The aspirations of the men who set out on the Suakin expedition were high. Written as soon as he returned home, this is the author's story of the campaign, which has often been overshadowed by the exploits of Gordon and Wolseley. Here, dramatically told. is a day-to-day account of what happened when the British Tommy came face to face with Kipling's Fuzzy-Wuzzies, the "first class fighting man." When news first came through to England of General Gordon's plight, besieged in Khartoum by the forces of the Mahdi, such was the public outcry that Lord Wolseley was sent with an expeditionary force to relieve him. Through tragic delays and miscalculations, it arrived too late, and in the ferment of public ourtrage at Gordon's horrific death, the Government hastily despatched the Suakin expedition under Sir Gerald Graham to come to Wolseley's aid by engaging the forces of the mighty Osman Digma. They left England with high aspirations in February, and the story of what happened is told graphically from the author's eye-witness accounts, from the official dispatches he saw at HQ, and on contemporary reports from newspapers. Holding their own against Osman Digma, constantly luring him to the battlefield, their aim was to construct a railway through to Berber, as the key to regaining the Soudan[Sudan]. It was forging ahead when in May the Government decided to withdraw from the Soudan [Sudan]. This is a first-class memoir of a little known Victorian campaign., ISBN13: 9781853670664 ISBN10: 1853670669 Material Type: hardcover