HOME
*





Battle Of Ferkeh
The Battle of Ferkeh (or Firket) occurred during the Mahdist War in which an army of the Mahdist Sudanese was surprised and routed by British-led Egyptian forces, led by Sir Herbert Kitchener, on 7 June 1896. It was the first significant action of the reconquest of Sudan, which culminated in the September 1898 Battle of Omdurman. Background In June 1896, at the start of the Sudan campaign, Kitchener's Anglo-Egyptian force was advancing on Dongola, in Northern Sudan. Ferkeh was a small fortified village on the banks of the Nile. It was the first important Mahdist position that was encountered and was occupied by 3,000 Mahdist warriors, led by the Emirs Hammuda and Osman Azrak. Kitchener's force, nominally in service of the Khedive of Egypt but in fact under direct British control, was composed of Egyptian and Sudanese soldiers, led by British officers. It numbered 9,000 men, accompanied by three batteries of field guns and one battery of Maxim guns. Apart from officers with the ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Mahdist War
The Mahdist War ( ar, الثورة المهدية, ath-Thawra al-Mahdiyya; 1881–1899) was a war between the Mahdist Sudanese of the religious leader Muhammad Ahmad bin Abd Allah, who had proclaimed himself the "Mahdi" of Islam (the "Guided One"), and the forces of the Khedivate of Egypt, initially, and later the forces of Britain. Eighteen years of war resulted in the nominally joint-rule state of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (1899–1956), a ''de jure'' condominium of the British Empire and the Kingdom of Egypt in which Britain had ''de facto'' control over the Sudan. The Sudanese launched several unsuccessful invasions of their neighbours, expanding the scale of the conflict to include not only Britain and Egypt but also the Italian Empire, the Congo Free State and the Ethiopian Empire. The British participation in the war is called the Sudan campaign. Other names for this war include the Mahdist Revolt, the Anglo–Sudan War and the Sudanese Mahdist Revolt. Background Foll ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Maxim Gun
The Maxim gun is a recoil-operated machine gun invented in 1884 by Hiram Stevens Maxim. It was the first fully automatic machine gun in the world. The Maxim gun has been called "the weapon most associated with imperial conquest" by historian Martin Gilbert, and was heavily used by colonial powers during the " Scramble for Africa". Afterwards, Maxim guns also saw extensive usage by different armies during the Russo-Japanese War, the First and Second World Wars, as well as by insurgent groups in contemporary conflicts. The Maxim gun was greatly influential in the development of machine guns, and it has multiple variants and derivatives. Design The Maxim gun featured one of the earliest recoil-operated firing systems in history. Energy from recoil acting on the breech block is used to eject each spent cartridge and insert the next one. Maxim's earliest designs used a 360-degree rotating cam to reverse the movement of the block, but this was later simplified to a togg ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Battles Of The Mahdist War
A battle is an occurrence of combat in warfare between opposing military units of any number or size. A war usually consists of multiple battles. In general, a battle is a military engagement that is well defined in duration, area, and force commitment. An engagement with only limited commitment between the forces and without decisive results is sometimes called a skirmish. The word "battle" can also be used infrequently to refer to an entire operational campaign, although this usage greatly diverges from its conventional or customary meaning. Generally, the word "battle" is used for such campaigns if referring to a protracted combat encounter in which either one or both of the combatants had the same methods, resources, and strategic objectives throughout the encounter. Some prominent examples of this would be the Battle of the Atlantic, Battle of Britain, and Battle of Stalingrad, all in World War II. Wars and military campaigns are guided by military strategy, whereas bat ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

1896 In Sudan
