THE DESTRUCTION OF HICKS' ARMY.
Then came a long period of silence, and great anxiety began to be felt.
From its outset Hicks' army had been beset with spies, who informed the
Mahdi of every movement. Hicks, on the other hand, had to trust to
treacherous guides, and possibly false reports. It was, moreover, no
secret that there was dissension in the Egyptian force, for Al-ed Din
Pasha was jealous at not having been intrusted with the chief command,
and some of the Egyptian officers were suspected of treachery.[90] Here,
then, were all the elements of failure.
[Illustration: ROUTE OF HICKS' ARMY.]
Military critics had from the first condemned the decision forced upon
Hicks to give up the proposed series of posts connecting the army with
its base. Sir Samuel Baker, a high authority on the Soudan, as well as
General Stone, an American officer of experience, formerly chief of the
staff, stated that the force despatched was wholly inadequate, and that
they anticipated nothing but disaster. As week after week passed on
without intelligence, the public anxiety increased. Daily telegrams were
sent by the Government to Khartoum, demanding news, and a steamer was
despatched from there to patrol the White Nile, but in vain. Attempts to
send messengers to communicate with the army failed. One messenger, who
had been captured by the rebels, was put alive into an ant-hill, and
this naturally tended to discourage others who might have been induced
to make the attempt.
At last three soldiers returned to Khartoum from Duem, and reported that
Hicks had been attacked by from 25,000 to 30,000 Mahdists at a place
three leagues from Obeid, had repulsed the attack, inflicting a loss of
8,000 men on the enemy, had laid siege to Obeid, and captured it on the
4th of November, the Egyptian losses being nil.
Doubts were entertained as to the accuracy of this information. The
absence of any loss on the Egyptian side in operations of such magnitude
was felt to be improbable. Further, it was recognized that on the date
at which Hicks was stated to have entered Obeid he must, according to
his calculated rate of progress, have been at least a week's march from
that town. The report received no sort of confirmation, official or
otherwise, and was soon generally disbelieved.
On the 18th November the French Consul-General received a short telegram
from his agent at Khartoum, stating that, according to information from
a private source, Hicks' army was surrounded and in want of provisions.
On the 19th two messengers arrived at Duem with letters. According to
their statements, a fight had taken place between Egyptian troops and a
great number of rebels at a place called Kaz. During the first two days'
fighting the Dervishes suffered great loss. The Mahdi, seeing this,
advanced with his regular troops from Obeid, all well armed. The
fighting continued from the 2nd to 5th November, when Hicks' whole army
was destroyed, all being killed but about fifty men.
This news was confirmed by other persons, including a Copt, who,
disguised as a Dervish, arrived at Khartoum from Kordofan on the 21st
November. He asserted that he was an eye-witness of the fight, in which,
according to him, the Egyptian troops, with the exception of 200, were
totally destroyed. The later accounts received contained more details;
but as these are in many respects conflicting, it is proposed to give a
short summary of one or two of the different narratives, omitting only
such portions as would be mere repetition.
According to a camel-driver, who followed in the service of Kenaui Bey,
the army, after leaving Duem, met the rebels, with whom some skirmishes
took place, and arrived at Rahad without serious fighting. There was a
lake at Rahad, from which they got a supply of water, and then started
for Alouba. On this march the rebels attacked in great numbers, but were
defeated. The army passed the night at Alouba. The next day (2nd of
November), after three hours' marching through a forest, a large force
of rebels suddenly appeared, and the Egyptians halted and formed square.
Fighting went on all that day, and after an engagement, in which there
were losses on both sides, the rebels were again defeated. Intrenchments
were thrown up, and the night was passed on the field of battle. On the
3rd the march was resumed. Again the rebels attacked in considerable
numbers, endeavouring to surround the army, but after a serious
engagement, in which both sides lost severely, they were once more
defeated. The night was passed on this new field of battle. On the 4th
the army directed its course towards Kashgil. After four hours'
marching, the force was surprised by the rebels, who directed against it
a well-sustained fire. The soldiers were halted in square, and returned
the fire. They suffered terribly from thirst; nevertheless they
continued to fight all that day and during the night.
On the morning of the 5th, the firing having ceased, the army advanced
towards the wells. After half an hour's march, the Dervishes, who were
hidden in the woods, surrounded the troops on all sides, and opened
fire. The force replied with a strong fusillade, which was well kept up
till towards mid-day, when the enemy made a general charge with guns,
spears, and lances, and destroyed the whole army with the exception of
200 soldiers.
