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Updated: May 25, 2025
One of its most effective and brilliant features was the construction in the following year of a railway 230 miles across the Nubian desert to save a river journey of 600 miles. The decisive campaign took place in 1898, with the battle on the Atbara and the crushing defeat of the Kalifa at Omdurman in September.
England's occupation of Egypt, at first considered temporary, gave her practical control of the Suez Canal; it also gave her a strong position in the eastern Mediterranean, the lack of which had been one reason for her hostility to the treaty of San Stefano in 1878. The problem of the equatorial provinces had remained vexatious ever since the triumph of the Mahdi and of his successor, the Kalifa.
In this year also the defeat of the Italians at Adowa, and the pressure of the troops of the Kalifa upon Kassala, held by the Italians for the English, did not permit longer delay. A great preparatory work had been done in the ten years previous. A new army had been created. The advance began in March, under the leadership of Sir Herbert Kitchener.
From time to time his shikari would lead his camels and camp-servants out on to an open clearing on the high river bank and announce a name still marked upon the maps. Once there had been a village here, before the Kalifa sent his soldiers and herded the tribes into the towns for his better security. Now there was no sign anywhere of habitation.
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