The Memoirs of Admiral Lord Beresford
Kasha el Mus Pasha, Major Hassan Agha Mohammed (Kassala), Hassan Eff.
Riban (late Maowin Berber District) and present at Berber at that time;
the Emir Sheikh Medawi (one of the principal Dervish Emirs present in
the attack on Khartoum)....
"In the unanimous opinion of the above Committee, the credit of having
delayed the Dervish advance and thus enabling the British Column to be
retired safely is due to the action of Lord Charles Beresford at Wad
Habeshi...."
The following short extracts may be cited from the evidence which led
the Committee to their conclusion. The first is taken from the
statement of Esh Sheikh Murabek Wad el Tilb, a Kordofan merchant who
arrived in Cairo on 30th May, 1888, from Omdurman:
"... There were 3000 Dervishes there (at Wad Habeshi) under the Emir
Ahmed Wad Faid and Sheikh Mustafa el Amin. These Dervishes thought
they could easily capture the steamer in which there were only about 30
men, but the English stood up and fought like men for many hours, they
inflicted great loss on the Dervishes, and forced them to draw off and
disperse. Their Chief Emir was killed as well as their Artillery
Officer.
"The effect of this defeat on the Dervishes was immense, and it also
affected the whole situation. The survivors fled in many directions,
spreading the news of the English victory far and wide....
"If the Dervishes at Wad Habeshi had succeeded in capturing the
steamer, there is no doubt Nejumi would have hastened his march and
would have intercepted the English before they could have got away from
Gubat, but instead of that he halted when he heard of Wad Faid's death,
and delayed some days in consequence at Wad Bishara and at Gereishab.
He had a very large force with him ...
"(Signed) MURABEK WAD EL TILB"
{311}
The second extract is translated from the German of Father Orhwalder,
long a prisoner of the Mahdi:
"... It is an undoubted fact that Lord Charles Beresford's gallant
action at Wad Habeshi was the means of saving the lives of Sir Charles
Wilson and his party, who would have suffered a like fate to that of
Colonel Stewart and his companions, and it is an equally undoubted fact
that the Mahdi's success at Khartoum shook the fidelity of the
Shagiyeh, but Lord Charles Beresford's victory at Wad Habeshi had the
effect of making Nejumi dread meeting the English on the river, and
decided him to attack them on the desert.
"Lord Charles Beresford deserves the credit of having effected this and
was thus the means of saving the entire British force.
"(Signed) DON GUISEPPE ORHWALDER
"(23_rd February_, 1893)"
It is obvious that the estimation of the conduct of the officers and
men who fought at Wad Habeshi remains unaffected by the results of the
action, which were neither definitely contemplated nor clearly
foreseen. And the evidence I have quoted being irrelevant, strictly
speaking, to any criticism of the action itself, is here cited, not in
order to enhance the credit of the officers and men concerned but, for
the sake both of its intrinsic interest, and for the purpose of
illustrating, incidentally, the methods occasionally adopted under the
system controlling the Royal Navy.
The effect of the action at Wad Habeshi exemplifies the extraordinary
potency of the element of chance in war. Under what conceivable theory
of tactics could it have been maintained that a penny steamer had the
smallest chance of rescuing a detachment isolated in a hostile country,
upon condition of twice engaging a powerful battery at short range, and
twice defeating its garrison of sixty or a hundred to one? Or what
self-respecting tactician would have {312} predicted that in the
extremely improbable event of success, its effect would have been to
check, even momentarily, the advance by land of the main force of the
enemy?
But the unexpected happened; and as it did happen, it would have been
in accordance with a courteous precedent on the part of the authorities
to have recognised the fact. I make no complaint of their action as
regards myself; and only recall it here in the hope that no repetition
of it will be permitted in respect of others perhaps less fortunate
than I. The Admiralty refused to allow me to count my service in the
Soudan either as time spent in command of a ship of war, or, as part of
a period of command spent both in peace and war. Their Lordships'
refusal might have involved my retirement before I had completed the
time required to qualify for flag rank. The Queen's Regulations
ordained: that a captain must have completed six years' service, of
which the first three years must be in command of a ship of war at sea;
or that he must have completed four years during war; or five years, of
war and peace combined.
After having been for over two years in command of H.M.S. _Undaunted_,
I applied (in May, 1892) for permission to count the 315 days in the
Soudan during which I was borne on the books of H.M.S. _Alexandra_,
which were allowed as sea-time by the Admiralty, in the required five
years of war and peace combined. The application was refused, on the
ground that war service could not be reckoned by a captain unless he
was in command of a ship of war actually employed in active service at
sea.
Having completed my three years' service in command at sea, I applied
(in April, 1893) for permission to count the 315 days sea-time,
although they preceded the three years in command at sea, as part of
the required six years' service. The application was refused, upon the
ground that its acceptance was not necessary in order to save me from
retirement.
A year and a half afterwards (in January, 1895) I repeated my
application, pointing out that in three cases {313} the Admiralty had,
by order in council, conceded similar claims of admittedly much less
force than my own, and that the only naval officers engaged in the
Soudan war who were not allowed to count their time towards promotion
were Captain Boardman and myself. Their Lordships then merely referred
me to their previous answers. I may mention that my application was
warmly and emphatically supported by Lord Wolseley.
