Khartoum (film) Underdown) is lured into the desert and slaughtered by Muslim zealots led by Muhammad Ahmad (Laurence Olivier), a fanatic Sudanese Arab who believes he is the Mahdi, the prophesied "saviour of humanity". The British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone (Ralph Richardson), who does not wish to send more military forces to Khartoum, is under great pressure to send military hero Major General Charles George Gordon (Charlton Heston) there to salvage the situation and restore British prestige. Gordon has strong ties to Sudan, having broken the slave trade there in the past, but Gladstone distrusts him. Gordon has a reputation for
Khartoum (state) Nile State, and in the west by North Kurdufan. There are several etymologies for the name of Khartoum. The explanation suggested as "most correct" by the state government's website is that it comes from the Arabic for "elephant's trunk", which describes the shape of the site of the city at the confluence of the two Niles, where a stretch of land extends into the water. Other stories are that it is a corruption of "gurtoum", the name for seeds of the sunflower plant, supposedly used by Roman invaders at the current site of Khartoum to treat soldiers' wounds, or that