=Source.=--Sir Reginald Wingate's _Mahdiism and the Egyptian
Soudan_, pp. 85, 88-90. (Macmillans.)
Mohammed Ahmed, on hearing of the departure of the army of Hicks
Pasha from Khartoum, sent spies to watch their movements, and
on learning that the latter had arrived at Duem, and intended
advancing on El Obeid, he sent a force of 3,000 men under the emir
Abd el Halim and Abu Girgeh to follow in rear of the Egyptian army
and close up the wells as they advanced, so that retreat would be
impossible. Abd el Halim, on arrival at Rahad, at once rode off
to El Obeid and personally informed the Mahdi of the strength and
probable movements of the Egyptian force. On receipt of this news
Mohammed Ahmed forthwith despatched all his fighting men towards
Rahad to join Abd el Halim's force, but on their way they met Abd
el Halim retiring from Alluba, and, having joined him, the whole
force, amounting to some 40,000, encamped in the forest of Shekan,
and there awaited the advance of the Egyptian troops.... At 10 a.m.
on Monday morning, November 5, the troops marched out of the zariba
and formed up in three squares, the whole formation resembling a
triangle. Each square had its own transport and ammunition in the
centre. Hicks Pasha with his staff led the way, followed by four
guns of the artillery, then the first square, which was supported
to the right and left rear by the other two squares, some 300 yards
distant from the square and from each other. Ala ed Din Pasha
commanded the right square and Selim Bey the left. The exposed
flanks of the squares were covered by cavalry, and a detachment
of horsemen brought up the rear. In this formation the troops
steadily advanced, and half an hour later reached a fairly open
valley, interspersed here and there with bush, while on either
side were thick woods full of the enemy.... Now all was ready, and
Mohammed Ahmed patiently awaited the arrival of the troops, which
could already be seen advancing in the distance. He assembled
his emirs for the last final instructions, and, rising from his
prayer, drew his sword, shouted three times, "Allahu akbar! You
need not fear, for the victory is ours." On came the squares.
The first had reached the wooded depression, when up sprang the
Arabs with their fierce yells. Startled and surprised, the square
was broken in a moment. The flanking squares now fired wildly at
the Arabs fighting hand to hand with the Egyptians, and in their
efforts must have killed numbers of their own comrades. But almost
at the same instant the Arabs simultaneously attacked from the
woods on both sides and from front and rear. The wildest confusion
followed; squares fired on each other, on friends or enemies.
While the surging mass of Arabs now completely encircled the force
and gradually closed in on them, a massacre of the most appalling
description took place. In little over quarter of an hour all was
over. Hicks Pasha with his staff, seeing that he could do nothing,
cut his way through on the left and reached some cultivated ground.
Here he was surrounded by some Baggara horsemen, and for a time
kept them at bay, fighting most gallantly till his revolver was
empty, and then committing most terrible execution with his sword.
He was the last of the Europeans to fall, and one savage charge
he made on his assailants is memorable to this day in the Soudan,
and a body of Baggara who fled before him were called by their
tribesmen "Baggar Hicks," or the cows driven by Hicks. But at last
he fell, pierced by the spear of the Khalifa Mohammed Sherif. His
cavalry bodyguard fought gallantly, and though repeatedly called
on to surrender replied, "We shall never surrender, but will die
like our officers, and kill many of you as well." And soon all were
killed. Ala ed Din Pasha was killed trying to make his way from the
right square to join Hicks Pasha. Genawi Bey lay dead in the square
beside his horse. It is said that as he fell mortally wounded he,
with his own sword, hamstrung his horse, saying, "No other shall
ever ride on you after me." The whole force, with the exception of
some 300 men, and most of these wounded, had now been completely
annihilated.... The news of the Mahdi's victory spread far and
wide, and if there had been some doubts previous to what was now
termed a miracle, the complete annihilation of a whole army soon
dispelled them, and from the Red Sea to the confines of Waddai the
belief was universal that at last the true Mahdi had appeared.
[NOTE.--Sir R. Wingate's account is quoted from two sources--one,
Mohammed Nur el Barudi, who was cook to Hicks Pasha, and was one
of the wounded prisoners after the battle; and the other, Hassan
Habashi, a former Government official at El Obeid, who had fallen
into the Mahdi's hands on the capture of that place. Hence the
story is complete on both sides.]