Major-General Charles George Gordon CB, also known as Chinese Gordon, Gordon Pasha, and Gordon of Khartoum, was a British Army officer and administrator. He saw action in the Crimean War as an officer in the British Army. However, he made his military reputation in China, where he was placed in command of the "Ever Victorious Army", a force of Chinese soldiers led by European officers which was instrumental in putting down the Taiping Rebellion, regularly defeating much larger forces. For these accomplishments, he was given the nickname "Chinese Gordon" and honours from both the Emperor of China and the British.
The Battle of Omdurman was fought during the Anglo-Egyptian conquest of Sudan between a British–Egyptian expeditionary force commanded by British Commander-in-Chief (sirdar) major general Horatio Herbert Kitchener and a Sudanese army of the Mahdist State, led by Abdallahi ibn Muhammad, the successor to the self-proclaimed Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmad. The battle took place on 2 September 1898, at Kerreri, 11 kilometres (6.8 mi) north of Omdurman.
Muhammad Ahmad bin Abdullah bin Fahal was a Sudanese religious and political leader. In 1881, he claimed to be the Mahdi, and led a war against Ottoman-Egyptian rule in Sudan which culminated in a remarkable victory over the British in the Siege of Khartoum, while also slowing and defeating the British during their unsuccessful Nile Expedition to resupply the Khartoum Garrison. He created a vast Islamic state extending from the Red Sea to Central Africa, and founded a movement that remained influential in Sudan a century later.
The white feather is a widely recognised propaganda symbol. It has, among other things, represented cowardice or conscientious pacifism; as in A. E. W. Mason's 1902 book The Four Feathers. In Britain during the First World War it was often given to males out of uniform by women to shame them publicly into signing up. In the United States armed forces, however, it is used to signify extraordinary bravery and excellence in combat marksmanship.
The Battle of Abu Klea, or the Battle of Abu Tulayh took place between 16 and 18 January 1885, at Abu Klea, Sudan, between the British Desert Column and Mahdist forces encamped near Abu Klea. The Desert Column, a force of approximately 1,400 soldiers, started from Korti, Sudan on 30 December 1884; the Desert Column's mission, in a joint effort titled "The Gordon Relief Expedition", was to march across the Bayuda Desert to the aid of General Charles George Gordon at Khartoum, Sudan, who was besieged there by Mahdist forces.
Colonel William Hicks, also known as Hicks Pasha,, was a British soldier who entered the Bombay Army in 1849, and served through the Indian mutiny, being mentioned in dispatches for good conduct at the action of Sitka Ghaut in 1859.
The Battle of Shaykan was fought between Egyptian forces under the command of Hicks Pasha and the forces of Muhammad Ahmad, the self-proclaimed Mahdi, in the woods of Shaykan near Kashgil near the town of El-Obeid during 3–5 November 1883.
The siege of Khartoum took place from 13 March 1884 to 26 January 1885. Sudanese Mahdist forces captured the city of Khartoum from its Egyptian garrison, thereby gaining control over the whole of Sudan.
"The Two and a Half Feathers" is the eighth episode of the fourth series of the British comedy series Dad's Army. It was originally transmitted on Friday 13 November 1970.
The Four Feathers is a 1939 British Technicolor adventure film directed by Zoltan Korda, starring John Clements, Ralph Richardson, June Duprez, and C. Aubrey Smith. Set during the reign of Queen Victoria, it tells the story of a man accused of cowardice and his efforts to redeem his name. It is widely regarded as the best of the numerous film adaptations of the 1902 novel of the same name by A.E.W. Mason.
Osman Digna was a follower of Muhammad Ahmad, the self-proclaimed Mahdi, in Sudan, who became his best known military commander during the Mahdist War. He was claimed to be a descendant from the Abbasid family. As the Mahdi's ablest general, he played an important role in the fate of General Charles George Gordon and the end of Turkish-Egyptian rule in Sudan.
The Mahdist War was a war between the Mahdist Sudanese, led by Muhammad Ahmad bin Abdullah, who had proclaimed himself the "Mahdi" of Islam, and the forces of the Khedivate of Egypt, initially, and later the forces of Britain. Eighteen years of war resulted in the creation of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (1899–1956), a de jure condominium of the British Empire and the Kingdom of Egypt in which Britain had de facto control over Sudan. The Sudanese launched several unsuccessful invasions of their neighbours, expanding the scale of the conflict to include not only Britain and Egypt but also the Italian Empire, the Congo Free State and the Ethiopian Empire.
The Four Feathers is a 2002 war drama film directed by Shekhar Kapur and starring Heath Ledger, Wes Bentley, Djimon Hounsou and Kate Hudson. Set during the British Army's Gordon Relief Expedition in Sudan, well after the formation of Mahdiyya, it tells the story of a young man accused of cowardice. This film, with altered plot events, is the latest in a long line of cinematic adaptations of the 1902 novel The Four Feathers by A.E.W. Mason. Other versions of the story have been set in the 1890s, with different battle events.
Four Feathers (1915) is a silent film adaptation of A. E. W. Mason's 1902 novel The Four Feathers.
The Four Feathers is a 1978 British television film adaptation of the classic 1902 novel The Four Feathers by novelist A. E. W. Mason. Directed by Don Sharp, this version starred Beau Bridges, Robert Powell, Simon Ward and Jane Seymour, and was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award. It follows the novel almost exactly, and response to the film was very positive.
The Four Feathers is a 1929 American sound war film directed by Merian C. Cooper and starring William Powell, Richard Arlen, Clive Brook and Fay Wray. This was the third of numerous film versions of the 1902 novel The Four Feathers written by A. E. W. Mason. While the film has no audible dialog, it was released with a synchronized musical score with sound effects using both the sound-on-disc and sound-on-film process. The 1929 version of The Four Feathers premiered at the Criterion Theatre in New York City on June 12, 1929.
Storm Over the Nile is a 1955 British adventure film adaptation of the 1902 novel The Four Feathers, directed by Terence Young and Zoltan Korda. The film not only extensively used footage of the action scenes from the 1939 film version stretched into CinemaScope, but is a shot-for-shot, almost line-for-line remake of the earlier film, which was also directed by Korda. Several pieces of music by the original composer Miklos Rozsa were also utilized. It featured Anthony Steel, Laurence Harvey, James Robertson Justice, Mary Ure, Ian Carmichael, Michael Hordern and Christopher Lee. The film was shot on location in the Sudan.
The Four Feathers is a 1921 British silent war film directed by René Plaissetty and starring Harry Ham, Mary Massart and Henry Vibart. The film is an adaptation of A. E. W. Mason's 1902 novel of the same name. The film was made on location and at Cricklewood Studios by Stoll Pictures, at the time the largest British film studio. It was the second film version of the story, following a 1915 American film. The film was shot on location in North Africa. It was reasonably successful on its release.
The River Column was a unit of British soldiers during the Mahdist War.
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.
