Danie Theron, a true Afrikaner patriot believing in the just and divine right of the Boer to stand against British interference, died on the 4th September 1900 in an inferno of lyddite and shrapnel. Find out why.

On 2 September 1898 the decisive British victory at the Battle of Omdurmanin effectively brought the 15 year Mahdist rebellion (started by Muhammad Ahmed Ibn Seyyid abdullah, The Mahdi) to an end. Major General Sir Herbert Kitchener defeated the Mahdist forces under the command of Abdullah el-Taaishi. The British forces, totaling 26,000 men (two British brigades, four Egyptian brigades, plus artillery, mounted troops and a flotilla on the Blue Nile), camped at Wad Hamad on 24 August. Kitchener brought his troops along the Nile, with his flotilla bombarding Mahdist forts and the walls of Omdurman, to Egeiga, four miles north of Omdurman on the west bank. Facing Kitchener were 40,000 Ansar (or Dervish, or to the British, 'Fuzzy-Wuzzy') warriors.

The Mahdist army was decimated: 10,000 killed, 10,000 wounded, and another 5,000 taken prisoner. The British now dominated the Sudan.

"To the African, the European settler, whether living in South Africa, Kenya, Angola, or anywhere else in Africa, is an intruder, an alien who has seized African land. No amount of arguing about the so-called benefits of European rule can alter the fundamental right of Africans to order their own affairs."

"Freedom is not a commodity which is 'given' to the enslaved upon demand. It is a precious reward, the shining trophy of struggle and sacrifice."

From Africa Must Unite by Kwame Nkrumah, 1963.