On 29 June 1881, a Muslim cleric named Muhammad Ahmad proclaimed himself the Mahdi, the promised redeemer of the Islamic world.
He and his followers, clad in turbans, skull-caps, white, colorfully patched jibbehs and equipped with swords, spears and shields, defeated several Egyptian garrisons.
When Gordon and his adjutant, Colonel John Donald Hamill Stewart, reached Khartoum, they realized that the place was quite defensible.
In Britain, although the Government, led by Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone, did not want to send troops, the public clamored for it.
The troops were all wearing white sun helmets and some of the River Column wore red tunics.
This column was a force of regular infantry, men of the Egyptian Camel Corps, a Highlander regiment, an artillery battery and a small unit of the Eighth Hussars.
After finding out that Gordon's aide, Colonel Stewart, had left Khartoum on a mission and had been killed by a force of Arabs when his steamboat ran aground, the River Column asked the locals to apprehend the killers or give information about them.