Bank of Khartoum Misr too established a branch in Khartoum, followed the next year by Jordan's Arab Bank. Then in 1958 the State Bank of Ethiopia (later Commercial Bank of Ethiopia), established a branch in Khartoum. In 1969, National and Grindlays Bank acquired Ottoman Bank, only to lose it the next year to nationalization. In 1970 the Sudanese government nationalized all the banks in the Sudan, changed the names of several, and put them under the Bank of Sudan. Barclays Bank, which had an extensive network of 24 branches, became the State Bank of Foreign Trade, and then Bank of Khartoum in 1975.
Siege of Khartoum support of the Mahdi, and cut the Egyptian traffic on the Nile and the telegraph to Cairo. Communications were not entirely cut, as runners could still get through, but the siege had begun and Khartoum could only rely on its own food stores, which could last five or six months. On 16 March an abortive sortie from Khartoum was launched, which led to the death of 200 Egyptian troops as the combined forces besieging Khartoum grew to over 30,000 men. Through the months of April, May, June, and July, Gordon and the garrison dealt with being cut off as food