The Memoirs of Admiral Lord Beresford
would infallibly go down in deep water. The captain, like a good
seaman, gave the order, and the chief engineer carried it into
execution with admirable promptitude. I went down into the engine-room
and found the water already rising through the foot-plates.
As the ship steamed towards the shore, settling down as she went, I
stood with Lady Charles on the bridge, telling her that, if the vessel
sank, I should throw her overboard--although she could not swim--and
should jump in after her. To which she merely replied, "That will be
very disagreeable!"
The ship was safely beached, though not before the water had risen to
my cabin. She was afterwards salved by the help of the Navy. H.M.S.
_Carysfort_, commanded by Captain H. F. Stephenson, C.B. (now Admiral
Sir Henry F. Stephenson, {210} G.C.V.O., K.C.B., Gentleman Usher of the
Black Rod), sent a carpenter and a working party; and they did
excellent service in the _Malwa_.
Our party went to Cairo, there to await the next steamer.
Hicks Pasha and his staff dined with us upon the night before they left
Cairo, upon their fatal expedition. Colonel W. Hicks had been
appointed by the Khedive chief of the staff of the Army of the Soudan.
In the following August he was appointed commander-in-chief. From
Cairo he went to Souakim, thence to Berber, and thence to Khartoum. On
the 28th April, he fought a successful action on the White Nile, south
of Khartoum, in which his Egyptian troops did well. In September,
Hicks left Duem with his staff and some 10,000 men and marched into the
desert, which swallowed them up. The whole army was exterminated by
the Mahdi's dervishes. Gordon said that the Mahdi built with the
skulls of the slain a pyramid.
I applied for permission to accompany Hicks Pasha, but my old friend
Lord Dufferin was determined that I should not go upon that hazardous
enterprise. I believe he telegraphed to the Government on the subject.
At any rate, he had his way, and so saved my life.
In October, before the news of the disaster had reached Cairo, the
British Army of Occupation had been reduced from 6700 men to 3000.
Subsequently, the British Government proceeded with the policy of
abandoning the Soudan, in one phase of which I was to bear my part.
In the meantime, Lady Charles and I joined the Duke of Portland and his
party, among whom were Lord de Grey and Lord Wenlock; went to India;
enjoyed some excellent sport; and returned home.
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CHAPTER XXIII
THE SOUDAN WAR OF 1884-5
I. SUMMARY OF EVENTS
NOTE
A year before the British forces restored order in Egypt, trouble was
beginning in the Soudan. One Mahomet Ahmed, who was the son of a
boat-builder, and who had the peculiar conformation of the teeth which
betokened the fore-ordained of the Prophet, announced that he was the
Mahdi. In July, 1881, the holy man dwelt upon the island of Abba, on
the White Nile, above Khartoum. Thence he caused it to be made known
that he was the chosen instrument for the reformation of Islam, and
that all those who denied him would be abolished. Reouf Pasha, who was
then Governor-General of the Soudan, summoned the Mahdi to Khartoum,
there to give an account of himself. The Mahdi naturally refused; and
when Reouf sent soldiers to fetch him, the Mahdi slew most of them, and
departed into the hills, he and all his following. The Governor of
Fashoda took an expedition to Gheddeer, and was also slain, together
with most of his men. Then Giegler Pasha, a German, acting as
temporary Governor-General of the Soudan, succeeded in defeating the
forces of the Mahdi. But Abdel Kader, who, succeeding Reouf, took over
the command from Giegler, was defeated in his turn. On 7th June, 1882,
the Egyptian forces were cut to pieces near Fashoda. In July, the
Mahdi was besieging Obeid and {212} Bara. By October, 1882, both
places were in danger of falling, and Abdel Kader was demanding
reinforcements from Egypt.
The Soudan is a country as large as India; at that time it had no
railways, no canals, no roads, and, excepting the Nile during a part of
the year, no navigable rivers. In November, 1882, the British
Government informed the Khedive that they declined to be responsible
for the condition of the Soudan. Lord Granville's intimation to this
effect was the first step in the policy which progressed from blunder
to blunder to the desertion and death of General Gordon.
The Egyptian Government, left in the lurch, hastily enlisted some
10,000 men, the most part being brought in by force, and dispatched
them to Abdel Kader at Berber. At Abdel Kader's request, Colonel
Stewart and two other British officers were sent to Khartoum to help
him to deal with the raw and mutinous levies.
In December, a number of British officers were appointed to the
Egyptian Army in Egypt, in accordance with the recommendations of Lord
Dufferin, and Sir Evelyn Wood was appointed Sirdar. The British Army
of Occupation had now been reduced to 12,000 men, under the command of
General Sir Archibald Alison, who, in the following April (1883) was
succeeded by Lieutenant-General F. C. S. Stephenson.
In January, 1883, Colonel W. Hicks, afterwards Hicks Pasha, was
appointed by the Khedive chief of the staff of the Army of the Soudan.
Before he proceeded to the theatre of war, Abdel Kader had lost and won
various engagements, and had reoccupied the province of Sennar; while
the Mahdi had taken El Obeid and Bara and occupied the whole of
Kordofan.
In February, it was announced in the Queen's Speech that "the British
troops will be withdrawn as promptly as may be permitted by a prudent
examination of the country"; a declaration provoking intense alarm
among the European {213} inhabitants of Egypt. Their protests,
however, were totally disregarded. The Egyptians naturally concluded
that England owned no real interest in that reform of administration
which her influence alone could achieve.
