Battle of Abu Klea The Battle of Abu Klea took place between the dates of 16 and 18 January 1885 , at Abu Klea , Sudan , between the British Desert Column and Mahdi st forces encamped near Abu Klea . The Desert Column , a force of approximately 1 , 400 soldiers , started from Korti , Sudan on 30 December 1884 ; the Desert Column ' s mission , in a joint effort titled " The Gordon Relief Expedition " , was to march across the desert to the aid of General Charles George Gordon at Khartoum , Sudan , who was besieged there by Mahdist forces . The place is generally known in British military records as Abu Klea , which arose as a contemporary British attempt at spelling its Arabic name , " ' Abu Tͅuleiħ " ( أَبُو طُلَيْح ) . Background . The British forces consisted of the 1 , 100 British of the Desert Column under Sir Herbert Stewart , against a Sudanese force of approximately 12 , 000 fighters . While the main British force ( the River Column ) , led by General Sir Garnet Wolseley travelled by river from Korti to Khartoum , Stewart ' s column was to cut across country by column directly for Khartoum , since time was running short according to what little information was available from the garrison . The force was composed of four regiments of camel - mounted troops ( Guards , Heavy , Light and Mounted Infantry ) , formed from detachments of the various regiments in Egypt and the River Column , and a detachment of the 19th Hussars , mounted on horses . Four light field pieces and a small Naval Brigade manning a Gardner machine gun completed the force . Battle . As the Desert Column approached the wells at Abu Klea , they were set upon by a Mahdist force . Stewart formed the troops into a square , with the cannon on the north face and the Naval Brigade , with their Gardner machine gun , at a corner . Several officers and men of HMS " Alexandra " were killed at the battle . As the British advanced to outflank the Mahdist force , a gap had opened up towards the rear left corner of the square . The Gardner gun was run out to the left flank of the infantry square to provide covering fire . The square closed behind them leaving them exposed . Two companies of the Heavy Camel Regiment were also wheeled out of the square to support the Gardner gun . The Gardner gun had been tested and found very reliable in Britain , but had not been tested in a desert with loose sand getting into its mechanism . After seventy rounds were fired , the gun jammed and as the crew tried to clear it they were cut down in a rush by the Dervish es . Out of the forty men in the Naval contingent , Lieutenants Alfred Piggott and Rudolph de Lisle were killed along with Chief Boatswain ' s Mate Bill Rhodes and five other seamen and seven more were wounded . Lord Charles Beresford was ' scratched ' on the left hand by a spear as he managed to duck under the gun . The weight of the rush pushed the sailors back into the face of the square . Several Dervishes got inside the square , but found the interior full of camels and could not proceed . The troops in the rear ranks faced about and opened fire into the press of men and camels behind them , and were able to drive the Dervishes out of the square and compel them to retreat from the field . The battle was short , lasting barely fifteen minutes from start to finish . Casualties for the British were nine officers and 65 other ranks killed and over a hundred wounded . The Mahdists lost 1 , 100 dead during the fifteen minutes of fighting , made all the worse by the fact only 5 , 000 of the Dervish force were engaged . Among the Dervish dead was Musa wad Helu , one of the Mahdist chiefs . British national hero Colonel F . G . Burnaby of the Royal Horse Guards was killed by a spear to the throat . Frank Rhodes ( brother of Cecil ) distinguished himself when several horses were shot under him during the engagement , earning him a Distinguished Service Order . Gunner Alfred Smith fought bravely to save his officer , Lieutenant Guthrie , and was awarded a VC . Another action happened two days later at Abu Kru ( the Battle of El Gubat ) and the advance rescue force leader Sir Herbert Stewart was mortally wounded leaving command to the inexperienced leader Sir Charles Wilson ( the column ' s intelligence officer ) who was slower in organising his forces . Aftermath . The column was too late to save Khartoum ; the Mahdists captured it two days before the the column arrived , leading to the death of General Gordon . The British then withdrew from the Sudan , leaving the Dervishes of the Mahdi to rule Sudan for the next 13 years . The official public blame for this failure was left with Prime Minister Gladstone for delaying several months , to the considerable anger expressed in public of Queen Victoria , to authorize a rescue . Gladstone lost public confidence and much authority and within two months he resigned . The battle was celebrated by the Scottish doggerel poet William McGonagall : < poem > Ye sons of Mars , come join with me , And sing in praise of Sir Herbert Stewart ’ s little army , That made ten thousand Arabs flee At the charge of the bayonet at Abou Klea < / poem > and so on for 19 stanzas And also the battle and one of its notable participants is mentioned in the song " Colonel Burnaby " , which has as its chorus : Weep not my boys , for those who fell , They did not flinch nor fear . They stood their ground like Englishmen , and died at Abu Klea The rhymes in these poems show varying attempts at pronouncing " Klea " from the English spelling , and the rhyme with " fear " shows British English arhotic pronunciation . More celebrated and of higher literary quality is the mention of the battle in verse two of Sir Henry Newbolt ' s poem " Vitai Lampada " : < poem > … The sand of the desert is sodden red , Red with the wreck of a square that broke ; The Gatling ’ s jammed and the colonel dead , And the regiment blind with dust and smoke . The river of death has brimmed his banks , And England ’ s far , and Honour a name , But the voice of the schoolboy rallies the ranks , “ Play up ! play up ! and play the game ! ” < / poem > " The wreck of a square " is a severe exaggeration ; most of the dead were Mahdists . Newbolt ' s reference to the Gatling is incorrect as the British force at Abu Klea had the American Gardner machine gun , whose name scans just as well as Gatling ( but perhaps he knew that in listening to the poem the name " Gardner " could have been misheard as " gardener " ) . The Royal Artillery unit which took part in the battle still exists today , re - numbered as 176 Battery , and has the honour title " Abu Klea " , awarded in 1955 in recognition of the Victoria Cross won by Gunner Smith .