Khartoum
- APPROVED
- Year:
- 1966
- 128 min
- 620 Views
The Nile was always there.
Long before Cairo, long before
the tombs of kings...
it was the reason
for everything.
It's a little hard to grasp how
far this river's been flowing.
This is the rain
that fell on Abyssinia.
These are the waters drained
that have flowed 4,000 miles
to make Egypt green.
The Nile has its memories.
The story of Khartoum
is a recent one...
less than a century old.
That's yesterday
in this part of the world.
But however far back
you may go...
all the Nile's recollections
have several things in common.
There's always God,
for instance.
Or, if you prefer, the gods.
It seems to have been
quite impossible...
to live beside this river...
and not to have visions
of eternity.
And there's always mystery.
You wind up with a few questions
that no one can answer.
One more thing.
Why is it that everything
was always so big...
outsized, larger-than-life?
Vanity? Perhaps.
Or visions.
with vision.
And that's
part of this story, too.
But it's the Nile
that remains the original fact.
The Nile and, of course,
the desert.
Move up, up the Nile.
Leave Egypt behind
and the green land.
Enter the Sudan.
of desert and scrub.
It was here out of the vast,
hot African nowhere...
that a man of the Nile,
a man of vision...
and mystery and vanity
rose up in the 1880s...
and then the world.
the Expected One...
his desert tribesmen...
and he cried out for holy war.
Egypt hired an army
of 10,000 men...
and a professional English
soldier to command them...
and sent them 1,600 miles
up the Nile to Khartoum...
and on into the desert
to destroy this man, the Mahdi.
forgotten, if he ever knew...
the Sudan's great fact...
its immensity.
The Mahdi led him on and on...
and on.
- Keep those men back!
- Right you are! Keep order!
Back!
Bugler!
Deploy!
Get those rifles
to the high ground!
Mahdi!
Beloveds,
you're men of the desert.
My Lord Mohammed, blessings
and peace be upon him...
commands me to speak...
for I am the Mahdi,
the Expected One...
and I am sprung from
the forehead of the family...
of my Lord Mohammed,
blessings be upon him.
My beloveds,
did I not promise thee...
a miracle would fall from heaven
from the Prophet Mohammed?
And was not this so?
We fight a holy war against
the fat and the corrupt...
and the sinful
and the unbelieving.
We fight a war to restore to a
disobedient, forgetful world...
the laws and commands
of the Prophet Mohammed...
blessings and peace
be upon him...
whose instrument on Earth I am.
Exalt ye not that men are dead,
since more must die tomorrow.
My beloveds, in a vision...
the Prophet Mohammed
has instructed me.
Let mountain and desert tremble.
Let cities shudder,
and let the fat and the rich...
and the corrupt in far places
mark this moment...
and turn in fear
of all those miracles to come!
And let none in all Islam,
from this victorious hour...
believe I am other
than the Expected One...
the true Mahdi.
Beloveds,
it is the hour of prayer.
Explain to me, somebody, where
in heaven's name is Wolseley?
Explain to me
how a rabble of tribesmen...
armed only
with spears and swords...
Not a British army,
Prime Minister.
- To the last man.
- An Egyptian army.
I don't care whose army.
10,000 men...
Why did Egypt have to hire
an Englishman?
Colonel Hicks was a fool.
Clearly. A fool.
That's not the question.
Why did he have to be English?
"Avenge Hicks."
"Uphold Britain's Honor."
Wolseley, I have the press
at my throat.
I was summoned to Scotland
to explain to Her Majesty.
Will you explain to me...
Mr. Gladstone,
Colonel Stewart...
recently attached
to military intelligence.
The colonel's just back
from Khartoum.
He will be able to explain
better than I.
Colonel Stewart, sit down.
Are these bulletins
from Khartoum true?
It's over a month's travel
from the Sudan, sir...
so, obviously, I left before
these events took place...
but I assume they're true.
Why?
I was sent to Khartoum to
assess the Egyptian capacity...
to deal with the uprising.
I assessed it as nil.
Military intelligence?
There's intelligence for you.
After the event,
they knew all about it.
My reports were delivered
to Sir Evelyn Baring...
I was aware of the reports.
I just didn't believe them.
- I'm Granville.
- My Lord.
explain to me, however...
how a modern army
could be slaughtered...
virtually to the last man.
Colonel Hicks and his men, sir,
were fighting for wages.
The Mahdi and his men
were fighting a holy war.
Also, Hicks made
a very bad mistake.
ignorant savage, and he wasn't.
The Mahdi is
the most extraordinary man...
the Sudan's ever seen.
And he knows his people.
He promised them a miracle.
He had to deliver it.
Even so, Colonel Stewart,
the extent of the disaster...
The disaster, sir, has little to
do with the loss of 10,000 men.
It's their arms.
Egypt was unequal to a horde
of desert tribesmen...
when they'd scarcely a pistol
to call their own.
What does he do now...
now that they've captured
10,000 Remington rifles...
five batteries of artillery...
and very nearly five million
rounds of ammunition?
And I must add
what will become of Egypt...
if the Mahdi occupies Khartoum
and the Khartoum arsenal?
What a jolly day you'll have
with Her Majesty tomorrow.
Gentlemen,
let me make one thing clear.
I'm sending no armies
up the Nile.
You, Hartington,
your imperialist friends...
you're looking for any excuse
to move into central Africa.
We are discussing Egypt.
We have a moral responsibility
to Egypt.
A moral responsibility.
We have the Suez Canal.
Say it.
Egypt protects Suez.
We protect Egypt.
Why in heaven's name
We've just heard
from Colonel Stewart.
She's not up to it.
Colonel Stewart?
I've no doubt
he's like the rest of you.
He can see himself
leading a British army...
1,600 miles up the Nile,
flags flying, glory for all.
I beg your pardon, sir.
Before I'd accept
such a command...
I'd resign my commission.
I wouldn't spend
one British life...
to oppose the Mahdi,
not in the Sudan.
I assumed you were
for intervention.
You didn't ask my opinion, sir.
Well, I want it, by heaven,
if it agrees with mine.
Gentlemen, I shall suggest...
to Her Majesty
in Scotland tomorrow...
that we shall discharge
our obligations to Egypt...
by evacuating all
the Egyptians from Khartoum.
How, without either
a British army...
or loss of British honor?
as to just how.
Gordon.
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"Khartoum" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 8 Nov. 2024. <https://www.scripts.com/script/khartoum_11698>.
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