The River War: An Account of the Reconquest of the Sudan [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

Churchill was a British officer who wrangled his way into Kitchener's campaign up the Nile through connections in high places and against Kitchener's wishes. Kitchener was angry that a journalist-officer of Churchill's age (early 20s) would even presume to render judgment on the Generals and the government.

Churchill recounts the rise of the Mahdi, the defeat of Gordon at Khartoum, the decision of the government to retake the Sudan, and the careful preparations by Kitchener (in some ways a forerunner to Schwarzkopf's massing overwhelming force against Iraq in 1991).

There are a number of lessons in this book. Churchill talks constantly of "scientific warfare" and the inability of the Mahdist forces to cope with it. By "scientific warfare" he meant the telegraph, the railroad, the armored steamboat with cannon, the Maxim gun (an early machine gun), and the disciplined infantry squares. It is helpful to be reminded that predators, B-2s, and Special Forces on horseback with laser designators are simply our generation's version of the "scientific war".

Churchill also points out how few British troops were engaged in the campaign. The majority of the battalions were Egyptian and Sudanese with British officers. Only a minority was British. On the other hand, it was British communications, British logistics, British gunboats, and British firepower that made them dominant. These were Egyptian and Sudanese troops officered by the British and trained to British standards, a lesson for Afghanistan and elsewhere. In one expedition there were 1,300 men of whom only 7 were British.

This is a very useful book as we think about the complexities of the 21st century third world and its problems of poverty, violence, disorganization, and ruthless petty tyrants.

Churchill begins the work some 13 years before the war, with the killing of the legendary General Gordon in Khartoum at the hands of the fanatical Dervishes. Churchill lays out in detail the reaction in Britain, the political reasons for why no action was taken at the time, and then goes into a wonderful segue about the intervening years of the wars of the Mahdi and his successor, the Khalifa.

The book is painstakingly researched; and the young Churchill is obviously trying to "get it right"; interjecting his opinions where it is relevant and introducing facts and tables where it is necessary to make his case.

The military buildup, the logistical and technical feat of the railroad built to support the army, the manufacture and employment of river gunboats, and the precise orders of battle and description of equipment -- these are details that show Churchill's immense grasp not only of the broad strategic picture but also a consummate mastery of the details of nineteenth century soldiering. One can see at work the mind that made Churchill a valuable cabinet member in the following thirty years, and an invaluable Prime Minister in wartime.

The prose style is a bit heavy, and Churchill's writing is not at the same level that won him the Nobel Prize, but it is a fine early work about an interesting, if little known, war.

The book itself also caused a rift between Kitchener and Churchill that was never really mended; as a result, Churchill's fall from the Admiralty and the failure of Gallipoli may have had this book as a very small cause. But this is not the book's fault!

A very good work of military history, and an excellent insight into the incredible mind of Winston Churchill.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing to come out of this book, is the way Kitchener planned his laborious advance, building the railway as he went. It must have stood the future leader of Great Britain's War Cabinet in very good stead, to understand at first hand what logistics was all about. Certainly, when it came to Uncle Adolf's turn in 1940, Churchill (as stated in his later memoirs) knew that once the U.S. came on board with its unlimited industrial capacity, the war was as good as won. It was just a question of tonnage, U-boats or no U-boats, blitz or no blitz. So it was in the Sudan: the methodical Kitchener really never gave the tribes a chance.

This is a book which can be read as history or as a ripping good story. Fortunately for those of us who couldn't care a whit for W.S.C.'s talent as a politician (though one cares somewhat more for his talent as a statesman), his talent as a writer was never really in doubt, as this second published work amply proves. Although I don't think it's quite a five star book today, it would have been in 1896. Lastly, there are some interesting subplots here, including some insight into how this part of the world worked at all, up until the end of the last century. Even more interesting possibly, is the story of Gordon of Khartoum, which is an eccentric tale if ever there was one, and the relating of the Fashoda incident gives us much insight into the workings of the political mind at a time just prior to the formation of the various ententes, which were, in a way, to have such a deadly effect two decades later. Most enjoyable read.