Pharaoh

Historical characters, 1884–5

Buller, Major-General Sir Redvers Brigade commander in the Gordon Relief Expedition, a veteran of many campaigns who won the Victoria Cross in the 1879 Zulu War in South Africa

Burnaby, Colonel Frederick Cavalry officer and adventurer killed at the Battle of Abu Klea in January 1885

Chaillé-Long, Charles American Civil War veteran and adventurer who was commissioned into the Egyptian Army in the 1870s and served under Gordon in the Sudan

Earle, Major-General William Commander of the River Column in the Gordon Relief Expedition, killed at the Battle of Kirkeban in February 1885

Gladstone, William Ewert British Prime Minister at the time of the Gordon Relief Expedition

Gordon, Major-General Charles, Royal Engineers Governor-General of the Sudan, popularly known as ‘Chinese’ Gordon for his exploits in putting down the Taiping Rebellion in 1860–4

Kitchener, Major Herbert, Royal Engineers Intelligence officer with the Gordon Relief expedition who became Sirdar of the Egyptian army, Commander-in-Chief in India and in 1914 British Secretary of State for War

Mahdi, the Muhammad Ahmad, a former boatbuilder and Sufi who became leader of the Islamist forces in the Sudan in the early 1880s, dying of illness or poison in June 1885

Riel, Louis Rebel Métis (mixed French/Indian) leader in western Canada who was the object of Wolseley’s Red River expedition in 1870, and was eventually caught and hanged in November 1885

Schliemann, Heinrich German-born archaeologist who rediscovered Troy and Mycenae, and also explored in Egypt and the Sudan

Stewart, Major-General Sir Herbert Commander of the Desert Column in the Gordon Relief Expedition, mortally wounded at the Battle of Abu Kru in January 1885

Stewart, Lieutenant-Colonel John Gordon’s deputy in Khartoum who was murdered while accompanying the steamer Abbas downriver in September 1884

Von Slatin, Rudolf Carl Austrian-born provincial governor in Sudan under Gordon who converted to Islam, spent eleven years as a captive of the Mahdists and was later Inspector-General of the Sudan, knighted and made an honorary Major-General by the British

Wilson, Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Charles, Royal Engineers Founder of the Intelligence Department in the War Office who was intelligence chief in the Gordon Relief Expedition and commanded the Desert Column after Major-General Stewart’s death

Wolseley, General Sir Garnet Commander of the Gordon Relief Expedition, a veteran of the Crimean War, the Indian Mutiny, the Red River expedition in Canada, the Ashanti War and the Zulu War, and head of the so-called ‘Ashanti Ring’ of officers he kept with him through successive campaigns