The Soudan Agreement
by Great Britain and Egypt, published on the 7th of March, 1899,
achieves this. Like most of the best work done in Egypt by the British
Agency, the Agreement was slipped through without attracting much notice.
Under its authority a State has been created in the Nile Valley which is
neither British nor Ottoman, nor anything else so far known to the law
of Europe. International jurists are confronted with an entirely new
political status. A diplomatic 'Fourth Dimension' has been discovered.
Great Britain and Egypt rule the country together. The allied conquerors
have become the joint-possessors. 'What does this Soudan Agreement mean?'
the Austrian Consul-General asked Lord Cromer; and the British Agent,
whom twenty-two years' acquaintance with Egyptian affairs bad accustomed
to anomalies, replied, 'It means simply this'; and handed him the
inexplicable document, under which the conquered country may some day
march to Peace and Plenty.
CHAPTER XVIII: ON THE BLUE NILE
The authority of the Khalifa and the strength of his army were
for ever broken on the 2nd of September, and the battle of Omdurman is the
natural climax of this tale of war. To those who fought, and still more to
those who fell, in the subsequent actions the climax came somewhat later.
After the victory the public interest was no longer centred in the Soudan.
The last British battalion had been carried north of Assuan; the last Press
correspondent had hurried back to Cairo or London. But the military
operations were by no means over.
The enemy had been defeated. It remained to reconquer the territory.
The Dervishes of the provincial garrisons still preserved their allegiance
to the Khalifa. Several strong Arab forces kept the field. Distant Kordofan
and even more distant Darfur were as yet quite unaffected by the great
battle at the confluence of the Niles. There were rumours of Europeans
in the Far South.
The unquestioned command of the waterways which the Sirdar enjoyed
enabled the greater part of the Egyptian Soudan to be at once formally
re-occupied. All towns or stations on the main rivers and their tributaries
were at the mercy of the gunboats. It was only necessary to send troops to
occupy them and to hoist the British and Egyptian flags. Two expeditions
were forthwith sent up the White and Blue Niles to establish garrisons,
and as far as possible to subdue the country. The first, under the personal
command of the Sirdar, left Omdurman on the 8th of September, and steamed
up the White Nile towards Fashoda. The events which followed that momentous
journey have already been related. The second expedition consisted of the
gunboats Sheikh and Hafir, together with two companies and the brass band
of the Xth Soudanese and a Maxim battery, all under the command of General
Hunter.
