1885
Upper Egypt
Khedive Hussain was not, by nature, a decisive man. His immediate predecessor (his grandfather) was prudent enough to retreat from HIS predecessor's (his brother) policy of expansionism and Sunni supremacy as it had run Egypt afoul with most of their neighbors and shattered the Egyptian economy. Eventually, the worst of the tensions were reduced and trade resumed with the Mediterranean region always demanding Egyptian products like cotton, wheat, dates and some manufactured goods. The construction of the Suez Canal along the Egyptian border (the other side of the Sinai belonging to Palestine) brought in annual revenues without Egypt having to spend funds it didn't have (Egypt and Palestine provided the land while Russia and France provided the Capital).
The Canal had largely changed the Egyptian outlook to the world and, more importantly, the way the rest of the world looked at Egypt. While yes, Egypt WAS largely a waystation now, it was at least a waystation that the entire world utilized. That gave the nation a status it had not possessed in centuries. Now under the control of a native dynasty after thousands of years of foreign rule dating back to Alexander the Great, Egypt was at the forefront of the Muslim world.
The impressive modernization of Egypt had led to a degree of optimism which allowed the nation to expand southwards into the northern Sudan a generation prior claiming land which had not really been under Egyptian rule since the Pharoahs (and very often not even by THEM). However, a new religious movement led by a fanatic calling himself the "Mahdi" (Redeemer) would rise up in revolt, killing at least 50,000 Egyptians in Khartoum alone. Two attempts by the Egyptian Army to reassert control or at least rescue the Egyptian civilians would lead to disastrous defeats and the slaughter of much of each army.
The Khedive, seeing little revenues from the region and no one left to rescue, was by this point prepared to call it quits on the whole idea of Egyptian control over northern Sudan. However, the "Mahdi" had other thoughts and, against any logical expectation, actually rode northwards to attack Egypt!
By 1885, it was held as axiomatic that modern weaponry made the fierce cavalry warriors and conquerors of the past like the Mongols, Parthians, Turkics, Huns and Arabs effectively obsolete. The defeats to the Mahdi in the Sudan were viewed as exceptions as the Sudanese tribesmen each time cut off a slow moving army in the remote desert and cut them to pieces. This was considered a matter of Egyptian military incompetence combined by unique conditions unlikely to often be matched in the modern world.
However, the tribesmen travelled hundreds of miles through the deserts, along the Nile with little to no opposition. At least 75,000 warriors accompanied the Mahdi along with 25,000 to 50,000 camp followers (women, servants, etc). The Khedive had never considered that the nomads would leave the desert and had no plan in place to repulse them. The two armies which had been destroyed in the desert carried most of the best trained, best armed and best led of the modest standing Egyptian Army.
The Mahdi initially kept his forces in check, chiding them to treat civilians as civilians. He reminded them that these were Sunnis who failed to heed his word due to their ignorance, not their innate evil. Eventually, however, several fortified towns managed to resist long enough to bring the Mahdi to a rage and slow the entire advance. More importantly, high-ranking Egyptian officials leading the defense would alternately mock or condemn the Mahdi as a heretic, apostate, infidel and whatever else they could think of.
This led to the Mahdi commanding his forces to slaughter anyone who opposed them and eventually to anyone who refused to acknowledge his status as Redeemer of the Muslim people. This was rare. Most Muslim agree that there would be no further Prophets per Muhammad's word and reacted to the Mahdi's claim as Christians would if confronted by a man claiming to be the reincarnation of Jesus. Further, the cultural differences between the sedentary Egyptians with 5000 years of civilization and the black nomads of the south ensured that few Egyptians were inclined to think of the Mahdi as anything but a barbarian and a fanatic.
Swiftly, the procession slowed as the Sudanese cavalry proved ill-equiped to seize walled fortifications or towns. Most successful attempts resulted in the slaughter of entire towns, something which the Mahdi had not conceived. After weeks and then months of this slaughter in Upper Egypt, the Mahdi finally reigned in his forces and commanded them to listen.
He reminded them that his intent was never to fight for every pitiful village. He wanted to seize control over the (what he viewed as) APOSTATES of Cairo, Alexandria, Istanbul, Medina and Mecca. Once in command of these cities, he planned to force the Muslim world to accept God's will. Then he would deal with the Christians, Animists, Buddhists, Hindus...and anyone else who dared defy the word of God.
