At the Battle of Omdurman (2 September 1898), an army commanded by the British General Sir Herbert Kitchener defeated the army of Abdullah al-Taashi, the successor to the self-proclaimed Mahdi Muhammad Ahmad. It was a demonstration of the superiority of a highly disciplined European-led army equipped with modern rifles and artillery over a vastly larger force armed with older weapons, and marked the success of British efforts to re-conquer the Sudan. However, it was not until the Battle of Umm Diwaykarat, a year later, that the final Mahdist forces were defeated.