, reprint (Beirut: Dar al-Jil, 1991), 221.Google Scholar

32 Dye, , Moslem Egypt, 485; Gordon to Jenkins, 1 September 1877, BCL, Ms. Eng. 411. This tactic of capturing the water wells, which were situated approximately sixty kilometers apart, was successful because the mutineers were, in Gordon's words, like deer: they always returned to the same well.Google Scholar

33 Gordon to Gerald, 11 December 1877, NAM, 7312/4.

34 ʿUthman Rifqi Pasha to Khairi Pasha, 14 Rabiʿ II 1294 (28 April 1877), DW, ESE, Box 19, 46'120. Following this appointment, Cairo authorized Gordon to grant him amnesty for killing a Yūzbāshi; Gordon to Barrot Bey, 6 March 1877, BLM, Add. 51, 303; Gordon to Gerald, 11 December 1877, NAM, 7312/4. In 1877, the Red Sea Province was one of the nine provinces of Sudan.

35 ʿUthman Rifqi Pasha to Khairi Pasha, 25 Shawwal 1294 (2 November 1877), DW, ESE, Box 19, 48/232.

36 Gordon to Henry, n.d., 1879, BLM, Add. 52, 395B; Gordon to Augusta, 28 May 1878, BLM, Add. 51, 295; Gessi, R., Seven Years in the Sudan (London: Sampson Low, Marston & Co., 1892), 175–76.Google Scholar

37 ʿUthman Rifqi Pasha to Cabinet Secretariat, 15 Rabiʿ II 1294 (29 April 1877), DW, ESE, Box 19, 24/227; Gordon to Barrot Bey, 15 June 1877, BLM, Add. 51, 303.

38 ʿUthman Rifqi Pasha to Cabinet Secretariat, 12 Rabic II 1295 (15 April 1878), DW, ESE, Box 20, 31/17; Ensor, F.S.C E., Incidents on a Journey through Nubia to Darfoor (London: W.H. Allen & Co., 1881), 23.Google Scholar

39 ʿUthman Rifqi Pasha to Minister of War, 8 Jāamada I 1295 (10 May 1878), DW, ESE, Box 20, 2190/33.

40 Gordon to Khairi Pasha, 20 Rabiʿ II 1294 (4 May 1877), DW, ESE, Box 19, 46/229; ʿUthman Rifqi Pasha to Minister of War, 8 Jamada I 1295 (10 May 1878), DW, ESE, Box 20, 2190/33; Shibayka, al-Sūdān fi qarn, 225.

41 Gordon to Augusta, 20 August 1877, BLM, Add. 51, 294; Gordon to Augusta, 28 May 1878, BLM, Add. 51, 295; Gordon to Augusta, 1 May 1879, BLM, Add. 51, 295.

42 Allen, B.N., Gordon and the Sudan (London: Macmillan and Co. Ltd., 1931), 18Google Scholar; Waller, J.H., Gordon of Khartoum: The Saga of a Victorian Hero (New York: Atheneum, 1988),164.Google Scholar

43 Gordon to Jenkins, 1 September 1877, BCL, Ms. Eng. 411.

44 Hill, Egypt in the Sudan, 148; Hill, R., Gordon: Yet Another Assessment (Durham: Sudan Studies Society of the United Kingdom, 1987), 11Google Scholar; Hill, R. and Hogg, P., A Black Corps d'Elite (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1995), 126.Google Scholar

45 Gordon to Cabinet Secretariat, 2 Rabiʿ I 1295 (6 March 1878), DW, ESE, Box 20, 31/4; Gordon to Cabinet Secretariat, 17 Rabiʿ II 1296 (10 April 1879), DW, ESE, Box 23, 31/5; Khairi Pasha to War Ministry, 9 Jamada II 1296 (31 May 1879), DW, ESE, Box 23, 27/12; Gordon to Khairi Pasha, 15 Rajab 1296 (5 July 1879), DW, ESE, Box 23, 53/131; al-Nur Bey Muhammad ʿAnqara joined the mahdi's forces in 1883 and became an amir in the mahdist state.

46 Gordon to Cabinet Secretariat, 24 Rabic II 1295 (27 April 1878), DW, ESE, Box 20, 31/27; Gordon to Cabinet Secretariat, 26 Rabiʿ II 1295 (29 April 1878), DW, ESE, Box 20, 31/28.

