Waterloo 1815 AP011 Dervish Infantry

The term "dervish" essentially means a member of a Muslim religious community, but also an itinerant Muslim monk, living a lifestyle similar to that of European Mendicant monks. However, much more often the term "dervish" is used to name the Muslim warriors involved in the Mahdi uprising in Sudan of 1881-1899. This uprising came about as a result of dissatisfaction with British rule over Egypt and with the attempts of the British crown to rule over Sudan. The leader of the uprising was Muhammed Ahmad, called by his followers the Mahdi, or God's Messenger. Its goal was to restore Islam and fight against British rule in Egypt. Relatively quickly, he formed a large, but weakly armed army, which besieged and captured Khartoum - the capital of Sudan in 1884. British General Charles Gordon was killed in these battles, which was a shock to the British public. Interestingly, the Mahdi created a de facto independent state in Sudan, which, after his death in 1885, undertook a series of military expeditions to Ethiopia and Egypt. Great Britain, striving to avenge the death of General Gordon, and at the same time to conquer Sudan, from 1896 conducted regular military operations, finally destroying the dervish army in the Battle of Omdurman in 1898, in which the decisive technological advantage of the British army prevailed over the quantitative advantage of the dervishes . From 1899, Sudan was already under the British-Egyptian protectorate.