The River War: An Account of the Reconquest of the Sudan: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

The River War: An Account of the Reconquest of the Sudan, credited to Winston Churchill, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of The River War: An Account of the Reconquest of the Sudan, by Winston Churchill. Read by Mark F. Smith. When the self-proclaimed Mahdi (“Guided One”) gathered Islamic forces and kicked the Anglo-Egyptians out of the Sudan, he unleashed a backlash. With the image of the heroic General Charles Gordon dying at Khartoum, the British public was ready to support a war to reclaim the lost territories. And when the political time was right, a British-Egyptian-Sudanese expedition led by the redoubtable Herbert Kitchener set out to do just that. The river involved was the Nile. For millennia, its annual flood has made habitable a slender strip, though hundreds of miles of deserts, between its tributaries and its delta. Through this desolate region, man and beast struggled to supply the bare essentials of life. Though this same region, the expedition had to find and defeat an enemy several times larger than itself. The young Churchill was hot to gain war experience to aid his career, and so he wangled a transfer to the 21st Lancers and participated in the last successful cavalry charge the world ever saw, in the climactic battle of Omdurman. He also had a position as war correspondent for the Morning Post, and on his return to England he used his notes to compose this book.

Recording facts

• Recording title: The River War: An Account of the Reconquest of the Sudan
• Author credits: Winston Churchill
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 23
• Listed recording duration: 14:13:59

Catalogue topics

• war
• churchill
• sudan
• africa

Track guide

1. 01 - The Rebellion of the Mahdi, Part 1 — 42:20
2. 02 - The Rebellion of the Mahdi, Part 2 — 42:49
3. 03 - The Fate of the Envoy, Part 1 — 40:27
4. 04 - The Fate of the Envoy, Part 2 — 42:03
5. 05 - The Dervish Empire — 47:58
6. 06 - The Years of Preparation — 42:38
7. 07 - The Beginning of the War — 45:58
8. 08 - Firket — 21:16
9. 09 - The Recovery of the Dongola Province — 53:47
10. 10 - The Desert Railway — 49:56
11. 11 - Abu Hamed — 41:55
12. 12 - Berber — 36:46
13. 13 - Reconaissance — 30:39
14. 14 - The Battle of the Atbara — 29:19
15. 15 - The Grand Advance — 29:21
16. 16 - The Operations of the First of September — 27:35
17. 17 - The Battle of Omdurman, Part 1 — 31:59
18. 18 - The Battle of Omdurman, Part 2 — 45:03
19. 19 - The Fall of the City — 21:48
20. 20 - The Fashoda Incident — 33:52
21. 21 - On the Blue Nile — 44:24
22. 22 - The End of the Khalifa — 42:21
23. 23 - Appendix — 10:00

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Source and rights

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