Another Great Read

LAST month I highly praised Winston Churchill's The Story Of The Malakand Relief Force, his detailing of a Victorian campaign on the Northwest Frontier in India, as a "must-read" for fans of colonial wargaming.

I can only say the same for Churchill's hefty The River War - An Historical Account Of The Reconquest Of The Soudan, of which I have the 1902 revised edition.

As well as being a riveting read, it contains detailed orders-of-battle for a long series of major engagements and minor skirmishes as the 'Mahdi' and his successor, the 'Khalifa', war against Egyptians and their British allies/overlords, as well as against Ethiopians and Arab rivals/rebels.

Churchill gave a co-byline to "Colonel Rhodes, who has not only assisted me with his store of knowledge and experience, gained during many years of war in the Soudan, but has also procured me much valuable information which I could not have otherwise obtained"

Some of the early pages, setting the background to the war, cover familiar ground, to me, as they are largely based on Rudolf Slatin's remarkable Fire And Sword In The Sudan, but after that it was, to me, mostly new, exciting and very entertaining.