Identifier: decisivebattless00knox (find matches)
Title: Decisive battles since Waterloo : the most important military events from 1815 to 1887
Year: 1900 (1900s)
Authors: Knox, Thomas Wallace, 1835-1896
Subjects: Monitor (Ironclad) Battles Military history Military art and science Naval battles Naval history Naval art and science Hampton Roads, Battle of, Va., 1862
Publisher: New York : G.P. Putnam's Sons New Rochelle, N.Y. : Knickerbocker Press
Contributing Library: Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection
Digitizing Sponsor: State of Indiana through the Indiana State Library

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
l, which sepa-rates the city from the plain, and there is a similar wallon the eastern side. Against modern artillery the wallsof Khartoum could offer little resistance, but they are animportant defence against the small-arms of the Arabs.The Mahdis forces were held at bay by the walls, thoughthey vastly exceeded in numbers the garrison within.They had a few small cannon, captured from the Egyptians,but they were short of ammunition, and even with anabundance of it they did not have the necessary skill forits proper utilization. They contented themselves withfiring occasional shots at the town ; but what was moreserious, they cut off the supplies of provisions, so that thegarrison and inhabitants were on very short rations. The Egyptian government had appealed to Englandfor assistance in re-conquering the Soudan, but that coun-try refused its aid, though it had been ready enough tobombard Alexandria and suppress Arabi Pashas revolt,which was almost identical with the Mahdis rebellion.
Text Appearing After Image:
4.68 DECISIVE BATTLES SINCE WATERLOO. Lord Granville stated in Parliament that the governmentwas in no way responsible for the operations which hadbeen undertaken on the authority of the Egyptian gov-ernment, or for the appointment of General Hicks.When the news of the annihilation of Hicks Pashas armyreached England there was great excitement, and the gov-ernment felt called upon to do something to extricate thegarrisons of Khartoum, Kassala, Berber, and other placesthat were besieged by the Mahdis forces, as his fanaticalfollowers would not be likely to spare any lives in case ofsuccess, and, least of all, the lives of any foreigners in theEgyptian service. In its emergency the government ap-pealed to General Charles G. Gordon, better known asChinese Gordon, to aid in the solution of the difficultproblem. Gordon had been living in the Holy Land for severalmonths, and had just been invited by the king of theBelgians to go to the Congo and assume command of theCongo Free State, which

Note About Images