On the 1st December a telegram from Khartoum stated that for the last
week there had been an Arab rumour that there were dissensions between
Hicks and Al-ed Din Pasha prior to the battle, and that these
dissensions were known to all. Hicks, according to the rumour, was weary
of waiting near the water at Melbeis. Al-ed Din Pasha refused to move
further, because there was no water, and half the army went over to him,
and refused to obey Hicks. Hicks therefore pushed ahead with all his
European staff, artillery, and seven or eight thousand men, was
entrapped into an ambush, and fought for three days, not having a drop
of water or a reserve cartridge. All his army was destroyed. The rumour
added that Al-ed Din and his party, who stood by the water, were
afterwards attacked, and that they were at the far side of Obeid,
fighting every day, with large losses; and that there was with them a
white officer, English or German, who escaped, badly wounded, from the
massacre of Hicks and his army. There was also Mr. Vizetelly, an artist,
a prisoner in El-Obeid.
The story of a Greek merchant who escaped from Obeid was that when Hicks
started from Duem, large bodies of Arabs encamped each night on the
place occupied by the army the night before. Hicks frequently wished to
turn back and disperse these men, but Al-ed Din Pasha assured him that
they were friendly natives following in support of the army.
On the sixth or seventh day Hicks sent back a small body of his men.
These were fired upon by the Arabs, and Hicks then insisted that these
should be dispersed. Al-ed Din refused, and Hicks then drew his sword
and threw it on the ground, saying that he resigned, and would no longer
be responsible if Al-ed Din did not permit his orders to be obeyed.
Hicks also declared that from the time he left Duem Al-ed Din had caused
his orders to be disobeyed. After some time Hicks was persuaded to
resume the command; but things went on as before, the body of rebels in
the rear always growing larger.
After some slight engagements, Kashgil was reached. Here an ambuscade
had been formed some days before, the guide employed having been told to
lead the army thither. When the Arabs opened fire it was from behind
rocks and trees, where they were wholly covered, and could fire with
impunity. The shells and bullets of the Egyptian force were harmless, so
thick was the cover. Hicks wheeled his army to gain the open, but found
the defile blocked by Al-ed Din's so-called friendly natives, who had so
long been following him. They also had got under shelter, and opened
fire on the army. The Arabs, from behind their protection, kept up the
fire for three days, and in the whole affair lost only from 270 to 300
men. The Egyptian soldiers were then lying on the ground, dying or in
convulsions from thirst, and the Arabs found them in groups of twenty or
more, unable to rise. They were all speared where they lay. Hicks' staff
and escort alone had water, and were in a group on horseback. When the
Arabs came out of cover, Hicks charged, leading his staff, and shooting
down all the rebels in his way. They galloped past towards a sheikh
(supposed by the Egyptians to be the Mahdi). Hicks rushed on him with
his sword, and cut his face and arm. The man had on a Darfur steel mail
shirt. Just then a thrown club struck Hicks on the head and unhorsed
him; the horses of the staff were speared, but the officers fought on
foot till all were killed. Hicks was the last to die.[91] The Mahdi was
not in the battle, but came to see Hicks' body. As each sheikh passed,
he pierced it with his lance (an Arab custom), that he might say he
assisted at his death.
Later still, a boy who had been with Hicks' army, made a statement to
the following effect:--At Lake Rahad Hicks made a fort and mounted
twenty-three guns. The troops rested there for three days. The enemy was
hemming them in, and Hicks determined to push on to Obeid. The army
advanced at daybreak. It had not marched an hour when the enemy for the
first time opened fire, at long range. Some camels only were wounded.
The army halted for the night, intrenched itself, making a zeriba. For
two days the army remained in camp. It then marched to Shekan, where it
again halted for two days in consequence of being surrounded by the
enemy, whose fire began to kill both men and camels. Leaving Shekan, the
force marched till noon. It then halted, as the enemy were firing from
the bushes on all sides. On the third day the cavalry made a sortie, and
encountering the enemy's horsemen, put them to flight, capturing several
horses. This was early in the day. The square then resumed its march.
