2-979-827 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

'The Battle of Omdurman: The Defence of the Khalifa's Black Flag', 1898, (c1900). Episode during the Anglo-Egyptian conquest of Sudan. 'Colonel Long opened fire from the 32nd Field Battery...It had little effect on the Dervishes, who continued to advance with their usual dash and intrepidity...The storm was met with a concentrated fire from all arms of our left wing; before its withering blast the followers of the Prophet fell like the ripe wheat wheat...a reserve force of Dervishes, hidden by a rocky eminence, swooped down on our right flank, under the black banner of the Khalifa...There were 15,000 of them, against the two Soudanese brigades and their battery of Maxims...The end came...They broke and fled, leaving the field white with jibba-clad corpses...'. From "Cassell's History of England, Vol. IX". [Cassell and Company, Limited, London, Paris, New York & Melbourne]