8 APRIL 1898 THE BATTLE OF ATBARA – A HIGHLY ASYMETRICAL CONTEST Few people In Britain today have heard of the Battle of Atbara fought on 8 April 1898, amid the arid brushland surrounding the River Atbara, a tributary of the Nile in Sudan, some 200 miles north east of Khartoum. As the sun rose,…
[ 27 March 1884 ] In February 1884, General Sir Gerald Graham led an army of over 3,000 troops into north eastern Sudan to crush an anti-British Islamist uprising led by Osman Digna. According to an Associated Press report, on 27 March, after defeating a rebel force several days earlier, the British burned ‘Osman Digna’s villages without…
2 September 1892 On 2 September 1892, the army of the Mahdi, a Sudanese religious leader, was massacred by a British force, under General Kitchener, at the so called battle of Omdurman. About sixteen thousand Dervishes were killed for the loss of just 48 of Kitchener’s men. British soldiers were then ordered to shoot the…
21 August 1998 On 21 August 1998, Prime Minister Tony Blair gave his full backing to a U.S. cruise missile attack on the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in the suburbs of Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, declaring ‘I strongly support this American action against international terrorists.’ The Guardian reported that Blair’s unequivocal support was given ‘against the advice…
3 May 1920 On 3 May 1920, two RAF DH9A bombers, each equipped with eight 20 lb bombs as well as Vickers and Lewis machine guns, made the first of several air strikes on herds of cattle, belonging to the nomadic Nuer of southern Sudan. The Nuer had been failing to respect the ‘tribal’ boundaries…
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH – REPORTS OF ATROCITIES IN NAZI GERMANY ARE ‘EXAGGERATED’ [ 27 March 1933 ] Today in 1933, the Daily Telegraph, claimed that the peak of Nazi persecution against the Jews was now over and that ‘even if isolated outrages continue to occur, there is no further official connivance or police toleration.’ The paper…
