United States or Jordan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
One of them, the Ikhshid, in 935 emulated Ibn-Tulun and united part of Syria to Egypt; but the sons he left were almost children, and the power fell into the hands of the regent Kafur, a black eunuch from the Sudan, bought for £25, who combined a luxurious and cultivated court with some military successes and real administrative capacity. III. The Fatimid Caliphs
The advance of this army was delayed by trouble within the Sudan; but the califa, having at length beaten his enemies, in the year 1889 sent large reinforcements northwards to carry on the campaign against Egypt with vigour. The Egyptian troops, with one squadron of hussars, fought a decisive engagement with Wad en Nejumi on August 3rd of the same year.
In the face of such opposition, the English Government, unwilling as they were to interfere, saw that there was no choice open to them but to exercise pressure. They therefore instructed Sir Evelyn Baring, in the event of the Egyptian Government refusing to withdraw from the Sudan, to insist upon the Khedive's appointing other Ministers who would be willing to do so.
Later on he expressed the belief that "the Sudan is a useless possession, ever was so, ever will be so." These words, and certain episodes in his official career in India and in Cape Colony, revealed the weak side of a singularly noble nature. Occasionally he was hasty and impulsive in his decisions, and the pride of his race would then flash forth.
Governor of Suakim 1886-88, adjutant-general of the Egyptian army 1888-92, he was appointed to the command of this army, with the Egyptian rank of Sirdar, in 1890. His service in Egypt was during the period of the Mahdi outbreak, which began in 1883, defeated all the armies sent to quell it, and for years held the Sudan region of Egypt.
The whole scheme of the Gordon mission had irremediably collapsed; worse still, Gordon himself, so far from having effected the evacuation of the Sudan, was surrounded by the enemy. 'The question now is, Sir Evelyn Baring told Lord Granville, on March 24th, 'how to get General Gordon and Colonel Stewart away from Khartoum.
Would he ever come this way again? In the dark of the morning he struck westwards from the Dinder, across a most tedious neck of land, for Senga and the Blue Nile. At six o'clock in the evening Colin Rayne, a young civilian in the Sudan Service, heard, as he sat on the balcony of the mess at Senga, the rhythmical thud of camels swinging in to their rest in the freshness of the night air.
But surely no man was ever charged with duties so complex and contradictory. The qualities of Nestor, Ulysses, and Achilles combined in one mortal could scarcely have availed to untie or sever that knot. The first sharp collision between Gordon and the Home Government resulted from his urgent request for the employment of Zebehr Pasha as the future ruler of the Sudan.
But his face was extraordinarily ugly. His flat, wide nose, thick lips, and small yellow eyes were set off by an upstanding mop of hair. His expression was of extraordinary fierceness. He walked with a free and independent stride, and carried a rifle. "He is not of this country. He is from the west coast, or perhaps Nubia or the Sudan," was Kingozi's conclusion.
I always answered that it was one of the great world-works that had to be done; that it was our business as a nation to do it, if we were ready to make good our claim to be treated as a great World Power; and that as we were unwilling to abandon the claim, no American worth his salt ought to hesitate about performing the task. I feel just the same way about you in the Sudan.
Word Of The Day