{314}
CHAPTER XXXIII
THE SOUDAN WAR (_Continued_)
XI. THE RETREAT
Upon the day after the rescue of Sir Charles Wilson's party, a court of
inquiry, under my presidency, was held to investigate the conduct of
the captains of the two wrecked steamers, and one of the Reises. The
captains were acquitted. The Reis was found guilty of treachery, but
his punishment was remitted in consideration of the fact that he had
brought Lieutenant Stuart-Wortley safely down the river after the wreck
of the _Bordein_.
The little _Safieh_ was riddled with bullet-holes; she leaked like a
sieve, so that even before the action of Wad Habeshi, the pumps must be
kept going continually; and her bows, under the incessant concussion of
the guns, had opened out like a flower. The sides came away from the
stem, and in order to stop the water coming in, the natives had stuffed
rags and mud into the openings, which of course widened them. Upon our
return to Gubat, I caused a dry dock to be excavated in the bank; ran
the bows of the steamer into it; closed it against the water with mud;
and kept two black men baling out the water as hard as they could go
for eight hours on end, while we cut and fitted a new stem and bolted
the sides to it; a very difficult job, because the sides of the steamer
were rotten. The other repairs having been effected, I took the
_Safieh_ (which was so decayed that the pumps must still be kept going)
out {315} daily for foraging expeditions, to get cattle, sheep and
vegetables, and also to show there was fight in us yet. There were no
fowls, because the Mahdi had declared them to be unclean.
Captain Gascoigne and Khashm-el-Mus used to accompany me upon these
expeditions, Gascoigne taking command of the raiding parties on shore:
Lieutenant Robert A. J. Montgomerie (afterwards Rear-Admiral
Montgomerie, C.B., C.M.G.) was of the greatest service. Montgomerie
was of extraordinary physical strength and prowess. He joined me on
11th February, with Lieutenant G. W. Tyler, at Gubat. While helping to
work the boats up the river, Montgomerie saved a gun which sank when
the boat in which it was capsized. The weight of muzzle or breach
(whichever it was) was well over 200 lb., and the water was
shoulder-deep. Montgomerie picked up the gun, hove it upon his
shoulder and waded ashore with it.
His exploits at Ismailia are still remembered. He was sitting in a
saloon, where three French natives determined to provoke the English
officer. They chose the wrong man. One of the trio upset
Montgomerie's glass of beer, and although he did not apologise,
Montgomerie, supposing him to have done it by accident, took no notice.
A second man did the same, with the same result. Then the third hero
deliberately threw down Montgomerie's glass with his hand. Montgomerie
then acted instantly and with great rapidity. He knocked one man
senseless, picked up another and threw him on the top of his friend,
took the third and flung him up on the roof of the balcony.
Surgeon-General A. W. May reminds me that he and Montgomerie
discovered, at some distance from the river, a garden wherein grew
onions and limes. Montgomerie pulled the onions, while May collected
the limes for the sick in hospital. But a lime-tree is armed with long
and sharp thorns; and May, desiring to preserve his one and only
uniform, stripped and climbed the tree in his birthday suit. Suddenly
Arabs appeared; and May had but the {316} time to descend, pick up his
clothes and fly with Montgomerie back to the steamer.
Surgeon-General May also reminds me that upon another foraging trip, we
landed a party of Gordon's Soudanese troops to capture a flock of
sheep. Before the blacks had time to get away with the sheep, the
Arabs came down, and began to fire at them and also at the steamer. I
sent a black sergeant-major and a bugler to hasten the retreat of the
Soudanese. Two of them, each of whom was carrying a sheep, lagged
somewhat; whereupon the sergeant-major lay down, took careful aim, and
fired at them. Neither he nor they seemed to consider the method
unusual. It was on one of these foraging parties that Quartermaster
Olden saved the entire raiding party. Captain Gascoigne, in command of
a wild lot of Bashi-Bazouks and the most of the men from the _Safieh_,
had gone some little distance inland to a village. I was left in the
_Safieh_ with six men to serve the Gardner gun. The steamer was lying
alongside the bank, but not close in; for it was necessary to keep a
certain depth of water under her keel in a falling river, and to be
able to shove off quickly. I had poles ready rigged for this purpose.
The Bashi-Bazouks, who began firing from the hip at random with loud
cries so soon as they came on shore, had vanished into the distance
with the rest of the party; when I perceived afar off a crowd of
Dervishes gathering at a place at right angles to the line upon which
the raiding party must return, and nearer to the _Safieh_ than the
village where was the raiding party. The Dervishes, therefore,
evidently intended to cut off the British force.
I sent for Olden, gave him his instructions, and sent him on shore with
two riflemen. The three ran like hares through the scrub towards the
enemy. They ran at full speed for about 600 yards to get within range.
Then they scattered, concealed themselves and fired; moved again
swiftly, and fired again; and kept on repeating the manoeuvre, until
the Dervishes, believing that the scrub was {317} swarming with English
riflemen, drew off; and the raiding party returned in safety. For this