ends the Mahdist War in the Sudan, as the Khalifa of Sudan, Abdallahi ibn Muhammad, is killed. The Sudanese sustain 1,000 casualties, while the Anglo-Egyptian force commanded by General Reginald Wingate has three killed and 23 wounded. November 26 – Elections are held in the Kingdom of Portugal for the 138 seats of the Câmara dos Senhores Deputados. Prime Minister José Luciano de Castro's Partido Progressista increases its majority, winning 91 of the seats. November 27 – The Ottoman Empire grants Germany's Deutsche Bank the concession to finance the construction of the Baghdad Railway, following a visit by Kaiser Wilhelm II to Constantinople in 1898 as a guest of Sultan Abdul Hamid II. November 28 – The British Army sustains heavy losses (471 casualties) in the Battle of Modder River, which Lord Methuen describes as "one of the hardest and most trying fights in the annals of the British Army", despite routing the Boers. The Philippine Republic capital at Bayambang surrenders as the government flees the Fourth Cavalry of the U.S. Army. November 29 – The FC Barcelona association football (soccer) club is founded in Spain. November 30 – The first women to serve, in uniform, in the armed forces of any nation began service as part of the Canadian Militia Expeditionary Force to Cape Town to serve in the Boer War. Georgina Fane Pope and three other women are enlisted as army nurses. As Patrick Robertson notes, "There was nothing new about female nurses serving in the military; they had done so in numerous campaigns since the Revolutionary War, but in every instance as civilian auxiliaries." The British Secretary of State for the Colonies, Joseph Chamberlain, makes a controversial public speech at Leicester proposing ""a new Triple Alliance between the Teutonic race and the two great trans-Atlantic branches of the Anglo-Saxon race which would become a potent influence on the future of the world," with the United Kingdom, the United States and Germany agreeing to work together. December 1899 December 2 Philippine–American War – Battle of Tirad Pass ("The Filipino Thermopylae"): General Gregorio del Pilar and his troops are able to guard the retreat of Philippine President Emilio Aguinaldo, before being wiped out. During the new moon, a near-grand conjunction of the classical planets and several binocular Solar System bodies occur. The Sun, Moon, Mercury, Mars and Saturn are all within 15° of each other, with Venus 5° ahead