Lessons of the River War

The Nile is the river in question. Without it, no war. “It is the cause of the war,” Churchill writes. “It is the means by which we fight, the end at which we aim.” On the Nile, the British could run their formidable gunboats into their enemy’s territory, upriver to its stronghold at Khartoum, itself located at the geostrategic chokepoint where the Blue and White Niles meet: “the great spout through which the merchandise collected from a wide area streams northwards to the Mediterranean Sea.” Just as the Suez Canal, completed in 1869, connected Europe to Asian ports beyond the “Mideast,” so the Nile, originating in smaller rivers that flow into Lake Victoria far to the south of Egypt and Sudan, connects Europe with the heart of Africa. Americans will think of their great Mississippi River, which allows farmers in the Midwest to ship their produce to the Gulf of Mexico and from there to the rest of the world. Today, when it’s easy to imagine that we live in “cyberspace,” Churchill reminds us that geography matters.

Since the Nile flows from the great lake north through the deserts of Sudan, “the Sudan is . . . naturally and geographically an integral part of Egypt,” and “Egypt is no less essential to the development of the Sudan.” In the 1890s, politics (especially religious politics) had sundered that geographical and economic union, with war as the consequence.

....“Shortly after,” Churchill recalls, Muslims in Sudan proclaimed an Islamic regime, captured Khartoum, killed a much-respected British envoy named Charles Gordon, and pushed the Egyptians out. Such jihadi movements were a perennial threat (one that persists to this day).

.... By the end of 1897, when the railroad was completed, “though the battle [for Khartoum] was not yet fought, the victory was won.”

Wow. I am reading this book right now. Churchill’s commentary on Muhammadanism is quite interesting. It is an excellent read.

    "How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries!
    Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia
    in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. Improvident habits, slovenly
    systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of
    property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded
    sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its
    dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must
    belong to some man as his absolute property - either as a child, a wife, or
    a concubine - must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam
    has ceased to be a great power among men."

    "Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the
    brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen: all know how to die. But the influence
    of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it.
    No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund,
    Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytising faith. It has already spread
    throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were
    it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science - the science
    against which it had vainly struggled - the civilisation of modern Europe might
    fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome."

-- Winston Churchill

I agree.

The final paragraph of this review is telling: the very publication of this kind of book, from more than 100 years ago, with such care and artistry, is a work of OUR CIVILIZATION.

A good book to accompany this one is this novel: Mason, The Four Feathers. It is set at the time of the River War, but its drama is quite different. The book has been made into a film 3 times.

The epic movie production of "Khartoum" starring Charleton Heston as Gordon and Laurence Olivier in brown face make up as the fanatic Mahdi is worth watching.

Olivier's performance with the Arabic cadence and much repeated interjections of "Oh my beloved..." are a bit of the top...but then again so are the contemporary utterances of the mullahs.

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