Britain's continual military involvement in Egypt and the Sudan to protect British interests and the Suez Canal is a compelling story of grueling desert campaigns led by such famous Victorian generals as Wolseley, Gordon and Kitchener against the charismatic Mahdi and the Khalifa. Michael Barthop tells the story of the men who fought: Egyptian conscripts, Dervishes, Kipling's "Fuzzy Wuzzy" as well as British and Indian regulars and the Royal Navy.