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by Winston S. Churchill

ISBN: 1440451311
Author: Winston S. Churchill
Publisher: CreateSpace (October 28, 2008)
Language: English
Pages: 212
ePub: 1981 kb
Fb2: 1345 kb
Rating: 4.7
Other formats: docx mobi lrf doc
Category: History
Subcategory: Africa

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Read by Mark F. Smith.

Read by Mark F. When the self-proclaimed Mahdi ( Guided One ) gathered Islamic forces and kicked the Anglo-Egyptians out of the Sudan, he unleashed a backlash. With the image of the heroic General Charles Gordon dying at Khartoum, the British public was ready to support a war to reclaim the lost territories. The river involved was the Nile.

The book is beside me as I write these words. Inscribed by Winston S Churchill 1948, the Great Man wrote on the flyleaf. Volume Two got shorter shrift. WSC was all the old boy would give my dad there. Forced by the need for fresh water to stay within sight of the Nile the British and Egyptian forces nonetheless, forded the Nile cataracts, built a railway for easier resupply, manhandled gunboats over the cataracts and fought several giant set piece battles against an enemy which vastly outnumbered them, if only in manpower.

I skimmed some of the history in the first hundred pages.

The younger Churchill is wordier than the mature Churchill, and his prose can be a bit flowery. I skimmed some of the history in the first hundred pages.

With the image of the heroic General Charles Gordon dying at Khartoum, the British public was ready to support a. .

With the image of the heroic General Charles Gordon dying at Khartoum, the British public was ready to support a war to reclaim the lost territories. The young Churchill was hot to gain war experience to aid his career, and so he wangled a transfer to the 21st Lancers and participated in the last successful cavalry charge the world ever saw, in the climactic battle of Omdurman. He also had a position as war correspondent for the Morning Post, and on his return to England he used his notes to compose this book.

In The River War, Winston Churchill recounts a critical but often overlooked episode from the days when the British . That same year, Queen Elizabeth II knighted Winston Churchill. Winston Churchill died on January 24, 1965, at the age of 70.

In The River War, Winston Churchill recounts a critical but often overlooked episode from the days when the British Empire was at the height of its power: the operations directed by Lord Kitchener of Khartoum on the Upper Nile from 1896 to 1899, which led to England's reconquest of the Egyptian Sudan. After the 1881 rebellion of the Mahdi had plunged the Sudan into chaos, British attempts to withdraw from the region climaxed in General Gordon's ill-fated attempt to rescue officials, soldiers, and Egyptian subjects from Khartoum.

By Winston S. Churchill. It is the great melody that recurs throughout the whole opera. Chapter I. the rebellion of the mahdi. The general purposing military operations, the statesman who would decide upon grave policies, and the reader desirous of studying the course and results of either, must think of the Nile.

Read various fiction books with us in our e-reader. Includes index Appendices: A. Composition of the staff during the river wa. B. the Soudan agreement of the 19th of January 1899, and of the declaration of the 21st of March 1899 Bibliography: 2 pages following p. x.

The book provides a history of the British involvement in the Sudan and the conflict between the British forces led by Lord Kitchener and Dervish forces led by Khalifa Abdallahi ibn Muhammad, heir. to the self-proclaimed Mahdi Muhammad Ahmad who had embarked on a campaign to conquer Egypt, to drive out the non-Muslim infidels and make way for the second coming of the Islamic Mahdi

The River War: An Historical Account of the Reconquest of the Sudan is an 1899 book written by Winston Churchill while he was still an officer in the British army. The book provides a history of the British involvement in the Sudan and the conflict between the British forces led by Lord Kitchener and Dervish forces led by Khalifa Abdallahi ibn Muhammad, heir to the self-proclaimed Mahdi Muhammad Ahmad who had embarked on a campaign to conquer Egypt, to drive out the non-Muslim infidels and make way for the second coming of the Islamic Mahdi. The River War was Churchill's second published book after The Story of the Malakand Field Force, and originally filled two volumes with over 1000 pages in 1899. The River War was subsequently abridged to one volume in 1902.

Comments: (7)

Iriar

This a fascinating account of the River War including a personal account of the final decisive battle at Omdurman that Churchill fought in. Except for the deletion of the preface, this is a complete reprint of the second edition including maps that runs to 432 pages. Some reprints are abridged down to as few as 146 pages and some do not include the maps.
I find Churchill's style easy to read and engrossing. You learn about details that wouldn't occur to a non-specialist. For instance, a major problem building a steam railroad across the desert is water for the locomotive. At one point, supply trains had to devote one third or more of their entire loads to water to get the train to the destination and get the locomotive back to the supply depot.
I wish someone would reprint the original first edition. This was was in two volumes with larger fold-out maps and apparently included some uncomplimentary comments about Kitchener and others. Churchill eliminated much of that in the second edition released a couple of years later, perhaps out of a sense of decorum. Surely 120 years later it really doesn't matter and I'm curious about what Winston actually thought. Unfortunately I'll probably never know unless I run across someone with a first edition as I don't have a mid four figure curiosity.

