The River War, an Account of the Reconquest of the Soudan by Winston Churchill

A war, with little popular support, perpetrated by the strongest military force on earth, utilizing indigenous troops, for the purpose of liberating an Arab country from radical Islamists sounds like current events.  And certainly it is, but it is also old news.  Sudan (spelled ‘Soudan’ in this text) languished under the heel of the self-proclaimed Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmad.  Even the false prophet’s sudden death did not spare the long suffering land from abuse at the hands of greedy, brutal, slave trading emirs.  After years of hand wringing Britain could no longer stand idly on the Egyptian border.  Their solution has become a familiar tactic: send a small expeditionary force, recruit local battalions, deploy state of the art weaponry, and then they did something unique to the late nineteenth century—they built a railroad.  In northern Sudan the Nile makes a tremendous loop adding hundreds of miles to it course, and river traffic is further delayed by a series of cataracts, so Sir H. Kitchener, moved his troops and matériel twenty miles per day on newly laid tracks, in a direct line across the desert, while the Kalipha and his emirs watched their doom approach from behind the walls of Omdurman.  The allied combatants consisted of Egyptian and Sudanese infantry, cavalry and camelry (yes, there is such a word even if Microsoft disagrees).  One member of the British cavalry was a young subaltern named Winston Spencer Churchill who participated in a sabre charge against Sudanese Dervishes and survived to become the leader of a nuclear power.

The River War, an Account of the Reconquest of the Soudan, is an extraordinary period piece and a lesson that generation after generation of world leaders cannot learn.  When radical Islam becomes entrenched, it must be annihilated.  Wherever Islam is unchecked will be terrorism, slavery, imperialism and brutal misogyny.  Copyrighted in 1902, Churchill was only four years beyond his participation in this rather sanguine conflict, thus his meticulous detail and transporting description draws the reader into this fight on the Nile.  This remarkable book can be found in all electronic formats, absolutely free, at the Gutenberg Project.  Of course, donations are appreciated.

Limelight Literature

 LE Fitzpatrick, a blogger from Wales, was kind enough to give Face of the Angel shot in the arm today by publishing a character interview with the much misunderstood Doctor Josef Mengele.

Limelight Literature features unique content from self-published authors.  Check it out.

Limelight Literature

See what the good doctor had to say then scroll down and see who else Lynzie Fitzpatrick is featuring.

Doctor Josef Mengele, medical researcher, surgeon, anthropologist, geneticist and Auschwitz Angel of Death, hid in plain sight for forty years while dozens of professional Nazi hunters blundered around the world trying to capture him. Face of the Angel tells how an educated man of wit, charm and mayhem languished for decades in fear, loneliness and delusion in South America while his pursuers invented preposterous tales about him.

Only $2.99

Buy at Smashwords 

Buy at Amazon 

In Paperback at Createspace

13 Hours in Benghazi

Since the embassy is in Tripoli, the United States Diplomatic Compound in Benghazi did not fall under the guidelines of the State Department’s standards for embassy security; therefore, the niceties of bulletproof glass and secure air supply went overlooked in the main residential villa used by Ambassador Chris Stevens during his stay in Libya’s second city.  That was the first blunder.  The second was keeping the American security contractors at a second compound, known as the Annex and controlled by the CIA, ten minutes distant.  Probably the most fatal security breach was employing Libyans as guards.  Most sentient persons know of the storming of the diplomatic compound and the killing of Ambassador Stevens, and three other Americans, on September 11, 2012, but the truthful details of what happened are less clear.  While six heavily armed, expertly trained and highly motivated American security men chafed under the temporizing yoke of the mysterious CIA operative, “Bob,” Islamic terrorists had free range to set alight the Ambassador’s villa with himself and communications officer, Sean Smith, trapped inside the “safe haven.”

13 Hours in Benghazi lifts the cloud of political obfuscation from the facts of this American tragedy.  Mr. Zuckoff’s collaboration with five of the surviving security contractors is an even handed, if gritty, depiction of that catastrophic night in Benghazi.  Failing to do the right things, from the President to the Secretary of State to the embassy staff in Tripoli to the CIA head of station, Benghazi, is a national disgrace.  Furthermore, the still ongoing denials and cover-ups by Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and their spokespersons, is nothing less than calling five American heroes liars and denigrating the memory of the four deceased.

This should be required reading for all Americans.  The story is told through the various viewpoints of the participants.  It is concise and well paced.  Sadly, the prose is, shall I say pedestrian—no, I should say atrocious.  One has the sense that a race to market took precedence over good writing.

Buy at Amazon