Events January–March * January 2 – The Jameson Raid comes to an end, as Jameson surrenders to the Boers. * January 4 – Utah is admitted as the 45th U.S. state. * January 5 – An Austrian newspaper reports that Wilhelm Röntgen has discovered a type of radiation (later known as X-rays). * January 6 – Cecil Rhodes is forced to resign as Prime Minister of the Cape of Good Hope, for his involvement in the Jameson Raid. * January 7 – American culinary expert Fannie Farmer publishes her first cookbook. * January 12 – H. L. Smith takes the first X-ray photograph. * January 17 – Fourth Anglo-Ashanti War: British redcoats enter the Ashanti capital, Kumasi, and Asantehene Agyeman Prempeh I is deposed. * January 18 – The X-ray machine is exhibited for the first time. * January 28 – Walter Arnold, of East Peckham, Kent, England, is fined 1 shilling for speeding at (exceeding the contemporary speed limit of , the first sp ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Queen's Sudan Medal
The Queen's Sudan Medal was authorised in March 1899 and awarded to British and Egyptian forces which took part in the Sudan campaign between June 1896 and September 1898. The campaign reflected the British desire to reverse the defeats of the Mahdist War in the 1880s, as well as concern that France and other European powers would take advantage of Sudan's instability to acquire parts of its territory. Initially only the Egyptian Army was engaged. British Army units joined from early 1898, with two British brigades being present at the decisive victory at Omdurman on 2 September 1898, in which Winston Churchill took part. Seventeen members of the Royal Navy and 27 Royal Marines who helped man the Nile gunboats also received the medal. The medal was awarded in silver to soldiers of the British and Egyptian armies, and in bronze to a small number of non-combatants, comprising authorised followers, officers’ servants and grooms from the Indian Army. All recipients of the Queen's M ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Khedive's Sudan Medal (1897)
The Khedive's Sudan Medal was a campaign medal awarded by the Khedivate of Egypt to both Egyptian and British forces for service during the reconquest of the Sudan, the final part of the Mahdist War. Established 12 February 1897 by Khedive Abbas Hilmi Pasha, this medal was initially to commemorate the reconquest of the Dongola province in 1896. It was subsequently authorised for later campaigns and actions until 1908. The medal was awarded with fifteen different clasps. All those who received the Khedive's Sudan Medal for service on the Nile during 1896-98 also received the Queen's Sudan Medal. Appearance The medal is circular, 39 millimetres in diameter, and awarded in silver to soldiers of the Egyptian and British armies, and in bronze to a small number of non-combatants, mainly grooms from the Indian Army and officers’ servants. The obverse bears the Arabic cypher of the Khedive, and the Hijri year 1314. The reverse shows an oval shield superimposed over a trophy of flags ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Bayonets
A bayonet (from French ) is a knife, dagger, sword, or spike-shaped weapon designed to fit on the end of the muzzle of a rifle, musket or similar firearm, allowing it to be used as a spear-like weapon.Brayley, Martin, ''Bayonets: An Illustrated History'', Iola, WI: Krause Publications, , (2004), pp. 9–10, 83–85. From the 17th century to World War I, it was a weapon for infantry attacks. Today it is considered an ancillary weapon or a weapon of last resort. History The term ''bayonette'' itself dates back to the mid-to-late 16th century, but it is not clear whether bayonets at the time were knives that could be fitted to the ends of firearms, or simply a type of knife. For example, Cotgrave's 1611 ''Dictionarie'' describes the bayonet as "a kind of small flat pocket dagger, furnished with knives; or a great knife to hang at the girdle". Likewise, Pierre Borel wrote in 1655 that a kind of long-knife called a ''bayonette'' was made in Bayonne but does not give any ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Horse Artillery
Horse artillery was a type of light, fast-moving, and fast-firing artillery which provided highly mobile fire support, especially to cavalry units. Horse artillery units existed in armies in Europe, the Americas, and Asia, from the early 17th to the mid-20th century. A precursor of modern self-propelled artillery, it consisted of light cannons or howitzers attached to light but sturdy two-wheeled carriages called caissons or limbers, with the individual crewmen riding on horses. This was in contrast to the rest of the field artillery, which were also horse-drawn but whose gunners were normally transported seated on the gun carriage, wagons or limbers. Tactics Once in position, horse artillery crews were trained to quickly dismount, deploy or unlimber their guns (detach them from their caissons), then rapidly fire grapeshot, shells or round shot at the enemy. They could then just as rapidly limber-up (reattach the guns to the caissons), remount, and be ready to move to a ne ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Cavalry
