General Jochmus’s further Reports to Sir Robert Stopford—Destruction of
the Magazines at Maan—Ignorance as to Ibrahim’s movements—Ibrahim
crosses the Jordan to Jericho, and menaces Jerusalem, while supposed
to be wandering in the Desert—General Jochmus’s Account of the
Movements of Ibrahim—Reported Destruction of his Infantry—Ibrahim
did not intend to enter Palestine—his Statement to Colonel Napier.
To proceed with General Jochmus, I may remark that a letter of his to
the Admiral, of the 20th of January[36], clearly shows what little
reliance could be placed in the reports that were made to him, of the
state of Ibrahim’s army from all quarters. After giving an account of
the destruction of 230 camel-loads of grain by the Baron Dumont, at
Maan, after Souliman Pacha had provisioned himself, and marched on Suez,
with the greatest part of the artillery, women, and children, he states,
“The army itself, of which the second column was to sleep at Maan on the
11th, seeing its provisions burnt, had been obliged to countermarch, and
is now wandering in the Desert harassed on all sides by Bedouin tribes.
Its state seems to be dreadful, and all over the country through which
the Baron Dumont came back to Kerek, he saw the bodies of small
detachments which had been cut off by the Bedouins.”
We look in vain for a confirmation of this in Baron Dumont’s report[37].
The Baron talks of the quantity of grain he destroyed, of the forty-four
camels he captured, and forty he found dead, which are included in the
eighty-four taken in one night, but not one word of dead bodies
destroyed by the Bedouins, or of Ibrahim’s army wandering in the Desert;
and so far were they from wandering in the Desert pursued by the Arabs,
that on the very day that the magazines at Maan were said to be
destroyed, Ibrahim, hearing of the movement on Gaza, crossed the Jordan
at Jericho, menaced Jerusalem, and forced Hussein Pacha to return to
Abugosh. Having succeeded in this point, he recrossed the Jordan, passed
to the south of the Dead Sea, and arrived at Gaza without any person
knowing what had in the meantime become of him, as will shortly be seen
by Lieut. Loring’s report.
In another report to the Admiral, dated from Jerusalem, January 28[38],
the General, in giving an account of the passage of the Jordan by the
Egyptians, says: “On the 14th a corps was reported to have crossed the
Jordan, and bivouacked (near Jericho) at Reyha. Hassan Pacha, encamped
at Abugosh, three hours south-west of Jerusalem, marched, towards the
evening, on the 15th instant; but the Egyptian division, hearing of his
approach, immediately recrossed the Jordan, with a heavy loss in drowned
and killed, the waters of that river having risen more than a foot
during the incessant rains of the 14th and 15th of January; and the
Arabs falling upon the troops during the passage, and in the nearly
impracticable passes of the Dead Sea.
“The enemy’s column above-mentioned proved to be the shattered remains
of the corps, called by Mehemet Ali ‘The Guards,’ amounting to from 4000
to 5000 men, and two cavalry regiments, with a battery of artillery,
forming the rear-guard of the army, under the personal command of
Ibrahim Pacha. The artillery, and one of the regiments, had remained at
some distance on the left bank of the river, and the movement was
evidently a desperate attempt to march by any way on Gaza or El Arish.
“The forlorn situation of this corps,” adds the General, “will be seen
from the two inclosed reports of Mehemed Rechid Pacha, Chief of the
Staff, and of Riza Pacha, commanding the cavalry[39]. I do not estimate
the loss of this army so great as the latter; but certainly, after
comparing all the reports, it amounts to 1,000 or more men, and eight
pieces of artillery, which latter, although with the column at Es-Salt,
were unquestionably not at Kerek on the 19th instant, whither Ibrahim
had retired after continual skirmishes with the Arabs. The Governor of
Jerusalem had sent his son, Hadgi Hafiz, to ascertain whether the
artillery had been buried in the desert mountain or not.
“Such was the isolated position of this last corps of the Egyptian army,
that its Commander-in-Chief had lost all means of communication with his
remaining forces, and that, although Hamid Bey and the Commissioners
from Egypt were from the 19th to the 23rd at El-Chalil, trying by all
means to establish a communication with Ibrahim either by the north or
south of the Dead Sea, it proved a vain attempt, notwithstanding that,
during the same days, the above column under the Pacha was at Kerek,
surrounded by the Arabs of the country, who had been reinforced by the
tribes of Beni Sackr and Beni Hennedy, arrived from the depths of the
Desert in consequence of the orders sent them from Jerusalem on the 8th
of January, through Baron Dumont.
“The distance from El-Mezereib to Kerek is, at the utmost, five days’
march. Ibrahim Pasha left the former place on the 6th or 7th of January,
and after fifteen days was still at Kerek, having continually marched
and counter-marched in the desert mountains in search of food, or from
having been stopped in the mountain defiles. According to the statement
of the son of the Chieftain of Abugosh, a Captain in the Guards, who
deserted on the 21st instant from Kerek, and had been with the column
ever since it quitted Damascus and El-Mezerib, Ibrahim marched from the
latter place to Bilka, thence back north to Es-Salt, again south to
Kerek and back to Jericho; obliged to recross the Jordan, he for a
second time returned to Kerek, having lost his guns, ammunition, and
stores, during the continued and very harassing attacks, day and night,
of the Arab bands intent on plunder.
“My last reports from El-Chalil of the 28th of January (twenty-two days
after Ibrahim’s leaving El-Mezereib, and thirty-one after his retreat
from Damascus) state that Hamid Bey, despairing of communicating with
Ibrahim Pacha, had resolved to return to Gaza, and thence to Egypt.”
Here it appears that General Jochmus himself began to doubt the reports
that were made him. We have before seen[40] that Captain De l’Or
reported Ibrahim to have lost 10,000 men on his march to El-Mezereib,
though he had 10,000 cavalry to cover his retreat, and was only followed
by 3000 or 4000 irregulars, who must have been ill provisioned.
It never could have been Ibrahim’s intention to have taken the Jaffa
road to Gaza, unless he intended to fight a battle, which he hardly
would have risked, with his rear guard only, and after having detached
Souliman to Suez; moreover he must have known of the submission of
Mehemet Ali, and would certainly not have provoked the hostility of the
European Powers by a breach of faith, and it is well for the Turks he
did not, for by all accounts his army was not in the state they supposed
it was, and his cavalry was in excellent order.
Colonel Napier was with the corps of Hassan Pacha, who, although he had
an opportunity of attacking Ibrahim, was too wise to attempt it. The
Colonel saw Ibrahim Pacha afterwards at Alexandria, and he declared to
him that the passage of the Jordan was a mere feint, which completely
succeeded; and, moreover, that had he been attacked by the Turkish army,
they would have been cut to pieces by his cavalry.