The River War: An Historical Account of the Reconquest of the Soudan (1899), by Winston Churchill, is a history of the conquest of the Sudan between 1896 and 1899 by Anglo-Egyptian forces led by Lord Kitchener.

[2]: 39  The Times had two correspondents covering the war, one of whom was killed and another injured, and Churchill wrote a piece for this newspaper also, but Kitchener vetoed the sending of the report.

On the way home he stopped for two weeks in Egypt to visit Lord Cromer, then in charge of the Egyptian government, who read through the text and made suggestions and corrections, in particular playing down the popular impression of General Gordon, murdered by the Mahdi's forces fourteen years before, as a hero.

While in Cairo he spoke to Slatin Pasha, author of a work about the Sudan, Sir Reginald Wingate, Director of Intelligence on Kitchener's staff, Edouard Girouard, responsible for building railways through Egypt which allowed the British advance, and others who had played some part.

[3]: 129  Sailing home across the Mediterranean, Churchill had as a fellow passenger George Warrington Steevens, who was also a war correspondent, working for the Daily Telegraph.

It also contains vivid narratives of personal adventures of the author, his views on British expansionism, passages of deep reflection about the requirements of a civilised government, and criticism of military and political leaders and religion.

Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live.

The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property – either as a child, a wife, or a concubine – must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.

[7]: 248–250 [8]About the British attitude to war: ...there are many people in England, and perhaps elsewhere, who seem to be unable to contemplate military operations for clear political objects, unless they can cajole themselves into the belief that their enemy are utterly and hopelessly vile.

This may be very comforting to philanthropic persons at home; but when an army in the field becomes imbued with the idea that the enemy are vermin who cumber the earth, instances of barbarity may easily be the outcome.

This unmeasured condemnation is moreover as unjust as it is dangerous and unnecessary.... We are told that the British and Egyptian armies entered Omdurman to free the people from the Khalifa's yoke.

All in a moment the dust began to jump in front of them, and then the clump of horsemen melts into a jumble on the ground, and a couple of scared survivors scurry to cover.

[3]: 131 Criticisms extended to the supplies for the troops: British soldiers were sent out from England with boots made substantially from cardboard, which rapidly disintegrated and had to be bound with cloth or string to hold together.

[13] Also in May 2013, the Winston-Salem Journal published a commentary by columnist Cal Thomas, in which he criticized United Kingdom Prime Minister David Cameron for his reaction following the killing of a British soldier in London, and invited him to take notice of Winston Churchill's views on Islam, some expressed in The River War.

[14] In April 2014, Paul Weston, chairman of the far right Liberty GB party, was arrested in Winchester, Hampshire, for reading aloud passages from the book whilst standing on the steps of the Guildhall and not dispersing when ordered to do so.

[17] In Winston's War, author Max Hastings says: "Churchill's view of the British Empire and its peoples was unenlightened by comparison with that of America's president [Franklin Roosevelt], or even by the standards of his time.

"[18] Paul Rahe argues that reading The River War is suitable for "an age when the Great Democracies are likely to be called on to respond to ugly little conflicts marked by social, sectarian, and tribal rivalries in odd corners of the world—the Arabian peninsula, the Caucasus, the Horn of Africa, the Balkans, Central Africa, the Maghreb, and the Caribbean, to mention the most recent examples—I can think of no other historical work that better deserves our attention than The River War.