Historically, cavalry (from the French word ''cavalerie'', itself derived from "cheval" meaning "horse") are soldiers or warriors who fight mounted on horseback. Cavalry were the most mobile of the combat arms, operating as light cavalry in the roles of reconnaissance, screening, and skirmishing in many armies, or as heavy cavalry for decisive shock attacks in other armies. An individual soldier in the cavalry is known by a number of designations depending on era and tactics, such as cavalryman, horseman, trooper, cataphract, knight, hussar, uhlan, mamluk, cuirassier, lancer, dragoon, or horse archer. The designation of ''cavalry'' was not usually given to any military forces that used other animals for mounts, such as camels or elephants. Infantry who moved on horseback, but dismounted to fight on foot, were known in the early 17th to the early 18th century as ''dragoons'', a class of mounted infantry which in most armies later evolved into standard cavalry while retain ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Infantry
Infantry is a military specialization which engages in ground combat on foot. Infantry generally consists of light infantry, mountain infantry, motorized infantry & mechanized infantry, airborne infantry, air assault infantry, and marine infantry. Although disused in modern times, heavy infantry also commonly made up the bulk of many historic armies. Infantry, cavalry, and artillery have traditionally made up the core of the combat arms professions of various armies, with the infantry almost always comprising the largest portion of these forces. Etymology and terminology In English, use of the term ''infantry'' began about the 1570s, describing soldiers who march and fight on foot. The word derives from Middle French ''infanterie'', from older Italian (also Spanish) ''infanteria'' (foot soldiers too inexperienced for cavalry), from Latin '' īnfāns'' (without speech, newborn, foolish), from which English also gets '' infant''. The individual-soldier term ' ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Battle Of Ginnis
The Battle of Ginnis (also known as the Battle of Gennis) was a minor battle of the Mahdist War that was fought on December 30, 1885, between soldiers of the Anglo-Egyptian Army and Mahdist Sudanese warriors of the Dervish State. The battle was caused by the Mahdist blockade of the Ginnis-Kosha Fort, which British commanders hoped to relieve. The fighting resulted in a British victory that is principally remarkable as the last battle that was certainly fought by the British Army in red coats, although a Maxim battery from the Connaught Rangers may have fought in red at the Battle of Ferkeh in 1896. Background Situation In 1884, a Sudanese Islamic religious leader, Muhammad Ahmed, also known as "The Mahdi", planned and executed a series of attacks that left a British general, William Hicks, and thousands of ill-trained Egyptian soldiers dead at the hands of angry Arab rebels called Dervishes or, more accurately, Mahdists. The Sudan was controlled by an Anglo-Egyptian adminis ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Connaught Rangers
The Connaught Rangers ("The Devil's Own") was an Irish line infantry regiment of the British Army formed by the amalgamation of the 88th Regiment of Foot (Connaught Rangers) (which formed the ''1st Battalion'') and the 94th Regiment of Foot (which formed the ''2nd Battalion'') in July 1881. Between the time of its formation and Irish independence, it was one of eight Irish regiments raised largely in Ireland. Its home depot was in Galway.Harris, Appendix II, pp. 216–217: Table listing the eight Irish Regiments of the British Army July 1914, their Depots, Reserve Bns., and local Militia.: Royal Irish Regiment Depot Clonmel, Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers Depot Omagh, Royal Irish Rifles Depot Belfast, Royal Irish Fusiliers (Princess Victoria's) Depot Armagh, Connaught Rangers Depot Galway, Leinster Regiment Depot Birr, Royal Munster Fusiliers Depot Tralee, Royal Dublin Fusiliers Depot Naas. It was disbanded following the establishment of the independent Irish Free State i ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]