September 2, 1898 · Outside Omdurman, opposite Khartoum Theater
September 2, 1898
Before the Khalifa's capital, some 50,000 Mahdist warriors charged Kitchener's entrenched Anglo-Egyptian army across open ground in the morning light. Against Maxim machine guns, magazine rifles, and gunboat artillery, the charges were mown down in their thousands before they could close; the young cavalryman Winston Churchill rode in the 21st Lancers' famous charge. By midday the Mahdist army was destroyed, at a cost of some 48 British dead against roughly 10,000 of the enemy.
Commanders