mahdi died. The withdrawal of the Suakin
force began on the 17th of May, and the friendly tribes, deprived of
support, were compelled to make terms with Osman Digna, who was soon
able to turn his attention to Kassala, which capitulated in August,
nearly at the same time as Sennar.

The failure of the operations in the Sudan had been absolute and
complete, and the reason is to be sought in a total misconception of the
situation, which caused vacillation and delay, and in the choice of a
route by which, having regard to the date of the decision, the relief of
General Gordon and Khartum was impossible. (G. S. C.)

MILITARY OPERATIONS IN EGYPT AND THE SUDAN, 1885 TO 1896

The operations against Mahdism during the eleven years from the end of
the Nile expedition and the withdrawal from the Sudan to the
commencement of the Dongola campaign will be more easily understood if,
instead of narrating them in one chronological sequence, the operations
in each province are considered separately. The mahdi, Mahommed Ahmed,
died at Omdurman on the 22nd of June 1885. He was succeeded by the
principal khalifa, Abdullah el Taaisha, a Baggara Arab, who for the next
thirteen years ruled the Sudan with despotic power. Cruel, vicious,
unscrupulous and strong, the country groaned beneath his oppression. He
removed all possible rivals, concentrated at Omdurman a strong military
force composed of men of his own tribe, and maintained the ascendancy of
that tribe over all others. As the British troops retired to Upper
Egypt, his followers seized the evacuated country, and the khalifa
cherished the idea, already formulated by the mahdi, of the conquest of
Egypt, but for some years he was too much occupied in quelling risings,
massacring the Egyptians in the Sudan, and fighting Abyssinia, to move
seriously in the matter.

_Upper Egypt._--Mahommed el Kheir, dervish amir of Dongola, however,
advanced towards the frontier in the autumn of 1885, and at the end of
November came in touch with the frontier field force, a body of some
3000 men composed in nearly equal parts of British and Egyptian troops.
A month of harassing skirmishes ensued, during which the Egyptian troops
showed their mettle at Mograka, where 200 of them held the fort against
a superior number of dervishes, and in combats at Ambigol, Kosha and
Firket. Sir Frederick Stephenson, commanding the British army of
occupation in Egypt, then concentrated the frontier field force at
Firke