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General confusion

Sir: I fear that Nigel Milliner (Letters, 18 October) himself falls into error when correcting Dot Wordsworth’s confusion of Gordon and Kitchener. The Nile expedition, which neither relieved Gordon nor Khartoum but retreated, two days after Gordon died as the city fell to the Mahdi, was led by Garnet Wolseley. Kitchener retook Khartoum from the Mahdi’s successor a decade later, again up the Nile.

Allied to the Mahdi, the fuzzy-wuzzies — the Haddendowa — were not adjacent to Khartoum; they inspired Kipling by blocking relief attempts from the Red Sea ports.

P.G. Urben

Kenilworth, Warwickshire

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