On 7th February, 1883, Colonel Hicks left Cairo for Khartoum, with his
staff, consisting of Colonels Colborne and De Coetlogon, Majors
Farquhar and Martin, and Captains Warner, Massey and Forrestier-Walker.
Upon the night before their departure, Colonel Hicks and his staff
dined with Lord and Lady Charles Beresford in Cairo. Lord Charles
Beresford, who was then on half-pay, had expressed a wish to accompany
Colonel Hicks, but Lord Dufferin disapproving of his suggestion, Lord
Charles Beresford withdrew it.
Hicks and his men disappeared into the desert, which presently
swallowed them up.
On the 28th April, Hicks defeated a large force of the Mahdi's army on
the White Nile. The Egyptian Government then decided to reconquer the
province of Kordofan, and dispatched reinforcements to Khartoum. On
the 9th September, Hicks Pasha, at the head of 10,000 men, marched for
Duem. The last dispatch received from him was dated 3rd October, 1883.
Upon a day early in November, Hicks and his whole army were annihilated.
His defeat left Khartoum in great danger. On 9th November, before the
news of the disaster reached England, the British Government stated
that all British troops were to be withdrawn from Egypt. When the fact
was known, the decision of the Government was modified; but they still
declined to interfere in the Soudan; and advised the Egyptian
Government to evacuate at least a part of that territory. The Egyptian
Government protesting, the British Government, on 4th January, 1884,
sent a peremptory message insisting that the policy of evacuation
should be carried into execution. The inconsequence of Her Majesty's
Ministers is sufficiently apparent.
In the meantime, during August of the preceding year, {214} 1883,
trouble had arisen in the Eastern Soudan, where Osman Digna, a trader,
joined the Mahdi, and brought all the tribes of that country to his
standard. At the beginning of November, 1883, just at the time when
Hicks Pasha and his army had come to their end, an Egyptian force under
Mahmoud Talma Pasha was defeated by Osman Digna in the attempt to
relieve Tokar, besieged by the rebels, Captain Moncrieff, Royal Navy,
British Consul at Souakim, being killed in the action. A second
expeditionary force under Suleiman Pasha was cut to pieces on 2nd
December at Tamanieh.
The Egyptian Government then dispatched reinforcements under the
command of General Valentine Baker, among whose staff were Colonel
Sartorius, Lieutenant-Colonel Harrington, Lieutenant-Colonel Hay,
Majors Harvey, Giles, and Holroyd, Morice Bey and Dr. Leslie. On the
4th February, 1884, Baker was defeated at El-Teb, with the loss of
nearly two-thirds of his force. Morice Bey, Dr. Leslie, and nine other
European officers were killed. Souakim being threatened, Admiral
Hewett, on 10th December, was given the command of the town, having
under him some 3800 troops. Two days later came the news of the taking
of Sinkat by the rebels, and of the massacre of the garrison. During
the period in which these successive disasters occurred, the British
Army of Occupation was kept idle in Cairo by the orders of the British
Government.
The current of events now divides, one leading to Khartoum, the other
still flowing in the Eastern Soudan. The British Government,
hopelessly at fault, turned to General Charles Gordon, as the one man
in the world who could apparently perform miracles. Ten years
previously, "Chinese" Gordon, as Governor-General of the Soudan, and
again in 1877, as Governor-General of the Soudan, Darfur and the
Equatorial Provinces, had freed the country from Turkish rule, broken
the slave trade, established peace, opened trade routes, and laid the
foundations of civilisation. Since 1877 he had been engaged in setting
wrong things right in Egypt {215} in the Soudan again, in Abyssinia, in
China, in the Mauritius, at the Cape, in Palestine, and in the Congo.
On 18th January, 1884, Gordon was instructed by the British Government
to report upon the best method of evacuating the Soudan. When he
arrived at Cairo, these instructions were radically altered by Sir
Evelyn Baring (afterwards Lord Cromer), who, on the 25th January,
informed Gordon that he was required actually to direct the evacuation
of Khartoum and of the whole Soudan, and afterwards to establish an
organised government in that country. Gordon arrived at Khartoum on
the 18th February, where he was hailed as the father and saviour of the
people.
On the same day, Major-General Sir Gerald Graham left Suez to join at
Souakim the force which had been placed under his command. That force
was chiefly drawn from the British Army of Occupation in Egypt. The
object of the expedition was the relief of Tokar, or, if that place had
already fallen, the protection of Souakim, an alternative which
involved an attack upon Osman Digna's victorious army. Tokar was in
fact taken by the enemy before the expedition started.
The British Government, whose original intention had been to refrain
from any action in the Soudan whatsoever; which had been compelled by
force of circumstances, including the most frightful bloodshed, to
change a wholly negative policy to a definite scheme of evacuation; now
perceived, of course too late, that if the European population was to
be brought away, at least some measure of military force must be
employed. What Her Majesty's Ministers were unable to see, or what, if
they saw, they chose to ignore, was the plain fact that the same force
and the same measures and the same promptitude would be required for
the salvation of Europeans in face of the enemy, as for the reconquest
and reoccupation of the country. In this delusion, or dereliction,
resides the explanation of an affair which has left an indelible stain
upon British honour.
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