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Rudolf Carl von Slatin
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Rudolf Carl von Slatin
Major-General Rudolf Anton Carl Freiherr von Slatin, Geh. Rat, GCVO KCMG CB (7 June 1857, in Ober Sankt Veit, Hietzing, Vienna – 4 October 1932, in Vienna) was an Anglo-Austrian soldier and administrator in Sudan.
Rudolf Carl Slatin was born in Ober Sankt Veit near Vienna, the fourth child of the merchant Michael Slatin, who had converted from Judaism to Roman Catholicism, and his second wife, Maria Anna Feuerstein. Their other children were the twins Maria and Anna (born in 1852), Heinrich (1855), Adolf (1861), and Leopoldine (1864). Their father died on 13 March 1873, while Rudolf was at the Vienna Handelsakademie (commercial academy). While there, he heard that a German bookseller in Cairo was looking for an assistant. Rudolf traveled to Trieste and five days after that to Alexandria. He worked in the bookstore until he travelled with the German businessman and consul Rosset to Khartoum.
From Khartoum, Slatin went through Kordofan to Dar Nuba, exploring the mountains of that region with the German explorer and ornithologist Theodor von Heuglin. He was forced to return to Khartoum, when the local population rebelled against the Egyptian government. There, Slatin met Dr. Schnitzer, later famous as "Emin Pasha", and with him intended to visit General Charles George Gordon at Lado, Gordon at that time being Governor of the Equatorial Provinces. Slatin, however, was obliged to return to Austria without accomplishing his desire, though Emin did go to Lado and at Slatin's request recommended the young traveller to Gordon for employment in Sudan.
Slatin left Africa in order to serve his conscription order in the Austrian army. On 25 September 1876 he joined his unit the 12. Feldjägerbatallon as recruit, and one year later, he was promoted to lieutenant in the reserves of the 19th Infantry Regiment of the Austro-Hungarian Army.
In 1878, while Slatin was serving as a lieutenant in crown prince Rudolf's regiment in the Bosnian campaign. he received a letter from Gordon inviting him to Sudan, where Gordon had become the Governor-General. At the close of the campaign, Slatin received permission to go to Africa. He started his travel via train and ship on 1 December 1878 and arrived in Khartoum in January 1879. After a brief period as financial inspector, Slatin was appointed Mudir (governor) of Dara, the south-western part of Darfur, a post he held until early in 1881, when he was promoted Governor-General of Darfur by Muhammad Rauf Pasha and given the rank of bey.
While administering Dara, Slatin conducted a successful campaign against one of the Darfur princes in revolt and later, as governor of Darfur. Early in 1882 the Rizeigat tribesmen of Southern Darfur rebelled, led by Sheikh Madibbo ibn Ali, a convert to the cause of the religious leader known as the Mahdi Muhammad Ahmad. Slatin gallantly defended his province and though he fought many successful battles, he gradually lost ground. At the Battle Of Om Waragat he lost 800 of his men in the first 20 minutes of the battle and was himself wounded three times but managed to fight his way back to Dara. Believing his troops attributed their failure in battle to the fact that he was a Christian, Slatin publicly adopted Islam in 1883 and took the Islamic name, Abd al Qadir.
The Mahdists then captured el Obeid, the capital of Kordofan, severing all Slatin's links with Khartoum. When Hicks Pasha's expedition was annihilated at the Battle of Shaykan in 1883, Slatin finally surrendered to his old enemy the Mahdist Emir Madibbo, refusing to make any further sacrifice of life in a hopeless cause. When the Mahdists reached Khartoum, an attempt was made to use him to induce the commander Charles George Gordon, now Governor-General of Sudan, to surrender. This failing, Slatin was placed in chains and on the morning of 26 January 1885, an hour or two after the fall of Khartoum, Gordon's head was brought to the camp and shown to the captive. After the sudden death of the Mahdi the same year, Slatin was kept at Omdurman by his successor, the Khalifa Abdullahi, being treated alternately with savage cruelty and comparative indulgence. During his captivity, he worked as adviser and interpreter for the Khalifa and was made to serve in his personal retinue of bodyguards.
At length, after over eleven years captivity, he was able to escape, with the help of Sir Reginald (then Major) Wingate of the Egyptian Intelligence Department and a local Sheikh of the Ababda tribe[citation needed], in a perilous 1000 km and three-week journey across the desert, reaching Aswan, Egypt in March 1895. In a remarkable book, Fire and Sword in the Sudan, written in the same year and issued in English and German in 1896, Slatin gave not only a personal narrative of fighting and serving the Mahdists but a comprehensive account of the Sudan under the rule of the Khalifa. The book, edited by F. R. Wingate, became a bestseller. The German version was published by the Brockhaus Verlag in Leipzig entitled "Feuer und Schwert im Sudan. Meine Kämpfe mit den Derwischen, meine Gefangenschaft und Flucht.1879–1895." His book became an important inspiration for the German author Karl May and his trilogy "Im Lande des Mahdi". He also published another book entitled "Elf Jahre in der Gefangenschaft des Mahdi".
Raised to the rank of Pasha by the Khedive, Slatin was appointed an honorary Companion of the Order of the Bath by Queen Victoria. In autumn 1895, he was granted an audience with Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria. Queen Victoria made him an honorary Member (fourth class) of the Royal Victorian Order in 1896.
