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Letts’s Map of the Country round Khartum centers on the junction of the White Nile and Blue Nile, portraying the river course in a wash of green, flanked by tan hachures that pick out the hills and scarps of the Bayûda Steppe to the west and the low plateau of the Hagir-es-Sund and Shebaka country to the east. Settlements, wells, caravan tracks, and telegraph stations are all named. The careful lettering of tribal territories, including Ababdeh Arabs, Jaalîn, Shêggieh, and others, reflects the British army’s need to identify friend, foe, and sources of supply. A bold ruled line shows the straight desert track across the Bayûda to the southwest that would become the famous Camel-Corps route during the forthcoming relief attempt.
Two insets include a “Plan of Khartum” and a “General Map of the Sudan”, covering the Nile from the Mediterranean through Egypt to Khartoum, with a large section of the Red Sea.
In 1881 Muḥammad Aḥmad proclaimed himself the Mahdī and raised a revolt against Anglo-Egyptian rule in the Sudan. By early 1884 Mahdist forces controlled most of the country outside Khartoum. The British government, anxious to extract the Egyptian garrison yet reluctant to launch a full-scale campaign, dispatched Major-General Charles George Gordon to organize an evacuation. Instead, Gordon chose to hold the city; Mahdist troops encircled it in March 1884, cutting telegraph lines and river traffic.
Public opinion in Britain quickly demanded a rescue. When General Sir Garnet Wolseley’s Gordon Relief (Nile) Expedition was authorized in August 1884, newspapers, clubs, and drawing rooms clamored for up-to-date “war maps” to follow the campaign. Letts answered the demand with a suite of inexpensive sheets, of which this map was the flagship: large enough for pin-flags marking daily reports, yet portable and cheap (one shilling folded, two-and-six on linen).
The geography it displays mirrors the rival strategies debated in London and Cairo. The continuous Nile Valley, illustrates the River Column’s slow but secure advance by steamer and infantry. The oblique desert line across the Bayûda marks the Camel Corps’ intended short-cut from Korti to Metemma—an audacious route that Wolseley hoped would reach Gordon first.
Wolseley’s vanguard fought bitter actions at Abu Klea (17 January 1885) and Metemma (19 January), but the relief force arrived two days after Mahdist attackers had stormed Khartoum and killed Gordon (26 January 1885). With Gordon dead, Britain abandoned the immediate reconquest; Khartoum became the Mahdist capital until Kitchener retook it in 1898.
