Today, the 2nd September, in 1898 the British under Lord Horatio Kitchener dealt the Mahdi a crushing defeat at Omdurman, near Khartoum, in the Sudan. The troops of the Mahdi were called Dervishes and outnumbered the British two to one. Numbers would count for nothing as modern arms won the battle, in what was a massacre. The British who were firing Lee Metford or .303 Lee Enfield rifles, backed up by Maxim machine guns and artillery, cut swathes through the attacking Dervishes, armed with spears and antique rifles.
The battle is also remembered as Britain’s last cavalry charge. The 21st Lancers were reconnoitring in force when they came upon 700 tribesmen, who they charged, only to discover 2500 Dervishes appear from hiding in a dry streambed. The Lancers fought their way out as best they could.
The Mahdi lost 20000 men and 5000 captured, whereas Kitchener lost a few hundred.
A certain young Winston Churchill was one of these Lancers present at the battle and wrote romantically of the cavalry charge, in which he personally killed three.
Anyone who has watched the great Dad’s Army may also remember the septegenarian Lance Corporal Jack Jones stories of the battle and his cry of: “They do not like it up 'em”, when urging his Captain, a non professional banker, to rely on the bayonet to defeat Hitler’s invaders.