Battle of Rejaf

Troops of the Congo Free State engage with the Mahdists at Rejaf along the Nile.

Date	17 February 1897
Location	Rejaf, South Sudan
Result	Congo Free State victory

Belligerents

Congo Free State

Mahdist Sudan

Commanders and leaders

Louis-Napoléon Chaltin

Arabi Dafalla

Strength

800 Congolese regulars
500 Azande lancers

2000 Mahdist rebels

Casualties and losses

Relatively light

Several hundred killed

The Battle of Rejaf, or the Battle of Bedden, was fought on 17 February 1897 between the Belgian-led forces of the Congo Free State and Mahdist rebels in South Sudan. The battle resulted in a Congolese victory and the permanent expulsion of the Mahdists from the Lado Enclave, as well as the establishment of a Belgian outpost along the Nile.

King Leopold II, the Belgian king and ruler of the Congo Free State, acquired the Lado Enclave in South Sudan from Britain in 1894 as part of a territory exchange which gave the British a strip of land along the eastern Congo for Belgian access to the navigable Nile. However, the territory was overrun with Mahdist rebels who had established their stronghold at the town of Rejaf, which occupied a valuable position for trade along the Nile river. After a wave of new funding from the Belgian government in 1895, King Leopold ordered an expedition to be led into the Lado Enclave to expel the Mahdists and fortify Rejaf as a strategic military and trading outpost.

The Belgian expedition, led by Commandant Louis-Napoléon Chaltin, reached the position after a month-long advance north-east towards the Mahdist stronghold. The rebels, numbering two-thousand, had established a two-mile line across a range of hills, giving their numerically superior forces a tactical advantage over Chaltin's eight-hundred men. After a failed flanking maneuver by the Mahdists, Chaltin's forces stormed the heights and dislodged the rebel defenders. The Congolese companies pursued the retreating Mahdists back towards the town of Rejaf, where a final defense was made and similarly defeated.

The victory, achieved at relatively little cost, cleared the Lado Enclave of Mahdist rebels and secured Rejaf as a Belgian base for future operations in the surrounding territories and along the Nile. Rejaf became the seat of government within the Lado Enclave, and remained thus when the British eventually reclaimed the territory in 1910.

In 1894, King Leopold II and Great Britain signed the 1894 Anglo-Congolese treaty, which resulted in the exchange of a long strip of land on the eastern side of the Congo for the Lado Enclave, leased to King Leopold II for the duration of his reign. This aided the British in pursuing the Cape to Cairo railway, as well as preventing the French from achieving an east-west line by putting the Belgians in their path. With the Lado Enclave, King Leopold gained direct access to Rejaf, the last outpost on the navigable Nile. Although the outbreak of the Mahdist War (1881–1899) had disrupted trade up and down the Nile river, Leopold hoped to gain Rejaf in preparation for its reopening once the Mahdist threat had been addressed.

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Wikipedia