Shortly after, the galloping of horses was heard, and countless Arabs
appeared on all sides, waving their banners and brandishing their spears
above the bushes. The square was halted, and, opening fire, killed a
great many, whilst the Egyptians at the same time lost heavily. The
bushes were too thick for the Krupp guns to do much execution, but the
machine-guns were at work day and night. Next morning Arabs were seen
lying six deep killed by these guns. There were nine Englishmen with the
force besides Hicks. The Egyptians lay down to hide, but Hicks ordered
his English officers to go round and make them stand up. At noon he
sounded the assembly, to ascertain who was left alive. The force was
shortly after joined by Al-ed Din and his division. The next morning the
entire force marched together through a forest. Through field-glasses an
immense number of the enemy could be seen. The men insisted on
continuing their march to the water instead of halting to fight. Hicks,
yielding to their remonstrance, continued to march in square. Before
noon, Melbeis, where there was abundance of water, was in sight. About
noon the Arabs in overwhelming numbers burst upon the front face of the
square. It was swept away like chaff before the wind. Seeing this, the
other sides of the square faced inwards, and commenced a deadly
fusillade, both on the enemy and crossways on each other. Terrible
slaughter ensued. Seeing that all hope of restoring order was gone,
Hicks and the few English officers who remained then spurred their
horses and sprang out of the confused mass of dead and dying. The
officers fired their revolvers, killing many, and clearing a space
around them till all their ammunition was expended. They had then got
clear outside the square, and took to their swords, fighting till they
fell. Hicks alone remained. He was a terror to the Arabs. They said his
sword never struck a man without killing him. They named him "the
heavy-armed." He kept them all at bay until a cut on the wrist compelled
him to drop his sword. He then fell. The struggling and slaughtering
went on for hours. The black troops forming the rear of the square
remained in good order when all else was confusion. They marched some
distance and formed a square of their own. They were pursued, and the
Dervishes shouted to them to surrender. They replied, "We will not
surrender. We will not eat the Effendina's (Khedive's) bread for
nothing. We will fight till we die, but many of you shall die too!"
Whilst the parleying was going on, an unexpected rush was made which
broke the square, and the blacks were all killed.
This last account, which is the most circumstantial that has come to
light, bears, it will be observed, a certain resemblance to the
narrative of the camel-driver already quoted. In both, the serious
fighting is made to begin at Lake Rahad. The advance, accompanied by
frequent halts, was made through trees and bushes. The attacks made
under cover were received in square formation, the men were suffering
from want of water, and the final onslaught was made about mid-day. The
final scene in which Hicks and his staff charged their foes also agrees
with the previous accounts.
Of the number of Hicks' force which perished it is impossible to give a
correct estimate. According to Gordon they were so numerous that the
Mahdi made a pyramid with their skulls.
Of the number of the Mahdi's forces engaged no very accurate accounts
exist. The Copt whose narrative has already been referred to put it at
the preposterous figure of 300,000. The soldiers who brought the news of
Hicks' pretended victory put the Mahdi's forces at from 25,000 to
30,000, but Orientals, in the matter of numbers, are notoriously
inexact. The Greek merchant, whose account has been quoted, mentioned
the Mahdi's whole standing army as 35,000 men. Gordon Pasha, on the
other hand, expressed the opinion that the enemy did not exceed 4,000 in
number. It is certain that a considerable portion of the Mahdi's forces
consisted of the trained soldiers, formerly belonging to Arabi's army,
and who had surrendered at Bara and Obeid. These alone amounted to
5,500, and were provided with Remington rifles and an ample supply of
ammunition. It is said that these soldiers were placed in the front
rank, with the Soudanese behind to prevent their running away.
There is reason to believe that Adolf Klootz,[92] a late sergeant of the
Pomeranian army, who was servant to Major Seckendorff, and deserted some
days before the battle of Kashgil, took part in the action, and
commanded the Mahdi's artillery. A Christian lay-sister of the Austrian
Convent at Obeid, who succeeded in escaping a month later, reported that
this man was then with the Mahdi, and was the only European saved from
Hicks' army.
Of the Mahdi's losses in the battle with Hicks no record exists.
The Mahdi, after his victory, returned to Obeid, where a great religious
ceremony took place to celebrate the event. The heads of the European
officers were cut off and placed on spikes over the gates of the town.
Of the crushing nature of the blow inflicted by the defeat of Hicks'
army it is scarcely necessary to say more than a few words. It destroyed
the only army which Egypt had ready to put in the field. It increased
the prestige of the Mahdi enormously, and placed all the country south
of Khartoum at his mercy.
Khartoum itself was in a situation of very great peril. Its garrison
numbered only some 2,000 men to defend four miles of earthworks and keep
in order 60,000 natives, of whom 15,000 were avowed rebels.
Measures for the defence of the town and the calling in, as far as
possible, of the outlying garrisons were at once taken, and
reinforcements were demanded from Cairo. In the meantime a panic
prevailed, and all the Europeans began to take flight.
Happily the Mahdi did not follow up his success, but remained in the
neighbourhood of Obeid for several weeks, occupied, probably, in
dividing with his followers the spoils of victory.