Diaries of Abbas Bey Assistant Governor-General of Sudan Who was martyred on the battlefield of Sheikan, Kordofan, November 5, 1883 Under the command of General Hicks Pasha

This document is one of the remnants of Hicks's campaign. It was written in pencil by Abbas Effendi, assistant to Major General Ala al-Din Pasha, Governor-General of Sudan, second-in-command of the campaign. The diary was picked up by Darwish, one of the Mahdist mujahideen, from the belongings of the martyred officer after his killing. This Darwish kept the diary until he too was killed on the battlefield of Omdurman in 1898, and it was found by an officer of the Egyptian Army Intelligence. He handed it over to the command of the Egyptian-British forces. It was then sent to the Keeper of Windsor Castle in England, to be preserved among the historical archives of the castle. Before publishing the diaries, the introducers mention some preceding events: In 1882, the Egyptian government, after the British occupation, decided to send a campaign to recapture the city of El Obeid, the capital of Kordofan, which had fallen into the hands of the Mahdia after a long siege. In the aforementioned year, the government appointed General Hicks, a retired officer of the Indian Army, as Chief of Staff of the entire Egyptian Army, in preparation for his command of the campaign. They also appointed Rear Admiral Hussein Mazhar Bey as Deputy Governor-General of Sudan. The latter arrived in Khartoum on March 5, 1883. The Egyptian army had been disbanded following the Urabi Revolt. The government then sought to establish a modern army. They quickly mobilized a campaign composed of officers and soldiers from the Urabi Army, from the few Egyptian forces, to join them in Khartoum with some of the forces encamped in

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