But first he opted to concentrate on "reforming" the Islamic world and that could only be done in Mecca and Medina. Therefore, the Mahdi ordered the bulk of his forces north towards Lower Egypt. In weeks, he was before the gates of Cairo (again with little opposition). Seeing the walls and hastily thrown up barricades, the Mahdi knew that it would take months or years to take the city and he assumed the other large Egyptian cities would be the same. Instead, he surprised the defenders and opted to travel northeast, towards the Sinai and the gateway to Arabia.
Leaving behind only a small portion of his force to protect his supply lines (most of these men would just spend the time looting in defiance of the austere leader's wishes), the Mahdi would race towards the Suez Canal. While the Sudanese leader had hoped to reach Mecca and Medina by sea from some Egyptian port, his scouts provided intelligence that this was impractical as the Egyptian Red Sea towns were small and lacked the necessary shipping to carry huge numbers of warriors across the Sea. Besides, many of his desert and mountain nomads held no desire to make a sea voyage and the Mahdi accepted he'd have to cross the Canal and then the Sinai to reach Arabia.
What the Mahdi was NOT prepared for was the presence of a large army before the Canal. Here he found nearly 3500 Egyptian soldiers augmented by 8000 Russian troops, mostly drawn from the Levant, with another 10,000 Muslim (mostly the descendants of Balkan Muslims now the dominant Muslim group in Palestine), Christian and Jewish soldiers drawn from the Levant's armies. Beyond that, 2500 French soldiers had been dispatched to protect the Canal.
The Suez was deemed too important to allow some nomad fanatic to disrupt trade and the Mahdist Army's diversions in Upper Egypt had given Egypt's "partners" time to prepare a defense.
To the shock of virtually everyone, as the Mahdist Army slowly assembled to face the entrench Euro-Asiatic Army, another group of 3000 soldiers arrived from...of all places....the OTTOMAN Empire. Over the past generation, the Sublime Porte had realized that the seemingly inexorable litany of defeats of the past 200 years were a result of their failure to modernize. Thus the Ottoman had given up their former aspirations of Empire over the Levant and Europe and instead opted to economically and socially reform. Instead of an adversarial relationship with Russia and the Near East Lands which they once dominated, these places soon became key trading partners as Anatolia's resources and central location would give the Ottoman a key advantage over competitors in key industries. Indeed, the Ottoman would prove a source of stability rather than a threat to the region in recent years and relations with Russia improved correspondingly.
While the Porte was less than worried about some black tribesmen riding up through the Levant to conquer the Ottoman (as the Mahdi promised), he realized that a show of unity both with Russia and his fellow Muslims of the Levant may diplomatically go a long way. Thus the Porte sent 3000 of his best men (armed with the latest weapons from France) to the Sinai with an offer to help. No one had been expecting them but were hardly inclined to turn them away.
Thus nearly 30,000 well-armed men were prepared to defend the Sinai even as the Khedive hastily threw together an army of 30,000 moderately well-armed and supplied men and dispatched them eastwards.
The Mahdi's army consisted almost entirely of horsemen, perhaps among the best in the world, but limited in their function. They'd failed to take even modest walled fortifications due to lack of artillery or organization. In truth, the Mahdi was worried that the "Western Army" as he dismissed the mixed force, would simply retreat beyond the Canal and dig in upon the opposite shore. He did not see how he could possibly cross given the limited number of drawbridges over the canal and no experience with "water landings". Indeed, the Mahdi was elated to find the allied army apparently content to engage him in battle on the west side of the Canal. At least here he could initiate battle and, after countless defeats of the Egyptian Army, would feel more than confident that Allah would be on his side as he had so many times before.
Their backs to the sea, the allied army dug in, formed trenches and pits and prepared for battle. Lacking any other real strategy, the Mahdi would order his massed cavalry forward, assured that they would crush their outnumbered enemies as they always had.
However, this was not the haphazard armies dispatched by Egypt to the Sudan. These were well-trained and equipped forces with weeks to dig in. At sight of the Mahdists, the artillery opened up, cutting large swathes in the Sudanese lines. But soon the cavalry raced through this only to be confronted by rifle-fire at a distance previous armies would have marveled at. At five hundred yards, canister and rifle fire tore through the attackers....but still they rode on.
At one hundred yards, the artillery switched from explosive to cannister. The long-distance rifles were joined by repeating rifles. And it was here than the Mahdists learned of something called "Maxims" and "Gatlings", dozens of them. The Maxim was only a few years old and the brainchild of an English-American inventor. He found swift backing by industrialists in Philadelphia and the Russians would order 100 of them as an experiment in the Levant. Firing over 600 rounds a minute (when they didn't jam), the guns were devastating at short range.
