Officers And Soldiers - British, Soudanese, And Egyptian - Struggled
Into Their Bivouacs, And Fell Asleep, Very Weary But Victorious.
British and Egyptian casualties on the Atbara included 20 officers
and 539 men killed or wounded.
The Dervish loss was officially estimated
at 40 Emirs and 3,000 dervishes killed. No statistics as to their wounded
are forthcoming.
. . . . . . . . . .
As the battle of the Atbara had been decisive, the whole Expeditionary
Force went into summer quarters. The Egyptian army was distributed into
three principal garrisons - four battalions at Atbara camp, six battalions
and the cavalry at Berber, three battalions at Abadia. The artillery and
transport were proportionately divided. The British brigade encamped
with two battalions at Darmali and two at the village of Selim,
about a mile and a half distant.
For the final phase of the campaign three new gunboats had been ordered
from England. These were now sent in sections over the Desert Railway.
Special arrangements were made to admit of the clumsy loads passing trains
on the ordinary sidings. As usual, the contrivances of the railway
subalterns were attended with success. Sir H. Kitchener himself proceeded
to Abadia to accelerate by his personal activity and ingenuity the
construction of the vessels on which so much depended. Here during the heat
of the summer he remained, nursing his gunboats, maturing his plans,
and waiting only for the rise of the river to complete the downfall
of his foes.
CHAPTER XIII: THE GRAND ADVANCE
All through the early months of the summer the preparations for the final
advance were steadily proceeding. A second British brigade was ordered to
the Soudan. A new battery of Howitzer artillery - the 37th - firing enormous
shells charged with lyddite, was despatched from England. Two large
40-pounder guns were sent from Cairo. Another British Maxim battery of four
guns was formed in Cairo from men of the Royal Irish Fusiliers. Three new
screw gunboats of the largest size and most formidable pattern had been
passed over the indefatigable railway in sections, and were now launched on
the clear waterway south of the Atbara encampment; and last, but not least,
the 21st Lancers [The author led a troop in this regiment during the final
advance to Omdurman; and it is from this standpoint that the ensuing
chapters are to some extent conceived] were ordered up the Nile. Events now
began to move rapidly. Within three weeks of the arrival of the
reinforcements the climax of the war was over; within five weeks the
British troops were returning home. There was no delay at the Atbara
encampment. Even before the whole of the second brigade had arrived,
some of its battalions were being despatched to Wad Hamed, the new point of
concentration. This place was a few miles north of Shabluka, and only
fifty-eight miles from Omdurman. It was evident, therefore, that the
decisive moment of the three years' war approached. The Staff, the British
infantry, one squadron, the guns, and the stores were carried south in
steamers and barges.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 164 of 248
Words from 84440 to 84941
of 127807
