166 ISLAM AT WAR
standard would includerubsfrom garrisons and volunteers and would
certainly include the tribalrubsof the emir in command. In 1891 the
Red Standard was disbanded to punish the treachery of its leader, Mu-
hammad Sharif, who was upset at the Khalifa’s preference for his own
TaÛaisha tribesmen. Additional standards were formed at the end of the
reign, the reserve army being formed to manage the influx of new recruits
that replaced the veterans lost in the Ethiopian War, and themulazimin,
which was the name given to a newly raised corps of regular soldiers
who were stationed in Omdurman for security purposes. The Sudanese
army would have totaled more than 100,000 men. It is interesting that
this army was extensively documented by the Khalifa’s bureaucrats, but
that many of those documents are undated, which makes them challeng-
ing for historians!
The downfall of the Sudanese state came about in 1898, as a result of
a combination of circumstances, mostly beyond the Khalifa’s control. The
crux of the problem was that the competing imperial interests of France
and Britain created a situation in which the Sudan was bound to play a
major, if unwanted, role. The crisis began with the Ethiopian victory over
the Italian army at the Battle of Adowa, on March 1, 1896. The Italians
had been trying to expand their Red Sea coastal holdings, and Emperor
Menelik II of Ethiopia had resisted. Italy had enjoyed the general benev-
olence of England in her colonial expansion, and the Ethiopians had ac-
cepted French weapons. Thus the English became suspicious that the
French were attempting a coup that would grant the rights to a great east-
west African railroad and chain of French influence. In contrast, the British
hoped to build a great north-south railroad that would tie the continent
together under British overlordship. The meeting place of the two con-
trasting dreams would have to be in the Sudanese-controlled state. Britain
was therefore afraid that the Ethiopians would defeat the Mahdists and
grant rights to their French allies, or that the Mahdists would defeat the
Italians and thus put British aspirations even further behind schedule.
These fears, coupled with the Khalifa’s xenophobic policies, fear of a
Mahdist attack on Egypt, and a never quite forgotten desire to avenge
Gordon, all came together in 1898.
The Anglo-Sudanese War of 1898 was to be different from that of 1885.
First and foremost, the whole weight of the British government was behind
the enterprise, and at the end committed to the enterprise two brigades of
British infantry with a powerful artillery establishment and modern gun-
boats. To this significant force were added four more brigades of the re-
vitalized Egyptian army, with additional artillery, a useful cavalry arm,
and yet more gunboats. The whole of the Anglo-Egyptian strike force