Battle of Abu Klea

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Battle of Abu Klea
Part of The Mahdist War
Date 17 January 1885 Location Khartoum Result British Victory
Combatants
British	Mahdists
Commanders
Sir Garnet Wolseley	Muhammad Ahmad(overall command)
Strength
1,500	12,000
Casualties
76 killed 82 wounded	1,100 killed and wounded

Battles of the Mahdist War
El Obeid – El Teb – Khartoum – Abu Klea – Toski – Battle of Atbara – Omdurman – Umm Diwaykarat

Abu Klea (in Arabic: أبو طليح , pronounced: Abu Tuleih) is a halting-place for caravans in the Bayuda Desert of Sudan. It is on the road from Merawi to Metemma and 20 m. N. of the Nile at the last-mentioned place.

[edit] History

Near this spot, on 17 January 1885, a British force marching cross-country to the relief of General Gordon at Khartoum was attacked by the Mahdists, who were repulsed. On the 19th, when the British force was nearer Metemma, the Mahdists renewed the attack, again unsuccessfully. The opposing forces consisted of the 1,500 British of the Desert Column under Sir Herbert Stewart, against a Dervish force of 12,000. While the main British force (the River Column), led by General Sir Garnet Wolseley travelled by river from Korti to Khartoum, Stewart's column was to cut across country by column directly for Khartoum, since time was running short according to what little information was available from the garrison. The force was composed of four regiments of camel-mounted troops (Guard, Heavy, Light & Mounted Infantry), formed from detachments of the various regiments in Egypt and the River Column, and a detachment of the 19th Hussars, mounted on horses. Four light field pieces and a small Naval Brigade manning a Gardner machine gun finished off the force.

As the column approached the wells at Abu Klea, they were set upon by a Mahdist force. The troops were formed in square, with the cannon on the north face and the Naval Brigade, with their Gardner, at a corner. Several officers and men of HMS Alexandra were killed at the battle. The Gardner gun, was run out to the left flank of the infantry square to provide covering fire. The square closed behind them leaving them exposed. After seventy rounds were fired, the gun jammed and as the crew tried to clear it they were cut down in a rush by the dervishes. Out of the forty men in the Naval contingent, Lieutenants Alfred Piggott and Rudolph de Lisle were killed along with Chief Boatswain's Mate Rhodes and five other seamen and seven more were wounded. Lord Charles Beresford was 'scratched' on the left hand by a spear as he managed to duck under the gun. The weight of the rush pushed the sailors back into the face of the square. Several Dervishes were able to gain access to the square, but found the interior full of camels and were unable to proceed. The troops in the rear ranks faced about and opened fire into the press of men and camels behind them, and were able to drive the Dervishes out of the square and compelling them to retreat from the field.

The battle was remarkably short, lasting barely fifteen minutes from start to finish. Casualties for the British were nine officers and 65 other ranks killed and over a hundred wounded. The Mahdists lost 1,100 dead during the quarter hour of fighting, made all the worse by the fact that only around half of the Dervish force was actually engaged. British national hero Colonel F. G. Burnaby of the Royal Horse Guards was killed by a spear to the throat. Another action happened the next morning and the advance rescue force leader Sir Herbert Stewart was killed leaving command to the inexperienced leader Sir Charles Wilson (the column's intelligence officer) who was slower in organizing his forces.

[edit] Aftermath

The column was too late to save Khartoum; it was taken by the Mahdists just a few days later leading to the death of General Charles Gordon. The Dervishes of Mahdi ruled the Sudan for the next thirteen years at the British defeat as the British pulled out of the area. The official public blame of the failed rescue was left with Prime Minister Gladstone for delaying several months for authorizing a rescue. Prime Minister Gladstone lost the public confidence and much authority within two months of the failed rescue.

The battle was celebrated by the Scottish doggerel poet McGonnal:

Ye sons of Mars, come join with me, And sing in praise of Sir Herbert Stewart’s little army, That made ten thousand Arabs flee At the charge of the bayonet at Abou Klea

and so on for 19 stanzas

[edit] References

• Craig, Simon, “Breaking the Square: Dervishes vs. Brits at the 1885 Battle of Abu Klea”, Military Heritage, volume 3, No. 3 (December 2001), 78-84. (Describes the failed British attempt to rescue major general Charles Gordon and friendly forces at Khartoum from the Dervishes led by the Mahdi.)

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.