📅 On This Day in Military History

January 26

1 event across history

⚔️📍 Khartoum, Sudan1885

Fall of Khartoum — General Gordon Killed

Mahdist forces under Muhammad Ahmad stormed Khartoum and killed the British commander General Charles Gordon two days before a relief force arrived. Gordon had held the city for ten months against a vastly superior besieging army.

Gordon's death made him a Victorian martyr, humiliated the Gladstone government, and fueled British determination to reconquer Sudan — accomplished at the Battle of Omdurman in 1898.

Outcome

Mahdist victory — Gordon killed, Khartoum falls