Letters From Khartoum: Written During the Siege
By Frank Power
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No American or English journals had correspondents in any part of North Africa, and since a brief message had come through to London announcing the destruction of Col. William Hicks’ Army—annihilated on its way to attack the Mahdi’s headquarters—nothing had been learned of subsequent events. It was then that Mr. Gray seized the occasion, and made the Dublin Freeman’s Journal one of the most frequently-quoted publications of our time.
The man he chose, Mr. Frank Power, known to his colleagues in Dublin’s Prince’s street as “Ghazi” Power, was the most dare-devil, resourceful and versatile member of his staff, equal to any emergency and avid for the ordeal that would try his mettle. His employer handed him a blank cheque, and told him to make all speed from Gravesend to Cairo, and, by hook or crook, to penetrate into Khartoum and dispatch all that he could gather about the state of affairs there and in the country around.
The Government replies that followed were based on Freeman’s Journal despatches or telegrams to Whitehall, and all revealed the growing gravity of the situation. Before many weeks of 1885 had expired the tragic news came from Mr. Power that General Gordon and several of his staff had been butchered in January by the Mahdi’s mercenaries.
Mr. Power’s letters brought the story of the siege down to July 31st, 1884, and the present volume consisting of Power’s letters to his family describing the siege of Khartoum was first published the following year.
Frank Power
Frank Power (1858-1884), known to his friends as “Ghazi,” was an Irish journalist, writer, and artist who exhibited at the Royal Hibernian Academy. He wrote for the Freeman’s Journal and The Irish Times. When Muhammad Ahmad bin Abd Allah declared a holy war against the Egyptian authorities in Sudan in 1883, and he and his Mahdist Sudanese forces surrounded Khartoum (a small British outpost), Edmund Dwyer—chairman of Freeman’s Journal’s and Frank Power’s boss—sent Power to the area just before crisis point. During his time in Khartoum from August 1883 until September 1884, Power was made both the Times correspondent and Her Majesty’s Consul at Khartoum, and occupied the Government House, pending the arrival of General Gordon’s defending forces. Despite the siege, transport remained open on the Nile and the telegraph worked, so Power was able to communicate officially with London every day. Khartoum eventually fell to the Mahdists on January 28, 1885 when General Gordon was killed fighting to lift the siege. Frank Power was killed on the banks of the Nile prior to this in September 1884 by members of the Hadenoda tribe, one of Ahmad bin Abd Allah’s allies.
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