162 ISLAM AT WAR
them. It must be remembered that this was the same Egyptian army that
had been so soundly defeated by the British in the previous year and had
not yet received its pay or sufficient training. Morale was terrible, and
victory was impossible.
The climactic battle occurred on November 3 and 4, 1883. The Egyptian
force came along in a huge square, with troops along the edges and the
baggage animals in the center. The Mahdi prepared to meet them at the
scrub forest of Shaykan in the desert, 150 miles southwest of Khartoum.
The rebel forces were carefully prepared and divided into formations ap-
propriate to their use. These consisted of a small force of horsemen to
scout the enemy and seize important terrain in his path. This was the clas-
sical task of all nineteenth-century cavalry. The main force of the rebels,
some 50,000 spear- and sword-armed warriors, would deliver the main
attack, and this would be prepared by the firing of 7,000 rifle-armedji-
hadiya,the elite of the rebel army. The Mahdi’s plan worked well. The
cavalry, under Abu Qarja, seized the well at el Birka, the only water source
in the vicinity. With the water under control, the horses were used to bring
up thejihadiyato strengthen the garrison of the well, a move the enemy
missed because of the scrubland and the sad state of the Egyptian cavalry.
When the government force attempted to bypass the well, the Mahdist
riflemen opened fire into the densely crowded square from the flank. This
shooting attack was a considerable annoyance to the government troops,
but the main blow was a massive charge into the other flank of Hicks’s
distracted army. The result was a massacre; Hicks Pasha and all of his
army died in the scrub.
The defeat of Hicks Pasha left the Mahdi as the virtual master of the
Sudan. With 10,000 captured breech-loading rifles, and several artillery
pieces, the rebels now had significant firepower to add to their nearly
100,000-strong army of spearmen and swordsmen. The Egyptian govern-
ment had no more field armies and no more capability of raising and
arming one. The isolated cities and garrisons submitted, generally without
a struggle.
Into this desperate situation General Gordon was reappointed governor
general. He arrived in Khartoum in February 1884 and immediately ap-
plied his considerable personal energy to bolstering the capital’s defenses
but could do little else. The Mahdi’s forces were slowly surrounding Khar-
toum with their vast numbers. Gordon and his 6,000 demoralized troops
were trapped in the city with relief impossible—no Egyptian army re-
mained to march to the relief, the Nile was at its low stage and the many
cataracts impassable to a relieving force, had there been any to send, and
of course the Mahdists controlled all of the land approaches for many
hundreds of miles.