Omdurman is a place of historic battles – Mashemeji contested there in 1985 Cecafa Club championship

By Gishinga Njoroge

Omdurman is a place of many historic battles. You could call the 1985 Cecafa Club Championship one such; when Kenya’s Gor Mahia and AFC Leopards reached the Final here for Dr William Obwaka, a young University of Nairobi student then, to strike twice for Gor AND hand Ingwe one of the most painful defeats by their bitter foes to date.

Without Gor Mahia here for the Nile Basin Cup tournament, Leopards may wish to go all the way and lift the new Cup, bring it to Nairobi and see whether it could wipe some tears.

The Egyptians had once long lorded it over the people of Sudan. After coming down the Nile Ibrahim Pasha, the son of Egypt’s ruler Muhammad Ali Pasha usurped Sudan into his realm. He established Khartoum in 1821 to be an outpost for the Egyptian Army but it became a centre of trade including slave trade.

Then the Egyptians, in cahoots with the British became too cruel to the Sudanese and a local leader who enjoyed spiritual reverence – Mahdi Muhammad Ahman, or simply known as “The Mahdi” – led a resistance.

Troops loyal to “The Magdhi” began a siege of then British controlled Khartoum on March 13 1884.

The British defenders were under the famed General Charles George Gordon.  The siege ended in a wholesome massacre of the Anglo-Egyptian garrison. The heavily damaged city fell to the “Magdhists” on January 26 1885 and all its inhabitants were put to death.

A humiliated Britain sought vengeance and the peace and self-independence of The Magdhi’s people lasted only 14 years.

Then on the grounds in Omdurman where these days several institutions such as the Sudanese house of Parliament, religious university and many social amenities such as club football grounds currently occupy, it was a scene of the bloody “Battle of Omdurman” on September 2 1898 during which British forces, under Herbert Kitchener, defeated the Magdhist forces defending the familiar spots of today’s Omdurman City. In 1899, Khartoum became the capital of an Anglo-Egyptian Sudan.

Massacre of army

Historians take up the narration about the massacre of the army of Sudanese people on the flat plains of Omdurman where these days’ children play football in dusty and sandy stretches.

The Khalifa Abdullahi, leader of the Sudanese and religious successor to the Mahdi, aware of Kitchener’s intentions, had assembled a large army near Omdurman, since 1885 the Magdhist capital, across the Nile from Khartoum.

Kitchener’s army of 17,600 Egyptian and Sudanese troops and 8,200 British regulars, was heavily outnumbered, but had at its disposal fifty pieces of artillery, ten gunboats and five auxiliary steamers on the Nile. It also possessed forty single-barrelled, water-cooled Maxim machine-guns, each capable of firing six hundred rounds a minute. The British infantry was equipped with Lee Metford rifles, or its successor, the .303 Lee Enfield. They both had a range of 2,800 yards, and a skilled rifleman could fire up to ten rounds a minute.

The Khalifa’s army in Omdurman consisted of about 60,000 men. They fought with determination. In terms of weaponry, however, the Khalifa’s army was not quite as primitive as it looked. They had some 15,000 captured shoulder arms, even though they were poorly maintained. Their riflemen were dispersed among the spearmen and sword bearers in the hopes of giving the latter a better opportunity of getting to grips with the enemy. They also possessed some captured pieces of artillery and machine guns but hardly any appropriate ammunition.

The Omdurman army’s frontal assault on the British position the following day, September 2nd, was catastrophic – with thousands of men mown down by the British rifles and machine-guns.

The battle lasted a little more than five hours. As many as 11,000 Magdhists were massacred and 16,000 wounded. The Anglo-Egyptian losses numbered only 500 (dead and wounded).

Perhaps to avenge Gordon’s death at the hands of the Magdhists, Kitchener left the wounded enemy to die on the plains and later, after triumphantly entering Khartoum, he looted the city and murdered many of the Khalifa’s leading followers.