Battle of Abu Hamed

Battle of Abu Hamed
Part of the Mahdist War
A map from Winston Churchill's The River War depicting the march of General-Major Hunter's flying column from Merawi to Abu Hamed.
Date 7 August 1897 Location Abu Hamed, Sudan Result Anglo-Egyptian victory
Belligerents
United Kingdom Egypt	Mahdist State
Commanders and leaders
Major-General Sir Archibald Hunter	Mohammed Zain (POW)
Strength
3,600 Sudanese and Egyptian soldiers	Between 400 and 1,000 Mahdist riflemen and cavalry
Casualties and losses
23 killed 61 wounded	250–850 killed

The Battle of Abu Hamed occurred on 7 August 1897 between a flying column of Anglo-Egyptian soldiers under Major-General Sir Archibald Hunter and a garrison of Mahdist rebels led by Mohammed Zain. The battle was a victory for the Anglo-Egyptian forces, and secured for the British the strategically vital town of Abu Hamed, which was the terminus for trade and transportation across the Nubian Desert.

Abu Hamed was of critical importance to Lord Herbert Horatio Kitchener, leader of the Anglo-Egyptian campaign that commenced in March 1896 with the objective of destroying the Mahdist state that had occupied much of Sudan since the initial Mahdist rebellion broke out in 1881. The town was to be the railhead for Lord Kitchener's supply railway through the vast and inhospitable Nubian Desert, allowing expeditionary forces to bypass a great stretch of the Nile on their way to Omdurman, the capital of Mahdist Sudan. However, the town was occupied by Mahdist forces, and construction of the desert railway could not safely proceed without their removal.

Accordingly, Kitchener ordered a flying column, led by Major-General Sir Archibald Hunter and composed of around three-thousand Egyptian soldiers, to march from Merowe to Abu Hamed with all possible speed. The flying column departed Merawi on 29 July 1897, and, marching north-east along the Nile for eight days, arrived at the town as dawn broke on August 7. Forming his battalions in a broad semi-circle that pitted Abu Hamed's defenders against the river, Major-General Hunter ordered his troops to advance at approximately six-thirty that morning. In the action that followed, the outnumbered Mahdist riflemen were driven from their defensive positions through the town, while a small contingent of Mahdist cavalry fled south without engaging to report the loss. By seven-thirty, the battle was over, and Major-General Hunter ordered the news be delivered to Lord Kitchener.

Major-General Hunter's column lost eighty killed and wounded, while the quantity of Mahdist casualties is estimated to be between 250 and 850. The Mahdist commander, Mohammed Zain, was captured in the fighting. Soon after news of the victory spread, work on the desert railway was resumed and Abu Hamed reached on October 31, where Major-General Hunter and his column had remained. With the completion of the railway across the Nubian Desert, Kitchener's general advance into the heartland of Mahdist Sudan was guaranteed, and the greatest issue of Kitchener's campaign, supply, resolved.