From Korti to Khartum

From 1884 to 1885, British Army officer Charles William Wilson took part in the Khartoum Relief Expedition, commanded by Garnet Wolseley. He was part of the advance rescue force led by Sir Herbert Stewart. After Stewart was mortally wounded Brigadier-General Wilson took command of this group of about 1,400 men. On two Nile steamers Wilson’s Desert Column reached Khartoum in the afternoon of 28 January 1885. It came two days too late: Khartoum had been seized by the Mahdists in the early hours of January 26. Between 5,000 and 10,000 inhabitants were slaughtered, among them Major-General Charles George Gordon.

This book, first published in 1886, is Charles William Wilson’s Journal of the march from Korti to Gubat, and of the voyage in General Gordon’s steamers to the junction of the two Niles. The Journal formed part of a daily journal that Wilson kept whilst employed in the Sudan, and sent home by nearly every mail. It was transcribed from his field-notes immediately following his return to Korti, whilst all the events which it describes were still fresh in his memory. Wilson released it to the public upon strong encouragement of his friends back home in England, allowing the reader to read for himself the vivid account “of courage […] of discipline […] of dash […] of endurance […].”

Richly illustrated with a special picture and map pack.