For background, for anyone not familiar, in early 1885 the Gladstone government, facing strong public and press pressure, found itself reluctantly having to send a relief expedition up the Nile to lift a siege on the city of Khartoum. In Khartoum was a renowned and wildly popular British imperial military celebrity, General Charles ‘China’ Gordon (‘China’ because he had first gained prominence fighting in China’s Taiping Rebellion). He was there because in 1884 the British were effectively in control of Egypt and the government had sent him into Sudan to extract beleaguered Egyptian garrisons, which had become bogged down in a years-long local uprising against Egyptian expansionism. The revolt was led by Muhammad Ahmad bin Abdullah bin Fahal, who styled himself as the Mahdi (the guided one) of Islam.
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The radical military experiment that created Duntroon
Happy Birthday to the Royal Military College, Duntroon, which turns 115 years old on 27 June. Established in 1911, in a homestead on the edge of what is now Canberra (Duntroon being the name of the old Campbell family homestead, now the officers’ mess), it has been...
An Australian disaster in South Africa, Wilmansrust 1901
Australian military history often celebrates battlefield success. But this week I want to look at something different: Australia’s worst military defeat before Gallipoli. It was the costliest Australian engagement of the war, and the performance of the troops...
War and the origin of an Australian cartoon icon
Last week’s newsletter used an image of a political cartoon taken from the radical Sydney periodical, The Bulletin. The cartoon satirically depicts the return of the New South Wales Contingent to Sudan in 1885 and has William Dalley, who as acting-Premier had sent the...
Wars are not always popular
Wars are not always popular, despite claims from governments and rulers that they are just, necessary or being waged in the people’s interests. On 8–9 May 1970 what were then the largest street demonstrations in Australia’s history occurred around the country. They...
How Australia used two wars to secure a treaty
In late April 1952 the Treaty of San Francisco, which ended the war between Japan and the Allies of the Second World War (increasingly styled as the United Nations in the war’s latter years) came into effect. Not everyone signed. India later concluded its own treaty,...