Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations, Figures & Maps
- Acknowledgements
- Glossary
- Egyptian Army Ranks & Turkish Honorifics
- Transliteration Note & List of Abbreviations
- Introduction: ‘Ali Jifun's Fashoda Homecoming
- 1 “Backbone of the Egyptian Army”
- 2 “Servants of His Highness the Khedive”
- 3 “Flavour of Domesticity”
- 4 “Brotherhood that Binds the Brave”
- 5 “Tea with the Khalifa”
- Epilogue: Mutiny at Omdurman
- Bibliography
- Index
2 - “Servants of His Highness the Khedive”
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations, Figures & Maps
- Acknowledgements
- Glossary
- Egyptian Army Ranks & Turkish Honorifics
- Transliteration Note & List of Abbreviations
- Introduction: ‘Ali Jifun's Fashoda Homecoming
- 1 “Backbone of the Egyptian Army”
- 2 “Servants of His Highness the Khedive”
- 3 “Flavour of Domesticity”
- 4 “Brotherhood that Binds the Brave”
- 5 “Tea with the Khalifa”
- Epilogue: Mutiny at Omdurman
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
At times, too, there are more tragic incidents. Thus after Ferkeh [Firket] a soldier of one of the black battalions told his white officer that he had recognized his own father among the enemy's dead. He did not seem much moved by the discovery, but said in a matter-of-fact way, “He was always a bad man, but then he was my father, so I think I should like to wash his body and bury it.” Of course he was at once given leave to perform these last rites for the dead Dervish.
A. Hilliard Atteridge, Daily Chronicle correspondentThe first engagement of the River War took place on 7 June 1896 at Firket, a village on the east bank of the Nile one hundred miles south of Wadi Halfa. That morning an army of some 9,000 Egyptian and Sudanese soldiers routed a Mahdist force one-third its size in a matter of two hours. Although it is not considered one of the major battles of the Nile Campaign, the action at Firket reveals something of the unique status and complex identity of the Sudanese slave soldier. Identity, of course, is an elusive concept, and the task of describing a collective identity an even more perilous undertaking, in this case doubly so for the dearth and provenance of sources. Be that as it may, an examination of Sudanese soldier identity – and in the process, his social and historical condition – remains an undertaking worth the pursuit.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Slaves of FortuneSudanese Soldiers and the River War, 1896-1898, pp. 44 - 71Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2011