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Rudolf Carl von Slatin
Major-General Rudolf Anton Carl Freiherr von Slatin, Geh. Rat, GCVO KCMG CB (7 June 1857, in Ober Sankt Veit, Hietzing, Vienna – 4 October 1932, in Vienna) was an Anglo-Austrian soldier and administrator in Sudan.
Rudolf Carl Slatin was born in Ober Sankt Veit near Vienna, the fourth child of the merchant Michael Slatin, who had converted from Judaism to Roman Catholicism, and his second wife, Maria Anna Feuerstein. Their other children were the twins Maria and Anna (born in 1852), Heinrich (1855), Adolf (1861), and Leopoldine (1864). Their father died on 13 March 1873, while Rudolf was at the Vienna Handelsakademie (commercial academy). While there, he heard that a German bookseller in Cairo was looking for an assistant. Rudolf traveled to Trieste and five days after that to Alexandria. He worked in the bookstore until he travelled with the German businessman and consul Rosset to Khartoum.
From Khartoum, Slatin went through Kordofan to Dar Nuba, exploring the mountains of that region with the German explorer and ornithologist Theodor von Heuglin. He was forced to return to Khartoum, when the local population rebelled against the Egyptian government. There, Slatin met Dr. Schnitzer, later famous as "Emin Pasha", and with him intended to visit General Charles George Gordon at Lado, Gordon at that time being Governor of the Equatorial Provinces. Slatin, however, was obliged to return to Austria without accomplishing his desire, though Emin did go to Lado and at Slatin's request recommended the young traveller to Gordon for employment in Sudan.
Slatin left Africa in order to serve his conscription order in the Austrian army. On 25 September 1876 he joined his unit the 12. Feldjägerbatallon as recruit, and one year later, he was promoted to lieutenant in the reserves of the 19th Infantry Regiment of the Austro-Hungarian Army.
In 1878, while Slatin was serving as a lieutenant in crown prince Rudolf's regiment in the Bosnian campaign. he received a letter from Gordon inviting him to Sudan, where Gordon had become the Governor-General. At the close of the campaign, Slatin received permission to go to Africa. He started his travel via train and ship on 1 December 1878 and arrived in Khartoum in January 1879. After a brief period as financial inspector, Slatin was appointed Mudir (governor) of Dara, the south-western part of Darfur, a post he held until early in 1881, when he was promoted Governor-General of Darfur by Muhammad Rauf Pasha and given the rank of bey.
While administering Dara, Slatin conducted a successful campaign against one of the Darfur princes in revolt and later, as governor of Darfur. Early in 1882 the Rizeigat tribesmen of Southern Darfur rebelled, led by Sheikh Madibbo ibn Ali, a convert to the cause of the religious leader known as the Mahdi Muhammad Ahmad. Slatin gallantly defended his province and though he fought many successful battles, he gradually lost ground. At the Battle Of Om Waragat he lost 800 of his men in the first 20 minutes of the battle and was himself wounded three times but managed to fight his way back to Dara. Believing his troops attributed their failure in battle to the fact that he was a Christian, Slatin publicly adopted Islam in 1883 and took the Islamic name, Abd al Qadir.
The Mahdists then captured el Obeid, the capital of Kordofan, severing all Slatin's links with Khartoum. When Hicks Pasha's expedition was annihilated at the Battle of Shaykan in 1883, Slatin finally surrendered to his old enemy the Mahdist Emir Madibbo, refusing to make any further sacrifice of life in a hopeless cause. When the Mahdists reached Khartoum, an attempt was made to use him to induce the commander Charles George Gordon, now Governor-General of Sudan, to surrender. This failing, Slatin was placed in chains and on the morning of 26 January 1885, an hour or two after the fall of Khartoum, Gordon's head was brought to the camp and shown to the captive. After the sudden death of the Mahdi the same year, Slatin was kept at Omdurman by his successor, the Khalifa Abdullahi, being treated alternately with savage cruelty and comparative indulgence. During his captivity, he worked as adviser and interpreter for the Khalifa and was made to serve in his personal retinue of bodyguards.
At length, after over eleven years captivity, he was able to escape, with the help of Sir Reginald (then Major) Wingate of the Egyptian Intelligence Department and a local Sheikh of the Ababda tribe[citation needed], in a perilous 1000 km and three-week journey across the desert, reaching Aswan, Egypt in March 1895. In a remarkable book, Fire and Sword in the Sudan, written in the same year and issued in English and German in 1896, Slatin gave not only a personal narrative of fighting and serving the Mahdists but a comprehensive account of the Sudan under the rule of the Khalifa. The book, edited by F. R. Wingate, became a bestseller. The German version was published by the Brockhaus Verlag in Leipzig entitled "Feuer und Schwert im Sudan. Meine Kämpfe mit den Derwischen, meine Gefangenschaft und Flucht.1879–1895." His book became an important inspiration for the German author Karl May and his trilogy "Im Lande des Mahdi". He also published another book entitled "Elf Jahre in der Gefangenschaft des Mahdi".
Raised to the rank of Pasha by the Khedive, Slatin was appointed an honorary Companion of the Order of the Bath by Queen Victoria. In autumn 1895, he was granted an audience with Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria. Queen Victoria made him an honorary Member (fourth class) of the Royal Victorian Order in 1896.
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