Sudanese Soldiers Sent To Mexico

In 1865, the Empire of Mexico recruited about 900 Black Sudanese soldiers from Egypt because officials believed they would fight better in tropical climates and had immunity to yellow fever. In reality, the Egyptian Auxiliary Corps that sailed, about 450 men serving under French command in the hot lowlands around Veracruz, was hit by typhus, yellow fever, dysentery, and other diseases and suffered 126 casualties before the campaign ended. Surviving soldiers were withdrawn to Egypt in 1867, and after the United States pressed the Ottoman authorities not to send further troops, no more Sudanese battalions were dispatched to Mexico.

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