The Battle of Sheikān with Dr Mohamed Babiker Ahmed “Jabad” (English Version)

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Title

The Battle of Sheikān with Dr Mohamed Babiker Ahmed “Jabad” (English Version)

Description

The Mahdī’s final victory is described here by Dr Mohamed Babiker Ahmed “Jabad”, who is Director of the High Council for Culture, Youth and Sport in the North Kordofan Governorate and the author of a 2013 History of Kordofan.
The Battle of Sheikān, in the plains of Kordofan, was one of the Mahdī’s most significant victories. It effectively ended any hope that the Ottoman-Egyptian colonial administration in Khartoum could stop his jihad through military means. Khartoum’s forces - 10,300 men with 16 artillery pieces and six machine-guns - advanced westwards from the White Nile under the leadership of acting General William Hicks, a British veteran of the Indian Army. But Hicks failed to quell divisions among his own staff over routes, command responsibilities or supply lines. As a result, the government army was severely dehydrated and demoralised when the Mahdī’s commanders, after days of sniping and picking off stragglers among the thorny trees of the Sheikān plain, launched a final attack on the Hicks force near the village of Kāzqīl on 5 November 1883.

Publisher

Making African Connections

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Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International

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