Sirdar and Khalifa or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan (1898)

The very scarce Colonial First Edition. Published by George Bell & Sons, London & Bombay, 1898.

 xiv + 305pp., frontispiece of Major-General Sir H. H. Kitchener, three maps (one as fold-out at rear), numerous text illustrations. Contents clean, hinges cracked, some rubbing along the edges.

From the preface: 'Causes may be constant in their operation, yet unforeseen events will oft arise to set aside judgment and plans, which is perhaps only another way of saying - "Man proposes, God disposes." By order of the British Government of the day, that enormous area in North-Eastern Africa known as the Egyptian Soudan, extending from Wady Halfa to the equator, was yielded by the Khedive to whomsoever cared to seize it. Many seaports along and beyond the Red Sea littoral were abandoned, as well as numberless tribes, Arab and negroid, their future left to be determined by the lottery of conquest. The Mahdist rising was in full swing at that period in the Central Soudan. Fanatical millions eagerly volunteered to extend by fire and sword the dominion of their new creed, as they hoped, to the uttermost ends of the earth.

Within a decade almost, the policy that dictated the evacuation and abandonment of that country had been reversed and the re-conquest of the Soudan begun. It is of the more recent carrying out, under British direction and aid, of the task, that I have now written.'

Burleigh was a special correspondent for the Daily Telegraph during the Anglo-Boer war and wrote a book titled The Natal Campaign which was published in 1900.