MUSTERING FOR THE OVERTHROW OF MAHDISM.
A hackneyism lacks the picturesqueness of originality, but is as
useful in its way as a public road to a desired destination. The
quotation which I am at the moment anxious to make use of is, "The
mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small." Time
the avenger had all but fulfilled the meed of punishment for the evil
day of 26th January 1885, when the streets of Khartoum ran with blood,
and the headless body of General Gordon was left to be hacked and hewn
by ferocious hordes of dervishes. Major-General Sir Herbert H.
Kitchener had so managed that the decisive blow should be delivered in
the most effective manner. Stage by stage he had moved forward and
improved his lines of communication. The advanced base, or point of
departure for the campaign, was no longer Wady Halfa, or Korti in the
province of Dongola, as in 1884, but Dakhala. Nay, with the
unassailable power and command of the Nile his flotilla gave him, it
might be said the real base of the Sirdar's army was where he chose to
fix it, even hard by Omdurman. As for the Khalifa, ruined to some
extent by years of successes and easy victories, he was committing the
fatal military error of over-confidence. He had drawn around him from
all parts of the Soudan the best of his trusty warriors, the pick of
the fighting tribes of Africa. The leaders were mostly sheiks who were
too far committed to hope for pardon and restoration, in the event of
defeat, from the Khedivial Government. Besides, there were still
plenty of ignorant fanatics amongst the chosen "Ansar," or servants of
God, to fire the naturally truculent mass of armed men.
To ensure the smashing of the Mahdists, the Sirdar was leading the
largest and best equipped expedition ever seen south of Wady Halfa.
The river flotilla comprised eleven well-armed steam gunboats. For the
transport of troops and stores beyond Dakhala he had numberless native
craft, giassas, nuggars, several steamers, and specially constructed
iron barges. What with their crews and detachments of British gunners,
engineers, and infantry, each gunboat had a fighting force of about
100 men aboard. These vessels could easily have carried many more
hands; indeed, the newest type of Nile men-o'-war, the twin-screw
steamers, were built to convey a thousand soldiers. The land forces
included over 8000 British troops and fully 15,000 Egyptian and
Soudanese soldiery. In artillery the army was exceptionally strong.
Lieut.-Colonel C. J. Long, R.A., commanding that arm, had practically
eight batteries and ten Maxims at his disposal, not counting the
machine guns, Maxims, attached to the British division. The artillery
included the 32nd Field Battery R.A. of six 15-pounders under Major
Williams; the 37th Field Battery R.A. of six 5-inch howitzers under
Major Elmslie, and two 40-pounders R.A. Armstrong guns under Lieut.
Weymouth. There were also, No. 1 Egyptian Horse Artillery Battery
(Krupps) under Major Young, R.A., of six guns; No. 2 Egyptian Field
(mule) Battery under Major Peake, consisting of six 12 1/2-pounder
Maxim-Nordenfeldt automatic recoil guns, firing when necessary a
double shell, and Egyptian Field Batteries Nos. 3, 4, and 5, each of
six of the same type of guns, under Captain C. G. Stewart, R.A., Major
Lawrie, R.A., and Major de Rougemont, R.A., and two 6-centimetres
Krupps on mules. The ten Maxims, or at least six of them, were mounted
upon galloping carriages drawn by horses. On these vehicles or limbers
the gunners could remain in position and bring the weapons into action
at any moment. Captain Franks had the control of these machine guns,
two of which were, nominally, attached to each Egyptian battery.
Besides the four brigades of Khedivial infantry, together with
artillery, cavalry, and camelry, and minor details, the Egyptian army
also included a large transport column of some 2800 camels and about
as many men.
A new solar-hat, a poke-bonnet sort of head-gear, was designed and
tied on the pates of one thousand transport camels as an experiment to
prevent sickness and sunstroke. Although the brutes have the smallest
modicum of brains, they are very liable to attacks of illness from
heat-exhaustion. That they are born in the tropics confers no
immunity. Strange to say, on the march south from Assouan, of a
thousand and odd only one animal succumbed to sunstroke, and that was
a camel that had no sun-bonnet. If anything could have added to the
naturally lugubrious expression of those lumbering freight carriers,
it was the jaunty poke-bonnets with the attenuated "Oh, let us be
joyful" visages grinning beneath. The transport department was managed
by Colonel F. W. Kitchener, brother of the Sirdar. His care it was,
when the army actually took the field, to see that the supplies of
food, forage, and ammunition advanced with the columns. As a matter of
fact, in that respect the campaign, as at the Atbara, was admirably
ordered, and the troops lacked for nothing in reason. There were few
mules and donkeys employed in the baggage trains, the bulk of the
stores being camel-borne. It was the free and full use of water
transport, by the Nile, that enabled supplies to be sent on rapidly
and regularly with the army when the troops advanced beyond Rail-head.