47 Toledano, , State and Society, 182–83.Google Scholar

48 Marsot, Al-Sayyid, Egypt in the Reign of Muhammad AH, 129.Google Scholar

49 ʿUthman Rifqi Pasha to Ismaʿil, 15 Dhu-al-Hijja 1294 (21 December 1877), DW, ESE, Box 19, 54/318.

30 There were a number of European doctors in the Sudanese administration, including the British David Low who was appointed in 1876 as chief medical officer of Sudan, and upon Gordon's appointment was made inspector-general of hospitals, a duty he held till 1880, and the Italian Raffaele Alfieri who served between 1879 and 1880 as government doctor at Dara in Dar Fur.

51 ʿUthman Rifqi Pasha to Ismaʿil, 15 Dhu-al-Hijja 1294 (21 December 1877), DW, ESE, Box 19, 54/318.

52 Gordon to Khairi Pasha, 8 Ramadan 1296 (7 September 1879), DW ESE, Box 23, 53/265. In 1877, Muhammad Pasha Imam al-Khabir served as the governor of the province of Qulqul in western Dar Fur. His support of the rebels resulted in his dismissal.

53 Mudlr Zaila to Cabinet Secretariat, 14 Safar 1295 (17 February 1878), DW, ESE, Box 20, 31/6.

54 ʿUthman Rifqi Pasha to Ismaʿil, 15 Dhu-al-Hijja 1294 (21 December 1877), DW, ESE, Box 19, 54/318; Gordon to Augusta, 20 April 1879, BLM, Add. 51, 295.

55 Gordon to Augusta, 24 January 1879, BLM, Add. 51, 295; Archer, T., The War in Egypt and the Sudan, 4 vols. (London: Blackie & Son, n.d.), 1:190Google Scholar. Most of those soldiers were freed slaves who were nicknamed “Bazinger”: see Hill, , Egypt in the Sudan, fn., 140.Google Scholar

56 The number of soldiers in 1881 was estimated at 41, 491; see Shuqayr, Taʾrikh al-Sūudān, 319.

57 A relatively small number, despite the revolt of some of the Somali tribes. See p. 32.

58 Rough Hand Sketch by Gordon, 1879, FO78/3191; Gordon to Sturge, 16 February 1880, BLM, Add. 47, 609.

59 Ismaʿil to Gordon, 5 Safar 1294 (19 February 1877), DW, ESE, Box 19, 18/2.

60 Messedaglia, L., Uomini D'Africa (Bologna: Licinio Cappelli, 1935 ), 136.Google Scholar

61 Gordon to Nightingale, 29 April 1880, BLM, Add. 45, 806; Gordon to Khairi Pasha, 20 Rabic II1294 (4 May 1877), DW, ESE, Box 19, 46/229; Gordon to Cabinet Secretariat, 9 Dhu-al-Qacda 1295 (4 November 1878), DW, ESE, Box 20, 31/20.

62 Gordon to Augusta, 3 July 1877, BLM, Add. 51, 294; Gordon to Augusta, 30 March 1879, BLM, Add. 51, 295.

63 Binbāshi Muhammad Agha al-Misri to Khairi Pasha, 12 Jamāda II 1296 (3 June 1879), DW, ESE, Box 23, 52/527; Box 23, 52/529. The revolt in Dar Fur erupted again in 1879.

64 Findley, C., Bureaucratic Reform in the Ottoman Empire: The Sublime Porte, 1789–1922 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1980), 161.Google Scholar

65 Gordon to Augusta, 8 August 1877, BLM, Add. 51, 294; Gordon to Cabinet Secretariat, 22 Rabiʿ II 1295 (25 April 1878), DW, ESE, Box 20, 24/3; Gordon to Khairi Pasha, 17 Dhu-al-Qacda 1295 (12 November 1878), DW, ESE, Box 20, 40/452; Hill, R., Slatin Pasha (London: Oxford University Press, 1965), 12Google Scholar;Hill, G.B., Colonel Gordon in Central Africa 1874–1879, reprint (New York: Kraus Reprint Co., 1969);239Google Scholar; Hill, R., ed., The Sudan Memories of Carl Christian Giegler Pasha, 1873–1883 (London: Oxford University Press, 1984), 12Google Scholar; Speedy, C.M., My Wanderings in the Sudan (London: Richard Bentley & Son, 1884), 170.Google Scholar

66 ʿUthman Rifqi Pasha to Cabinet Secretariat, 12 Rabiʿ II 1295 (15 April 1878), DW, ESE, Box 20, 31/17.

