Battle of Tofrek

Battle of Tofrek
Part of the Mahdist War
Battle of Tofrek (Charles Edwin Fripp)
Date 22 March 1885 Location Sudan Result British victory
Belligerents
United Kingdom	Mahdist Sudan
Commanders and leaders
John Carstairs McNeill Gerald Graham	Osman Digna
Strength
Between 3000 and 4000	Estimated over 2000
Casualties and losses
Killed: 4 officers, 66 men; Wounded 8 officers,128 men.	Estimated over 1,000 killed

The Battle of Tofrek was fought on 22 March 1885 some 5 miles inland from the port of Suakin on the Red Sea coast of Sudan. A contingent of some 3000 troops from the British and Indian "Suakin Field Force" led by Major General Sir John Carstairs McNeill VC, GCVO, KCB, KCMG (under the overall command of General Gerald Graham) was attacked by a Mahdist force under the leadership of Osman Digna. The Mahdists were heavily defeated, losing some 1000 of their 2000 fighters as compared to the loss of 70 British and Indian soldiers plus over 100 casualties. It became a hollow victory however, when two months later, the British government changed tack and withdrew the bulk of its forces from the Sudan, leaving the Mahdi's successor, Abdallahi ibn Muhammad (the Khalifa), in control of the region for the next 13 years.

The sacking of Khartoum and the killing of General Gordon and the massacre of thousands of civilians at the hands of Mahdist warriors in January 1885, together with the failure of the relief effort of General Wolseley’s Nile Expedition, prompted the British government to revive plans to build a railway between the port of Suakin on the Red Sea and Berber on the River Nile some 300 miles north of Khartoum, to provide a supply route for Wolseley's force in further actions against Khartoum.

In order to provide protection from Osman Digna's Mahdist tribesmen who were well established in the coastal area, and to supervise the construction of this new railway, a second Suakin Field Force of some 13,000 men was assembled under General Graham who had commanded the first Suakin expedition the previous year. The force arrived in Suakin on 12 March 1885.

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