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
St. Matthew's Cathedral, Khartoum was built in 1847 to serve as the cathedral church. The Apostolic Vicariate was entrusted in 1872 to the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, under Saint Daniel Comboni, who was apostolic vicar from 1872 until his death in 1881. The city was taken by the Mahdistas in 1885, who destroyed the church and all missions in the country. The war ended in 1898 with the Battle of Omdurman, and missionary work recommenced the following year. When the British built the modern city of Khartoum as capital of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, a new cathedral was constructed. It was completed in 1908