Besides the regular army which was to proceed up the left or west bank
and attack Omdurman, there was a column of armed friendlies who were
to operate against the dervishes quartered between Shendy and
Khartoum, by the east or right bank of the Nile. Nor were the bands of
tribesmen upon that shore the only auxiliaries who had volunteered to
assist in overthrowing Mahdism. Jaalin scouts and runners put
themselves under the Sirdar's orders to scour the front and flanks of
the army, at least up to Kerreri. Colonel Parsons, R.A., was to lead
a mixed force of fellaheen soldiers, Abyssinian levies, ex-Italian
Ascari, and Arabs from Kassala to attack Gedarif and menace Khartoum
from the east.
There was a degree of soreness in several British battalions at not
being allowed to bear part in the campaign. The troops forming the
Army of Occupation believed that they should have had the first call.
Among these were the Royal Irish Fusiliers. It had been anticipated
that as they were next on the army list for active foreign service,
they would certainly not be passed over. Instead of receiving orders
to march, they were left severely alone, another Fusilier battalion
being sent in their place. The proceeding gave rise to much bickering
and bitterness in certain quarters. An attempt, I believe, was made to
send half of the Royal Irish Fusiliers to the front, but that fell
through owing to various causes. According to the War Office
requirements, the Royal Irish Fusiliers were not in a satisfactory
condition. There were serious drawbacks which would have terribly
militated against the effective employment of the battalion as a
first-class fighting unit. Individually, the men were all right, but
the battalion record in certain respects was held to be very faulty. I
have no wish to cavil at the War Office authorities' honest desire to
serve the public and yet temper their judgment with mercy to
individuals. But the case was one where they should not have
temporised in any way. As matters turned out, the Royal Irish
Fusiliers were very angry at being passed over at the eleventh hour
for another regiment. For several generations they have never had a
chance of being in action. They were fairly spoiling for a fight, and
it was hard, at the last moment, to have the road to glory closed in
their faces for the deficiencies of the few.
He whom Arabs and blacks of the whole Soudan call the "Grand Master of
the Art of Flight," our old friend Osman Digna, was with the Khalifa
in Omdurman. Osman was wily and experienced, and his counsel, had it
been listened to by his chief, would have added to the difficulties of
carrying the Mahdist stronghold by assault. I have some knowledge of
that astute ex-slavedealer and trader's ways in the Eastern Soudan and
elsewhere. He, many years ago, even condescended to honour me with his
correspondence and an invitation to join the true believers, _i.e._,
the Mahdists. I have no doubt he meant well, but the land and the
dervishes were alike abhorrent to me. Osman had quietly come to the
wise conclusion that Mahdism was near its end. With his usual
prescience he made his own arrangements without consulting the
Khalifa. Early in the year he had all his women and children and such
wealth as he could smuggle out of the country sent over to Jeddah.
