On the date scheduled beforehand by Lord Kitchener, just after the annual rains had refreshed the country, the Anglo-Egyptian army made its final advance upon Khartum.  There were ten thousand British troops and fifteen thousand Egyptians.  The forces were concentrated at Wady Hamed, sixty miles above Omdurman, from which point they bombarded the city with shells filled with deadly lyddite, and the mosque and tomb of the late Mahdi were destroyed.  At length the entire army advanced to within four miles of Khartum.  On September 2nd the cavalry and a horse battery reached Kasar Shanbal.  From this point they saw the whole army of the califa, consisting of from forty to fifty thousand men, advancing to confront them from behind the hills.  The Anglo-Egyptians advanced to meet the dervishes disposed in the form of a horseshoe, with either end resting upon the banks of the river.  At intervals along the whole line of the army were field-pieces and Maxims, and the gunboats were within reach to aid in shelling the enemy.  The British soldiers then built a square sand rampart called a zarilea, and their Egyptian allies dug defensive trenches.

On the front and left the dervishes came on in great strength, but, when the Maxims, the field-guns, and the repeating rifles opened fire upon them, at a comparatively close range, a frightful havoc was the result.  All who remained to fight were immediately shot down, and the whole field was cleared in fifteen minutes.  The dervishes retreated behind the hills, and were joined by fresh forces.  General MacDonald, in making a detour with a body of Lancers, was suddenly beset by two thousand dervish riflemen, who fiercely charged him on three sides.  Quickly forming a square, he succeeded by desperate efforts in repelling the enemy, until he was reinforced by Kitchener, who perceived his desperate situation.

The calif then attacked the extreme left wing of the army, but was again driven off.  The Anglo-Egyptians were now in a position to deliver the main attack upon the dervish defences.  The troops of the califa fought with heroic bravery, fearlessly advancing within range of the Anglo-Egyptian fire, but each time they were mown down by the cross fire of the Maxims and rifles.  Vast numbers were slain, and some divisions of the dervishes suffered complete annihilation.  They left ten thousand dead upon the field, and ten thousand wounded.  The rest fled in all directions, a scattered and straggling force, with the califa himself.  The Anglo-Egyptians lost but two thousand men.  Few prisoners were taken, for, in almost every instance, the dervishes refused to surrender, and even when wounded used their swords and spears against the rescuers of the ambulance corps.  All the fighting was over by midday, and in the afternoon General Kitchener entered Omdurman, and the army encamped in the vicinity.  Slatin Bey was duly installed as governor in the name of the Egyptian khedive.  The European prisoners of the califa were now released, and on Sunday, the 4th of September, the sirdar and all his army held a solemn service in memory of General Gordon near the spot where he was killed.