Читать книгу Khartoum Campaign, 1898; or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan - Bennet Burleigh - Страница 10

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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 12½-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, viâ 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."