 After the siege of Khartoum , now the location of the tomb of the Mahdi, the city grew rapidly.However, in the Battle of Omdurman in 1898 (which actually took place in the nearby village of Kerreri), Lord Kitchener decisively defeated the Mahdist forces and killed Abdallahi ibn Muhammad, the Khalifa, ensuring British control over the Sudan.In September 1898 the British army of twenty thousand well drilled men equipped with the
latest arms, Maxim guns and Martini-Henry rifles under the command of General
Horatio Herbert Kitchener invaded Sudan.