Help to translate Mahdi Flag (1897)

[Peter Hudson]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

This is amazing, and I must say I had never heard of this battle, nor the Belgian presence in the Sudan (from 1894 in agreement with British to acquire Lado enclave) .
While I was going to ask how we know this is Mahdist and from this battle, I found this painting online (Wiki) and among the Mahdist forces far to the right what appears to be a red and white flag appears.

What research on this is at hand? what sort of provenance?

Battle of Rejaf (Battle of Bedden) 17 Feb. 1897. LADO near Nile at center of map, is where Rejaf is situated.

It must be kept in mind, this area was extremely to the south in Sudan, and of course near the Congo regions as well as Uganda.
In the regions of Sudan farther up the Nile were the Mamluk descended population in areas where slaving was in place and where Mahdist forces conscripted the numbers of men who had been among the potential slaves. This explains the number of weapon forms seen in Mahdist context (with thuluth motif) which are not indiginous to Sudan, but to these southern regions.

https://military-history.fandom.com/...attle_of_Rejaf

Hello Jim, Heres a small quote on that battle from https://military-history.fandom.com/...attle_of_Rejaf I QUOTE" 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". UNQUOTE.

Did you notice that Bunyoro was placed on your map?

Regards, Peter Hudson.