67 Cabinet Secretariat to War Minister, 2 Shaʿbān 1294 (12 August 1877), DW, ESE, Box 19, 22/41; ʿUthman Rifqi Pasha to Cabinet Secretariat, 12 Rabiʿ II 1295 (15 April 1878), DW, ESE, Box 20, 31/17;Gordon to Khairi Pasha, 28 Rabic I 1296 (22 March 1879), DW, ESE, Box 23, 52/261.

68 Soldiers were ordered to escort the Anglican missionaries in Equatoria, mainly in order to make sure that their porters did not cheat them: Pearson to Wright, 10 March 1879, Church Missionary Society, C A6 019; Ensor, , Incidents on a Journey, 23.Google Scholar

69 ʿUthman Rifqi Pasha to Ismaʿil, 15 Dhu-al-Hijja 1294 (21 December 1877), DW, ESE, Box 19, 54/318; Khairi Pasha to ʿUthman Rifqi Pasha, 7 Jamāada II 1294 (19 June 1877), DW, ESE, Box 19, 33/33; Slama Bey to Khairi Pasha, 20 Rajab 1294 (31 July 1877), DW, ESE, Box 19, 47/334.

70 Northwestern Uganda of today.

71 Gordon to Khairi Pasha, 6 Rabiʿ II 1294 (20 April 1877), DW, ESE, Box 19, 46/130; Gordon to Khairi Pasha, 20 Rabic II 1294 (4 May 1877), DW, ESE, Box 19, 46/229; ʿUthman Rifqi Pasha to Cabinet Secretariat, 15 Rabic II 1294 (29 April 1877), DW, ESE, Box 19, 23/227; Gordon to Banot Bey, 15 June 1877, BLM, Add. 51, 303.

72 Wylde to Salisbury, 10 October 1879, FO407/11.

73 Gordon to Augusta, 28 January 1878, BLM, Add. 51, 295; Gordon to Kirk, 23 November 1879, National Library, Edinburgh, Mss. 20311; Schweinfurth, G., ed., Emin Pasha in Central Africa (New York: Dodd, Mead, & Co., 1889), 62.Google Scholar

74 Schweinfurth, , Emin Pasha, 123.Google Scholar

75 Gordon to Augusta, 17 March 1879, BLM, Add. 51, 295; See also Shuqayr, Taʾrikh al-Sūdān, 304.

76 Mudir Zaila to Cabinet Secretariat, 22 Rabiʿ I 1296 (16 March 1879), DW, ESE, Box 23, 31/3.

77 Rudolf Karl von Slatin was an Austrian officer who in 1879 served as governor of Dara, and from 1881 as governor of Dar Fur. In 1884, he surrendered to the Mahdists and was held prisoner for eleven years until his escape in 1895. Following the establishment of the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium in 1899, he was appointed as the inspector-general of Sudan, a duty he held until 1914. His book Fire and Sword in the Sudan is an account of his experience there. Giacomo Bartomeo Messedaglia was an Italian soldier and administrator. He joined the Egyptian general staff in 1876. In 1878 he was transferred to Sudan and appointed as governor of Dara, and in 1879 as governor-general of Dar Fur.

78 Gordon to Khairi Pasha, 1 Shaʿbān 1296 (21 July 1879), DW, ESE, Box 23, 53/73.

79 Romolo Gessi was a Italian soldier and administrator. Between 1872 and 1876, he served in Equatoria, resigned, and left Sudan only to return in 1877 as a private citizen on a journey of exploration to the Blue Nile basin. However, the failure of the expedition caused his return to Khartoum in 1878. Following the suppression of the revolt he was appointed governor of Bahr al-Ghazal Province.

80 Report by Gessi to Gordon, addition to his report of 16 April 1879, n.d., L'Archivio del Museo Africano, Roma, 1/5; Gordon to Gessi, 4–7 April 1879, BLM, Add. 54, 495A; Gordon to Sturge, 16 February 1880, BLM, Add. 47, 609.

81 James, Wendy, Baumann, G. and Johnson, D.H., eds., Juan Maria Schuver's Travels in North East Africa 1880–1883(London: Hakluyt Society, 1996), xxxi.Google Scholar

82 Holt, , The Mahdist State, 32.Google Scholar

83 Earl of Cramer, Modern Egypt, 2 vols. (London: Macmillan & Co., 1908), 2:470Google Scholar.