History of the British Army postal service relieve General Gordon in Khartoum. The Army Post Office Corps under the command of Major Sturgeon was despatched to Suakin in support of the expeditionary force raised to relieve General Gordon in Khartoum. They landed at Suakin on 27 March 1885 and established the Base Army Post Office there. Further Field Post Offices were opened at Quarantine Island, the railway terminus and one each with the Headquarters and 2nd Brigade. The mails travelled the same routes as for the Egyptian Campaign of 1882. A daily mail service between Suakin, the Headquarters, Handub and Otao was arranged. Every morning a messenger
Khartoum North the area of the Nile confluence before the Egyptians established Khartoum as their military garrison and administrative center in the 1820s. It was thereafter eclipsed by the Egyptian Khartoum, its Mahdist replacement Omdurman, and the British refounding of Khartoum following their reconquest of the country in 1898. Khartoum North began to grow again, however, as the southern terminus of the Sudan Military Railroad, which was completed in 1899. (The Blue Nile was bridged in 1910 and the line extended to Sennar, but Khartoum North continued to serve as the main railroad station and yard.) On August 20, 1998 the Al-Shifa