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The Mahdist War (1881–99) was a British colonial war of the late 19th century, which was fought between the Mahdist Sudanese of the religious leader Muhammad Ahmad bin Abd Allah, the Mahdi (the “Guided One”), and the forces of the Khedivate of Egypt, initially, and later the forces of Britain. From 18 years of colonial war resulted the joint-rule state of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (1899–1956), a condominium of the British Empire and the Kingdom of Egypt. The British participation in the colonial war is called the Sudan Campaign, which is vividly described in ''The River War: An Historical Account of the Reconquest of the Soudan'' (1899) by Winston Churchill, a participant in the war; other names for this colonial war are the “Madhist Revolt,” the “Anglo–Sudan War,” and the “Sudanese Mahdist Revolt.” ==Background== Following the invasion by Muhammad Ali in 1819, Sudan was governed by an Egyptian administration. Because of the heavy taxes it imposed and because of the bloody start of the Turkish-Egyptian rule in Sudan, this colonial system was resented by the Sudanese people, . Throughout the period of Turco-Egyptian rule, many segments of the Sudanese population suffered extreme hardship because of the system of taxation imposed by the central government. Under this system, a flat tax was imposed on farmers and small traders and collected by government-appointed tax collectors from the Sha'iqiyya tribe of northern Sudan. In bad years, and especially during times of drought and famine, farmers were unable to pay the high taxes. Fearing the brutal and unjust methods of the Sha'iqiyya, many farmers fled their villages in the fertile Nile Valley to the remote areas of Kordofan and Darfur. These migrants, known as black "jallaba" after their loose-fitting style of dress, began to function as small traders and middlemen for the foreign trading companies that had established themselves in the cities and towns of central Sudan. By the middle 19th century the Ottoman Imperial subject administration in Egypt was in the hands of Khedive Ismail. Although not a competent or devoted leader, Khedive Ismail had grandiose schemes about Egypt. But his spending had put Egypt into huge debt, and when his financing of the Suez Canal started to crumble, Great Britain stepped in and repaid his loans in return for controlling shares in the canal. As the most direct route to India, the jewel in the British Crown, control over the Suez Canal was of paramount strategic importance, and British commercial and imperial interests dictated the need to seize or otherwise control it. Thus an ever increasing British role in Egyptian affairs seemed necessary. With Khedive Ismail's spending and corruption causing instability, in 1873 the British government supported a program whereby an Anglo-French debt commission assumed responsibility for managing Egypt's fiscal affairs. This commission eventually forced Khedive Ismail to abdicate in favor of his son Tawfiq in 1877, leading to a period of political turmoil. Also in 1873, Ismail had appointed General Charles "Chinese" Gordon Governor of the Equatorial Provinces of Sudan. For the next three years, General Gordon fought against a native chieftain of Darfur, Al-Zubayr Rahma Mansur. Upon Ismail's abdication in 1877, Gordon found himself with dramatically decreased support. Exhausted by years of work, he resigned his post in 1880 and left early the next year. His policies were soon abandoned by the new governors, but the anger and discontent of the dominant Arab minority was left unaddressed. Although the Egyptians were fearful of the deteriorating conditions, the British refused to get involved, "Her Majesty’s Government are in no way responsible for operations in the Sudan," the Foreign Secretary Earl Granville noted. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Mahdist War」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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