Letters from Khartoum is a collection of correspondence sent by The Times war correspondent, Frank Power to his mother during the Mahdist War (1881-99). They were edited by his brother Arnold and published in 1885 following confirmation of his death during the siege of Khartoum.
Born in Dublin, in 1877, Power travelled to Bulgaria to work as correspondent to the Freeman’s Journal, reporting on the Russo-Turkish war. He was also rumoured to have received a commission in the Austro-Hungarian army and on his return to Ireland took up painting, signing his pictures ‘Franz Power’. From 1880, he exhibited his paintings for three years at the Royal Hibernian Academy before taking up the post of assistant to Edmund O’Donovan, the Daily News war correspondent, who had been ordered to travel to Sudan to report on the Mahdist War. Through his articles and other work for Irish newspapers, Power had gained a reputation in the country for embellishing stories to make them more interesting to his readers and to sway them towards his own beliefs.

Setting out for Sudan in the summer of 1883, Power and O’Donovan were briefly imprisoned at Constantinople (now Istanbul) for allegedly insulting the Sultan, Abdul Hamid II. Only through the intervention of the British ambassador were they able to gain their release and arrived at Khartoum in August 1883. While O’Donovan travelled with British forces, dysentery forced Power to return to Khartoum shortly after leaving the city where he soon heard news of the army’s defeat and O’Donovan’s death following a Mahdist attack on El Obeid.

One of the few Europeans left in Khartoum, Power sent dispatches to The Times reporting on the battle and requested that he become the paper’s war correspondent. The Times accepted and Power began to send regular reports, the only first-hand reports to be sent from Sudan, which enabled the paper to sway public opinion on the conflict. 

In December 1883, Power was appointed acting consul at Khartoum and in February 1884, he welcomed General Charles George Gordon to the city as Sudan’s new governor-general. The two quickly became friends and Gordon began to use Power's articles to request more troops be sent to aid in the conflict. Despite growing demands from the public to assist Gordon and his garrison, the government of William Gladstone was reluctant to commit more forces, instead recommending that Gordon and the remaining Europeans leave the country. Gordon refused and when Mahdist forces started their siege of Khartoum in March 1884, Power began smuggling reports of the situation out of the city, further intensifying public feeling regarding the conflict.

The Times included his reports in the issues of 28 April, 30 and 31 July and the articles were read aloud in Parliament, eventually the pressure forced Gladstone to relent and send an expeditionary force led by Sir Charles Wilson. After several months of silence, in October 1884, the paper reported that Power must be presumed dead. It later emerged that he had been killed in an ambush after trying to leave Khartoum by steamer in September after being ordered to leave so that he could deliver reports of the siege in person.

Wilson’s force arrived at Khartoum two days after the city’s fall and the death of Gordon and the garrison. Due to the influence of Power’s articles in stirring up the British public’s support for the war, once news reached Britain, those who were killed were celebrated as martyrs to the imperial cause and Gladstone and Wilson criticised for their delays.

Queen Victoria was keenly interested in the Mahdist War and wrote almost daily in her Journal of the reports coming back from Sudan. She appears to have read this book on its publication in 1885, signing her name on the title page.