The River War: An Account of the Reconquest of the Sudan - Winston Churchill

Winston S. Churchill, Winston Churchill

Category: History

Tags: History

Excerpt: The northeastern quarter of the continent of Africa is drained and watered by the Nile. Among and about the headstreams and tributaries of this mighty river lie the wide and fertile provinces of the Egyptian Soudan. Situated in the very centre of the land, these remote regions are on every side divided from the seas by 500 miles of mountain, swamp, or desert., The great river is their only means of growth, their only channel of progress. It is by the Nile alone that their commerce can reach the outer markets or European civilisation can penetrate the inner darkness. The Soudan is joined to Egypt by the Nile as a diver is connected with the surface by his air pipe. Without it there is only suffocation. Aut Nilus, aut nihil!, The town of Khartoum, at the confluence of the Blue and White Niles, is the point on which the trade of the south must inevitably converge. It is the great spout through which the merchandise collected from a wide area streams northwards to the Mediterranea