There his family are now living under the protection of some of his
old friends and kinsmen. When Omdurman fell he had no intention, the
Hadendowas said, of sharing the Khalifa's further fortunes in hiding
among the wilds of Kordofan. He would instead try and escape across
the Red Sea and rejoin his family. The Arab clansmen are like the
Hielan' caterans; they may fight and quarrel with one another, but
unless there is a blood feud it is unlikely they will help either the
English or the Egyptians to bag old Osman Digna. If the Turk gets him
for a subject, well, the Sublime Porte is likely to be deeply sorry
for it later on. "Fresh troubles in Yemen," or elsewhere in the
Arabian Peninsula, will be amongst the headlines of news from that
quarter once Osman the plotter finds his feet again after his last
flight. After the Atbara he just missed being taken by the skin of his
teeth, so to speak. His camp letters and private correspondence were
all secured. It was in this way: When the news of the Atbara victory
reached Kassala, Captain Benson and a party of about 200 Abyssinian
irregulars set out to see whether Osman Digna and his more immediate
followers were not trying to make their way back to Omdurman, via
Aderamat and Abu Delek. It may be recollected that the fugitive Shiekh
had established a camp at the last-named place after he had been
driven out of the Eastern Soudan. Sure enough, Captain Benson and the
irregulars came up with Osman Digna and 400 of his people encamped
near the Atbara. They called on them to surrender, but that they would
not do. A running fight began, in the course of which Osman, his
nephew Mousa and many more escaped. The Abyssinians, however, killed
and captured over 200 of the dervish leader's followers, and returned
in triumph with the captives and spoils. I am told that Mousa Digna,
though he watched the fight in question, never fired a shot. The tale
goes, that he has never drawn sword or trigger against us since we
gave him his life at the battle of Gemaizeh, near Suakin. That
morning I found Mousa, shot through the stomach, reclining upon the
ground. He was still truculent, and brandishing his spear. The
Soudanese were anxious to despatch him forthwith, and fired several
shots at him, the aim of which I spoiled by direct interference. I had
even then difficulty in getting Mousa to lie down quietly, having to
show him my revolver. Finally, he partly realised the situation. He
was taken up, carried into Suakin, carefully attended to, fed upon a
milk diet, and, in the end, recovered and returned to his Uncle Osman
and the dervishes. It has always been upon my mind that I was therein
instrumental in furnishing a dervish recruit to the cause of furious
anarchy, and I am relieved to think Mousa is not without compunction,
if not a decent modicum of conscience. But your proper Hadendowa is
not a Baggara.
"Three removals are worse than a fire," and it is much the same in
campaigning. Constant trudging to and fro, making and breaking camps
with the hardships of marches and raw ground for bivouacs, furnish a
bigger mortality bill than an ordinary battle. One of the smart things
done by the Sirdar, which served to show that he had closely knit all
the ends of the new frontier lines together, was to bring troops up
from the Dongola province and the Red Sea Littoral, to swell the
strength of his army in the field. The 5th Egyptian battalion under
Colonel Abd El Borham marched across from Suakin to Berber in eighteen
days. It was not by any means sought to make it a forced march. The
Fifth was accompanied by a company, 100 men and animals, of the Camel
Corps and had 40 baggage camels for ordinary transport. Leisurely, day
by day, they tramped along over the 250 odd miles of rock and sand
that intervene betwixt the Nile and the sea. Hadendowa and Bishaim
tribesmen were friendly, and scouts led them in the best tracks
whether they tramped by night or by day. At one place they had to make
a long forced march as the water in the wells had been exhausted by a
previous caravan. In time to come, with a little outlay, new wells
will be dug and an abundant supply of water provided along the whole
route. Later on, the 5th Egyptian battalion marched up from Berber to
Dakhala camp. The men were tall, muscular fellaheen. They were, as has
become the custom in Egypt since the army has been officered by the
Queen's soldiers, played into quarters on this occasion by a native
Soudanese band to the swinging tune of "O, dem Golden Slippers."
It is warm enough in Lower Egypt in July to be uncomfortable, and to
turn the most obdurate into a melting mood. Assouan has the deserved
reputation of being hotter in that month than Aden, the Persian Gulf,
or--well, any other hot place. So, as I have said before, the British
troops were not required to do more than the minimum of duty at that
period. Decidedly "circumstances alter cases," even in matters
military. I hope I may be pardoned for these recurring quotations and
saws. The intolerably fervent solar heat of the Soudan at that season
did not admit of much originality in thought, expression, or act. One
of my companions was a veritable modern Sancho Panza, and in one's
limp, mental, noontide condition his sapient "instances" were
catching. When he left Cairo, as he confided to me, though it was warm
enough there, he decided not to buy too thin clothing lest he might
catch cold. He therefore purchased articles that even in England would
be called woolly and comfortable. Later on, as he reclined upon his
couch in a thrice-raised Turkish bath temperature, he lamented that he
"could not catch cold" even in a state of nature or next to it. He no
longer wondered at Sydney Smith's wish to sit in his bones, and
thought that expression would have acquired additional force if the
witty divine had added "packed in ice."