Khartoum: The Ultimate Imperial Adventure

(Paperback)

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Description

The British campaign in the Sudan in Queen Victoria's reign is an epic tale of adventure more thrilling than any fiction. The story begins with the massacre of the 11,000 strong Hicks Pasha column in 1883. Sent to evacuate the country, British hero General Gordon was surrounded and murdered in Khartoum by an army of dervishes led by the Mahdi. The relief mission arrived 2 days too late. The result was a national scandal that shocked the Queen and led to the fall of the British government. Twelve years later it was the brilliant Herbert Kitchener who struck back. Achieving the impossible he built a railway across the desert to transport his troops to the final devastating confrontation at Omdurman in 1898. Desert explorer and author Michael Asher has reconstructed this classic tale in vivid detail. Having covered every inch of the ground and examined all eyewitness reports, he brings to bear new evidence questioning several accepted aspects of the story.

Reviews

"A staggering achievement. Asher has delivered a scintillating tale of a period of history that deserves to be remembered." --Guardian
"It is hard to see how this bloody conflict could be more conclusively and convincingly told." --Sunday Times
"This is the most complete picture of the Sudanese campaigns that has yet been published . . . a vigorous and engrossing narrative." --Telegraph

Author Bio

Michael Asher has served in the Parachute Regiment and the SAS Regiment. The author of twenty-four books and presenter of six TV documentaries, he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1996. For his writing and travels, he has been awarded the Lawrence of Arabia Memorial Medal, the Mungo Park Medal and the Ness Award. He lives in Nairobi, Kenya.