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The Nile Expedition, sometimes called the Gordon Relief Expedition (1884–1885), was a British mission to relieve Major-General Charles George Gordon at Khartoum, Sudan. Gordon had been sent to Sudan to help the Egyptians withdraw their garrisons after the British decided to abandon Sudan in the face of a rebellion led by self-proclaimed Mahdi ...
A small part of the relief expedition (28 men led by colonel Charles Wilson, embarked on two of Gordon's steamboats) arrived within sight of Khartoum two days after it fell. After discovering that they were too late, the surviving British and Egyptian troops withdrew.
Gordon was born in Woolwich, Kent, a son of Major General Henry William Gordon (1786–1865) and Elizabeth (1792–1873), daughter of Samuel Enderby Junior.The men of the Gordon family had served as officers in the British Army for four generations, and as a son of a general, Gordon was raised to be the fifth generation; the possibility that Gordon would pursue anything other than a military ...
The Desert Column, a force of approximately 1,400 soldiers, started from Korti, Sudan on 30 December 1884; the Desert Column's mission, in a joint effort titled the "Gordon Relief Expedition", was to march across the Bayuda Desert to the aid of General Charles George Gordon at Khartoum, Sudan, who was besieged there by Mahdist forces.
Gordon's brother, H. W. Gordon, was of the opinion that the British officers could easily have escaped from Khartoum up until 14 December 1884. [ 34 ] Whether or not it was the Mahdi's intention, in March 1884, the Sudanese tribes to the north of Khartoum, who had previously been sympathetic or neutral towards the Egyptian authorities, rose in ...
Along the way, a messenger from Khartoum reached them [2] and told Earle and Brackenbury that Gordon wished them to come quickly. Even further down the river to Khartoum, they received word that the Mahdists were reported near Hamdab. With a force of natives under a Mudir, the River Column marched forward. After finding out that Gordon's aide ...
The force arrived too late: the first troops on steamboat reached Khartoum on 28 January 1885, to find the town had fallen two days earlier. The Ansar had waited for the Nile flood to recede before attacking the poorly defended river approach to Khartoum in boats, slaughtering the garrison, killing Gordon, and delivering his head to the Mahdi's ...
When the Mahdists reached Khartoum, an attempt was made to use him to induce the commander Charles George Gordon, now Governor-General of Sudan, to surrender. This failing, Slatin was placed in chains, and on the morning of 26 January 1885, an hour or two after the fall of Khartoum, Gordon's head was brought to the camp and shown to the captive.