Sudanese rebels severed telegraph lines near Egypt’s southern border by 1885

Evidence

This menace looms even more darkly when al-Afghänï tells his readers that the dervishes, as they were popularly known at the time in both Europe and Egypt, had already cut the telegraph lines from Korosko to Aswan, the same distance, he reminds them, that lay between Aswan and Qena. — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 463

Categorization

• SHARE: Telegraph-cutting as a colonial vulnerability metric is a nice concrete detail for anyone interested in imperial communications infrastructure.