Khartoum: The Ultimate Imperial Adventure [Mass Market Paperback]

Michael Asher (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 28, 2008

The British campaign in the Sudan in Queen Victoria's reign is an epic tale of adventure more thrilling than any fiction. The story begins with the massacre of the 11,000 strong Hicks Pasha column in 1883. Sent to evacuate the country, British hero General Gordon was surrounded and murdered in Khartoum by an army of dervishes led by the Mahdi. The relief mission arrived 2 days too late. The result was a national scandal that shocked the Queen and led to the fall of the British government. Twelve years later it was the brilliant Herbert Kitchener who struck back. Achieving the impossible he built a railway across the desert to transport his troops to the final devastating confrontation at Omdurman in 1898. Desert explorer and author, Michael Asher has reconstructed this classic tale in vivid detail. Having covered every inch of the ground and examined all eyewitness reports, he brings to bear new evidence questioning several accepted aspects of the story. The result is an account that sheds new light on the most riveting tale of honour, courage, revenge and savagery of late Victorian times.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Michael Asher is one of Britain's most prominent desert explorers. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and has won the Ness Award of the RGS and the Mungo Park Medal of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society. He is the author of eight books including the acclaimed Thesiger, Lawrence and The Real Story of Bravo Two Zero. He now lives in Nairobi in Kenya.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Global (March 28, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140258558
• ISBN-13: 978-0140258554
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #289,435 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #61 in Books > History > Africa > East Africa
  • #66 in Books > History > Africa > North Africa

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Potentially great tale marred by sloppy exposition, January 23, 2012

By 

John Bernhardt (Baltimore, MD) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Khartoum: The Ultimate Imperial Adventure (Kindle Edition)

Mr. Asher has an eye for detail, and he has collected all the facts about the 19th century British Sudan campaigns in this one book. The larger story describes the failure of the British Army to reach General Gordon in time, and the meticulously organized campaign by Kitchener to even the score with the Mahdist forces some years later. It is an epic adventure, and it succeeds overall. Unfortunately there are flaws in the exposition.

Still, it is an admittedly good book, and deserves some attention by readers who may be unfamiliar as I was with the Gordon/Kitchener/Sudan story. The sticking point is that some of the infuriating sloppiness in the writing makes me wonder if the book had been hurried to press. For example, at my Kindle location 5453 the author writes, "In that brief moment no less [sic] than a dozen Baggarra fell dead in the sand. Stunned, they retreated." That's a neat trick. In the description of the Battle of Atbara we read of the British artillery barrage opening the battle, followed by an interval of 30 minutes before the infantry attack begins (0740 hours until 0810 hours, see location 6229-6236). But then after the battle at location 6374 we read that only 15 minutes had passed: "Those that had watches glanced at them, and could not believe that only fifteen minutes had passed since the first shell had been fired." In location 6513 we read of troops moving "down the western bank of the Nile on a broad front," but is this correct? If they are moving southward along the river then they are moving upriver, so should we not say they are moving up the western bank of the Nile? It is likely my geographic conventions and terminology are wrong but this seems entirely too confusing on its face. Then there is the occasional contradiction within supposition: Kitchener at location 6592 is said to have feared night attacks, but then at location 6602 we see the phrase, "If Kitchener feared a night attack, though, he did not show it." This may seem a semantic quibble--perhaps I take the word "if" too literally--but isn't there a more graceful way to make the point? Such as this: "Though K feared a night attack, he did not show it." And finally, the piece de resistance in this ham-handed writing style is the cliché at location 7043. The expression "bit the dust" was almost too much for me to take, and after being drubbed with this I wondered how it could have passed through both the author's pen and the editor's censure.

But on to the good aspects. What those of us who read military epic storytelling want to see--the strategy, the tactics, the human endeavor, the mistakes, the epic struggles, the back and forth of battle details, and the aftermath and political ramifications--are all in this book. And even with the imperfections of exposition, this is an exciting story as told. I could feel the mens' and animals' thirst in the desert, understand Kitchener's anxiety about the supply problems, witness the courage of both foes, and stare down the barrel of numerous guns as if I were there. This experience is what readers of military history thrive on. So in that light the book is an undoubted success.

Descriptions of natural surroundings are the author's strong suit. The descriptions of the natural beauty and isolation of the desert as seen through the eyes of the historical characters were masterfully done. An example at location 5410: ". . . looking south, the Nile scintillated like mercury between the arms of serrated dark ridges that closed in from either side." This is very nice indeed. Had this literary flair been more fully extended to the treatment of the historical characters and events, then the storytelling would have been nearly perfect, as we see in the writings of Byron Farwell, and to some extent, of Julian Spilsbury.

As it was, the book was almost good enough to reach that point, but deserved a better critical eye in editing.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great read, August 21, 2011

By 

Bob of Canberra (Canberra, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Khartoum: The Ultimate Imperial Adventure (Mass Market Paperback)

This book is an excellent read. Brings the Sudan wars to life in a gripping manner that puts the reader in the front line with the Brit soldiers trying to hold the square under the onslaught of fanatical warriors carrying razor-bladed spears. His end chapters, bringing the reader up to date on aspects of the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda are very informative.

13 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars History repeats, August 18, 2006

By 

Good Questions "QG" (Sydney Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Khartoum (Hardcover)

To understand the troubles that sprang from the deserts in the last decade, one might trace Osama Bin Laden's journey to Sudan between 1994 and 1998. The al-Qaeda we now know is in many ways the spiritual inheritor of the philosophy and traditions of the Mahdist uprising in the Sudan of the 1880's.

Between than and now, little seems to have changed, but the names of the actors and the colours of the uniforms.

The reader is drawn with precise detail into the era, and advanced through the stages of the campaign. The politics and heroism of both sides is shown in balance, and the collision between two very different worlds made real.

This incredibly readable book makes me think of George Santayana who commented 'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.'