Brazil

This is Churchill writing and, even though it is an early example in his literary career, it is a lesson in the graceful use of the English Language. Beautifully descriptive phrases, pungent political comments, extraordinary attention to the details of numerous miltary campaigns and an underlying, cynical, humour throughout this account of a long forgotten war. Noticeable and laudible is Churchill's insistence in describing the bravery of the warriors of both sides with admirable equanimity. I loved the written word here but you must try to obtain this in book form.
The Kindle edition is truly awful! Badly formatted and with a complete absence of any maps, despite Churchill's reference to same. What is the matter with the people that prepare these Kindle books? I know that the Kindle can show maps, albeit they are generally on the small side & difficult to access. So why have some idiots released this version with no maps is beyond me. Needless to say the whole presentation, though lucidly described, is totally useless without maps.
Shame on Amazon & the publishers for allowing this rip-off to occur.
Three stars however for Churchill's writing, which compelled me to complete reading the book, whilst gnashing my teeth in frustration.

Konetav

The River War: An Account of the Reconquest of the Sudan was Winston Churchill's second book, long out of print but brought back by print on demand. He was a lieutenant in the 21st Lancers, a British cavalry unit with the Egyptian Army at the Battle of Omdurman in the Sudan on September 2, 1898. This is history made more exciting than adventure fiction by one of the best writers the English language has produced. With a historian's attention to detail, Churchill relates nearly a century of warfare and political maneuvering as Egypt dominated a land mass three times its size containing a thousand miles of the Nile River. Egyptian rule was based on slavery as they taxed their Arab subjects to collect slaves from the black population of the southern swamps. A series of self proclaimed khalifas, or Muslim leaders emerged to challenge Egypt, and in 1896 their rule threatened Egypt itself as jihadists surged north. Britain had sent a series of military leaders to bring order to the chaos, and finally mobilized an army to back up the Egyptians and they plunged south along the Nile and the Desert Railway.

Even the young Churchill was a consummate writer. Thoroughly researched, The River War has 22 maps, dozens of tables listing units, staffing, supplies and casualties, dispatches between the various leaders, transcripts of debate in Parliament, newspaper accounts and other background material. It has no index. All this background can be used as reference, or ignored. Churchill's prose carries this fascinating story along so well I ripped through it in a couple days.

The best part is Churchill's eye witness account of the Battle of Omdurman. A cavalry charge with sabers and pistols into the teeming center of the Dervish army; reading it, I was there!

I bought this book as research for my novel The Devil on Chardonnay, which deals partly with war in Sudan. I have read Churchill's history of World War II, and consider it one of my favorites; it's five volumes. The younger Churchill is wordier than the mature Churchill, and his prose can be a bit flowery. I skimmed some of the history in the first hundred pages. I give this book a 4 star rating.

Here's an excerpt: "The real Soudan, known to the statesman and the explorer, lies far to the south--moist, undulating, and exuberant. But there is another Soudan, which some mistake for the true, whose solitudes oppresses the Nile from the Egyptian frontier to Omdurman. This is the Soudan of the soldier. Destitute of wealth or future, it is rich in history. The names of its squalid villages are familiar to distant and enlightened peoples. The barrenness of its scenery has been drawn by skillful pen and pencil. It's ample deserts have tasted the blood of brave men. Its hot, black rocks have witnessed famous tragedies. It is the scene of the war."

Kagda

A well-written account of warfare between Europeans and Arabs. No, it's not the 21st century, it's the 19th century. I kept looking for the phrase "the oder of burnt cordite hung in the air" which has been attributed to Churchill after the battle of Omdurman and which every hack writer uses in describing the oder of gunpowder that sometimes lingers after a firefight, disregarding the fact that cordite hasn't been loaded in rifle cartridges for almost 100 years. This book is not about Churchill's exploits in North Africa. He never mentions his role as a war correspondent. But it is a good account of the protracted campaign in North Africa against the Dervishes, an off-shoot sect of the Muslim religion. It would appear that in over 100 years nothing has changed in North Africa. Muslims are still killing blacks in the Sudan. The one difference seems to be that the Muslim forces are somewhat better armed today as compared to 100 years ago. It is good to read history but it always surprises me how often history repeats itself. It's too bad that our so-called "leaders" don't bother to read history and learn its lessons.

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