Hist 4339

 

Methods of Colonial Control: Fashoda and the Boer War

 

Sudan

Omdurman

▪ British effort to retake Sudan after Mahdist army’s rebellion against Egyptian rule

▪ Battle of Omdurman (2 Sept 1898): British defeat of Mahdist army

            ◦ 48 Anglo-Egyptian casualties vs. 11,000 Mahdist casualties

            ◦ British satirist Hilaire Belloc:    Whatever happens, we have got

                                                                        the Maxim gun, and they have not.

 

Fashoda (1898)

▪ French plans to dam Nile, gain control over British in Egypt

▪ Victorious Anglo-Egyptian army stumbled across small French garrison

▪ Tense weeks-long standoff between Britain and France over Fashoda

▪ Eventual French surrender

 

Anglo-Egyptian Condominium

▪ 1899: Sudan made a condominium (territory ruled jointly by Britain and Egypt)

▪ Condominium really dominated by Britain

 

South Africa

The Boers

▪ 1815: British annexure of Cape of Good Hope (Cape Colony)

▪ 1881: British-Boer agreement leaves Transvaal to Boers

▪ 1886: Major gold strike in Transvaal

 

Cecil Rhodes

▪ Fortune in diamond mines

▪ 1889: Rhodes’ British South Africa Co. granted charter for Rhodesia

▪ 1890: Rhodes prime minister of Cape Colony

▪ 1895: Jameson Raid scandal

 

Boer War

▪ 1899: British provoke war

▪ Early example of total war

▪ Concentration camps kill tens of thousands

▪ Greatest test of Br imperial power since Indian uprising of 1857

▪ 1910: Boer & British territory in Southern Africa combined to form South Africa

 

Darfur

▪ Condominium’s boundaries unclear

▪ Darfur region autonomous under Sultan Ali Dinar of the Keira dynasty

▪ French pressure, Ali Dinar’s WWI alliance with Ottomans

▪ 1916: Darfur officially annexed to condominium