The initial Mahdist wave effectively disappeared and the second wave, still unsure what happened to their predecessors, were subsequently cut to pieces as well. The Mahdi, positioned the rear, called upon God for help and commanded two more charges against the 5 mile line....with the same results. While exact numbers were difficult to measure, it was estimated that nearly 15,000 Sudanese were killed or wounded in these attacks.
Only now did the religious fervor of the Sudanese balk enough for them to doubt the Mahdi's reasoning. Seeing this for the first time, the Mahdi informed the horsemen that HE would be leading the next charge and any man who refused to follow would face no wrath. He then rode east towards the enemy lines.
Most of the Sudanese opted to follow....with the same results. Dozens of the Mahdi's closest followers refused to leave his side as they charged forth with rifles (not the most accurate cavalry weapon), pistols, swords and lances.
The results did not vary from previous attacks. As if by miracle, the Mahdi not only survived but he and his mount, along among his companions, were unscathed. Weeping in frustration, the Mahdi repeated rode before the enemy lines seeking an entrance. Finally, a young warrior grabbed his reins and led the Mahdi westwards.
The battle was over. And nearly 20,000 Sudanese had lost their lives or suffered the ignominy of capture. Tens of thousands of valuable horse (and camels) had been lost as well, nearly as devastating for a nomadic people. By evening, even the Mahdi knew that the battle was lost....disastrously so.
He had no choice but to retreat. In the coming week, the Mahdists faced another army, the Egyptian forces finally gathered and ready to face the Sudanese. North of Cairo, the two armies clashed, thousands of casualties suffered on both sides...but no decisive result. Unlike the poorly led Egyptian armies swallowed in the desert, the Egyptians were defending THEIR homes and honor and had the advantage of a good supply situation. The modern technology would win out again and the Sudanese would be forced to retreat further south.
By this point the entirety of Egypt had been roused against the invaders and partisans sniped at the Mahdists from every hill and rooftop. Sudanese reprisals were often swift and brutal....but the retreat only expedited.
By the winter (a relative concept in Egypt), the Sudanese had evacuated core Egyptian territory having lost nearly 40% of the warriors and camp followers which had triumphantly entered Egypt.
It was at this point that the Mahdi learned that his two eldest sons, left in command of the Northern Sudan, had ventured south into the Southern Sudan, largely by 1885 a colony of Ethiopia and swiftly converting to the Ethiopian Coptic Church. Finding relatively few southern Sudanese inclined to convert to Mahdism, they reacted with brutality, provoking an Ethiopian response. Armed and advised by their "neighbors" the East India Company to the south and led by their aging General George McClellan, the small Mahdist forces was crushed by 40,000 Ethiopian cavalry and infantry in the Southern Sudan, forcing the survivors northwards. Both of the Mahdi's sons were killed.
The Mahdi, seeing no pursuit into the Northern Sudan by either the Egyptians or Ethiopians, would ordered his followers home with the promise that he would pray to Allah for guidance. Sullenly, his followers obeyed, many rethinking the Mahdi's credibility as "Redeemer". Over the next few years, violence was largely constrained to the Northern Sudan as the "Mahdist" loyalists would severely punish these backsliders in a brutal Civil War.
By 1887, it would be apparent that the Mahdist State was content to remain within their borders.
However, there WAS one particular repercussion to the Mahdist invasion of Egypt. The Arabs of the Levant (mainly Palestine) would hear the words of the Mahdi and a great many would see the sufferings of the past generations as their failure to heed the word of Allah. As waves of immigrants poured into the region including Balkan Muslims expelled from their homelands, Egyptian Sufis, Shia and Copts, Russians, Jews, Protestant and Catholic Europeans, etc until the Arabs were but a petty and poor minority in their own homeland, would actively seek some way or hope to resolve this issue and many would quietly turn to the Mahdi's words for comfort.
The Sudanese nomads had much in common with the Arabs (at least the image the Arabs had of themselves as tribal nomads despite most actually being quite settled for centuries or even millennia). The Mahdist concept of austerity and modesty complemented this self-image as did the idea of Muslims rising up against their oppressors (even other Muslim). Thus many of the Arab tribes increasingly pushed aside from both Palestine and Syria would flock to this new religion, which became as much an ethnic and political symbol as theological.
Having defeated the "Black Fanatic", the diverse peoples of Palestine would look upon this new Arab nationalism with concern.