The siege of Khartoum (also known as the battle of Khartoum or fall of Khartoum) took place from 13 March 1884 to 26 January 1885. Sudanese Mahdist forces captured the city of Khartoum, Sudan, from its Egyptian garrison, thereby gaining control over the whole of Turco-Egyptian Sudan.
Egypt had conquered Sudan in 1820, but had itself come under British domination in 1882. In 1881, the Mahdist War began in Sudan, led by Muhammad Ahmad who claimed to be the Mahdi. The Egyptian Army was unable to suppress the revolt, being defeated in several battles and retreating to their garrisons. The British refused to send a military force to the area, instead appointing Charles George Gordon as Governor-General of Sudan, with orders to evacuate Khartoum and the other garrisons. Gordon arrived in Khartoum in February 1884, where he found it impossible to reach the other garrisons which were already besieged. Rather than evacuating immediately, Gordon began to fortify the city, which was cut off when the local tribes switched their support to the Mahdi. Approximately 7,000 Egyptian troops and 27,000 (mostly Sudanese) civilians were besieged in Khartoum by 30,000 Mahdist troops, rising to 50,000 by the end of the siege.
Attempts by the defenders to break out of the city failed. Food supplies began to run out; they had been expected to last six months, but the siege went on for ten, so the garrison and civilian population began to starve. After months of public pressure, the British government reluctantly agreed to send troops to relieve the siege. When the relief column began to approach the city, the Mahdists launched a night assault on Khartoum. They broke through the defences and killed the entire garrison, including Gordon. A further 4,000 male civilians were killed, while many women and children were enslaved. The relief expedition arrived two days later; realising they were too late, they withdrew from Sudan. The Mahdi then founded a religious state in Sudan, the Mahdiyah, which would last for fourteen years.
The Khedivate of Egypt was nominally a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire, but came under British military occupation during the 1882 Anglo-Egyptian War, making it a de facto British protectorate. Egypt was mostly left to govern itself under the Khedive, though its finances remained under a system of dual control that had begun in the 1870s. The British regarded Egypt's possession of Sudan as a domestic matter.
A revolt had begun in Sudan in 1881, when Muhammad Ahmad claimed to be the mahdi – the redeemer of Islam prophesied in the hadith scriptures. This Mahdist revolt was supported by many in Sudan, both for religious reasons and due to a desire for independence from Egypt.
The Egyptian Army attempted to suppress the revolt, but were defeated by the Mahdists in November 1883 at the Battle of El Obeid. The Mahdi's forces captured the Egyptians' equipment and overran large parts of Sudan, including Darfur and Kordofan. However Egypt still maintained several strong garrisons in Sudan, including at Khartoum.
The Egyptian defeat at El Obeid brought the Mahdi Revolt to the attention of the British government and public. The British Prime Minister, William Gladstone, and his War Secretary, Lord Hartington, did not want British troops to become involved in Sudan. If Egypt fought the war itself, they were concerned that the expense would prevent Egypt from paying the interest on its extensive debts to Britain (and France). The British put pressure on the Egyptian government to evacuate all their garrisons in Sudan, abandoning it to the Mahdists. The British soldier Major-General Charles George Gordon, a former Governor-General of Sudan (1876–1879), was re-appointed to that post, with orders to conduct the evacuation.
Gordon's views on Sudan were radically different from Gladstone's: Gordon felt that the Mahdi's rebellion had to be defeated before it gained control of the whole of Sudan. The Mahdi claimed dominion over the entire Islamic world, which led Gordon to believe that the revolt would not end with control of Sudan, but would attempt to conquer Egypt and perhaps the wider region. Gordon was also concerned by the fragility of the Egyptian army, which had suffered several defeats by the Sudanese. Gordon favoured a more aggressive policy in Sudan, as did the imperialist author Sir Samuel Baker and Sir Garnet Wolseley, who had commanded British forces in the 1882 war. Gordon published his views on Sudan in The Times in January 1884.
Despite this, Gordon was commanded to evacuate Sudan, which he agreed to do. He was given funds of £100,000 in credit and was promised "all support and cooperation in their power" by the British and Egyptian authorities. On his way to Khartoum with his assistant, Colonel John Stewart, Gordon stopped in the town of Berber, Sudan to address an assembly of tribal chiefs. There he made a major mistake, by revealing that the Egyptian government planned to withdraw their troops from Sudan. The tribesmen became worried by this news, which caused their loyalty to waver.
Gordon arrived at Khartoum on 18 February 1884, finding it was safely occupied by a garrison of 7,000 Egyptian troops and 27,000 civilians. However three smaller garrisons, at Sennar, Tokar and Sinkat, were under siege by the Mahdists. Rather than evacuating Khartoum immediately, Gordon declared his intention to extricate the other garrisons, and set about administering Sudan. His first actions were to reverse several policies introduced by the Egyptians since he had last been Governor-General five years earlier: arbitrary imprisonments were cancelled, torture was halted and its instruments were destroyed, and taxes were remitted. To enlist the support of the population, Gordon re-legalised slavery in Sudan, despite having (unsuccessfully) attempted to abolish it in his previous term. This decision was popular in Khartoum, but caused controversy in Britain.
Seeking to bolster Khartoum's defences, Gordon then attempted to secure reinforcements. He requested a regiment of Turkish soldiers from the Ottomans, who were still the nominal overlords, which was rebuffed. He then asked the British for a unit of Muslim Indian troops, and later for 200 native British soldiers. These were also refused by the Gladstone cabinet, which was still intent upon evacuation and adamant they would make no military intervention in Sudan.
Gordon began to resent the government's policy, and his telegrams to the British office in Cairo became more bitter. He declared himself honour-bound to rescue the garrisons and defend the Sudanese in Khartoum; it is unclear whether this was a deliberate attempt to delay the evacuation (or avoid it entirely). On 8 April he wrote: "I leave you with the indelible disgrace of abandoning the garrisons" and added that such a course would be "the climax of meanness".
Knowing that the Mahdists were closing in, Gordon ordered the strengthening of the fortifications around Khartoum. The city was protected to the north by the Blue Nile and to the west by the White Nile. To defend the river banks, he formed a flotilla of gunboats from nine small paddle-wheel steamers, which had been used for communication along the river, by fitting them with guns and metal plates for armour. In the southern part of the town, which faced the open desert, he prepared an elaborate system of trenches, makeshift Fougasse-type land mines, and wire entanglements. The surrounding country was controlled by the Shagia tribe, which were thought to be hostile to the Mahdi.
On 16 March Gordon launched an unsuccessful sortie from Khartoum, with 200 Egyptian troops dying in the fighting. By early April 1884, the tribes north of Khartoum had risen in support of the Mahdi, including those Gordon had met at Berber. The tribesmen intercepted river traffic on the Nile and cut the telegraph cables to Cairo. Communications were not entirely halted, as individual messengers could still get through, but this effectively began the siege of Khartoum. The city could rely only on its own food stores, which were expected to last five or six months. By this time, the combined forces besieging Khartoum and the other garrisons were over 30,000 men.