Siege of Khartoum population of Khartoum was about 34,000. Gordon's plight excited great concern in the British press, and even Queen Victoria intervened on his behalf. The government ordered him to return, but Gordon refused, saying he was honour-bound to defend the city. By July 1884, Gladstone reluctantly agreed to send an expedition to Khartoum. The expedition, led by Sir Garnet Wolseley, took several months to organise and only entered Sudan in January 1885, but by then the situation of the Egyptian garrison and civilians had become desperate, with food supplies running low, many inhabitants dying of hunger and the defenders' morale at
Khartoum North Khartoum North Khartoum North or Bahri (, "al-Kharṭūm Baḥrī") is a neighborhood in the northern region of Khartoum, the capital of the Republic of Sudan. It is located on the north bank of the Blue Nile and east bank of River Nile near its confluence with the White and bridges connect it with Khartoum to its south and Omdurman to its west. It is thought to have a population of over a million, but the last Sudanese census occurred in 1993 when its population was only 900,000. The original settlement at Khartoum North, Halfaya, was long the largest settlement in