'Empire' with Jeremy Paxman...

[max_tranmere]

I watched last night's episode (Monday) on BBC1. One of many things covered was a massacre that we carried out in The Sudan. It mentioned how we the Brits, armed with vast weaponry, including untold numbers of heavy machine guns, took on the locals in a large battle - who were armed with nothing but speers. The result? Ten thousand Sudanese dead and forty-eight British dead. Watching the programme I was genuinely sickened and disgusted at what we did and I hope the senior British politicians and military men who authorised this all burnt in hell! Did anyone else watch this episode? It was a well put together programme and informative, but very disturbing to watch too.

[Gusset Sniffer]

Well I'm glad your ashamed of our grandfathers British history. At last we are being told the truth instead of the bollocks I was taught at school!!!!

[max_tranmere]

Some things we did in the days of Empire were very good, some things were very bad indeed.

[bamboo]

Right you are, however that same poorly armed army of locals, had wiped out the garrison of 7,000, in Khartoum, along with a few thousand civvies and brought Gordon's severed head back to the Mahdi, for his mantelpiece.

So maybe that puts the later, more one sided battle, slightly more into context.
The British had got a bloody nose, so an eye for an eye and all that and when the Dervishes turned up to fight the new British force, they got completed twatted.
Thus resulting in the phrase..'don't bring a spear to a gun fight'. !tongueincheek!

On the bright side, that railway that the Brits built, to carry all the shiney new machine guns etc, is still there to this day and really opened up the country.

[max_tranmere]

That's interesting, but it is still awful to think of people armed with speers being cut down with machine guns - and on such a scale too. The programme actually left me quite depressed, first time a historical programme has done that to me in ages.

Regarding the railway, Paxman mentioned the amazing speed that it was built - one and a half miles of track a day. It is good the country still benefits from the railway today. We did some good in that region at least, but it doesn't counterbalance the bad we did.

[MilkandCookies]

Actually turns out that the most of the 'facts' presented in the program relating to the Sudan were in fact 100% incorrect though :-

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/david ... ng-things/


1.) Referring to Khartoum in 1884, Paxman sonorously told us: ?The capital was surrounded by thousands of Islamic warriors, followers of a religious leader sworn to end British rule.?

One problem: Sudan wasn?t under British rule in 1884. Egypt governed Sudan at the time;

2.) Paxman goes on: ?The man sent from Britain to stop the Mahdi, roared on by the London newspapers, was already a legendary soldier and a fervent Christian, General Charles George Gordon.?

This is where Paxman really goes off the rails. Gordon was emphatically not ?sent? to ?stop the Mahdi?. Gladstone?s government had no intention of fighting a war in a remote territory that was not under British rule anyway. Gordon?s orders were to evacuate British and European citizens from Khartoum and then abandon the city.

3.) Paxman then digs deeper, announcing: ?Gordon?s orders weren?t to fight, but to evacuate the British force there.?

An odd claim, even on Paxman?s own terms, as he began by saying that Gordon was sent out to ?stop the Mahdi? (how could he have done that by not fighting and evacuating his force?). But anyway, Paxman is still wrong because there was no ?British force? in Khartoum in 1884-85. Gordon was the only British soldier in the city apart from his ADC, Colonel John Stewart (who left half way through the siege and was killed on his way out).


Ooops!

[max_tranmere]

That's interesting. I enjoy these historicial programmes.

I'm not that up on the Sudan but I know a bit about Nigeria for example. The legacy of what we left behind has caused terrible programmes that will, sadly, probably last forever. Creating Nigeria and forcing differnt people's to live under one administration led to the Biafran War in 1967, seven years after independance, which led to millions of deaths.

I knew someone from Swaziland who told me that what we did there was very good and a lot of people there still have a good word to say about the Brits. The things we did in some other parts of Africa were very bad though.

[frankthring]

Sorry to have missed the programme but will try and catch it on
youtube. You are 100% right milkncookies on all 3 points. I assume
the battle referred to was Omdurman.
The Mahdist death toll was very high, their wounded even more so,
and the Maxim machine guns did their dreadful work with minor Brit
and Egyptian losses. Yet the best regiments on our side were Sudanese
- yes, the very same people - settling old scores against fellow
countrymen who had savagely ruled the Sudan since 1884.
There is much I could say in this blog such as how do you succour
thousands of enemy wounded when you barely have medical supplies
for your own side? But the latest very academic account would not
please a twat like Mr Paxman - Professor Ronald Lamothe`s SLAVES
OF FORTUNE Sudanese Soldiers & The River War 1896-1898 paints a
very different picture.
Before we get all emotional about war and its "victims" remember that
the Mahdists massacred 1000s at Khartoum after Gordon`s death and
were so tough they managed to break into a British fighting square
at the battles of Tofrek and Abu Klea. Yes, they died in their 1000s at
Omdurman, with huge bravery, waving just their swords, but they are
the same fanatics dying for Allah who, in this modern age, strap a
terrorist bomb to themselves ie the cause was/is the same.

[beutelwolf]

MilkandCookies wrote:

> Actually turns out that the most of the 'facts' presented in
> the program relating to the Sudan were in fact 100% incorrect
> though :-

What does 100% incorrect mean?

That is was not in the Sudan, but in Guatemala, that it was not a battle, but a game of volleyball, that it didn't involve the British but the Americans, that it wasn't in 1884 but 1963, ...

Is this the level of incorrectness you have in mind?

> http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/david ... ng-things/
>
>
> 1.) Referring to Khartoum in 1884, Paxman sonorously told us:
> ?The capital was surrounded by thousands of Islamic warriors,
> followers of a religious leader sworn to end British rule.?
>
> One problem: Sudan wasn?t under British rule in 1884. Egypt
> governed Sudan at the time;

Paxman pointed out in one of his programs that Egypt was effectively under British rule, not a colony, but a protectorat - but that pretty much boiled down to the same thing.

[MilkandCookies]

No thats not the level of incorrecetness I have in mind, the level of incorrectness is as follows, Paxman stated Sudan was under British rule, Sudan was not under British rule.