A Retired Officer Of The Indian Staff Corps And A Few European Officers
Of Various Nationalities Were Sent To Khartoum To Organise The New
Field Force.
Meanwhile the Mahdi, having failed to take by storm, laid
siege to El Obeid, the chief town of Kordofan.
During the summer of 1883
the Egyptian troops gradually concentrated at Khartoum until a
considerable army was formed. It was perhaps the worst army that has ever
marched to war. One extract from General Hicks's letters will suffice.
Writing on the 8th of June, 1883, to Sir E. Wood, he says incidentally:
'Fifty-one men of the Krupp battery deserted on the way here, although
in chains.' The officers and men who had been defeated fighting for their
own liberties at Tel-el-Kebir were sent to be destroyed, fighting to
take away the liberties of others in the Soudan. They had no spirit,
no discipline, hardly any training, and in a force of over eight thousand
men there were scarcely a dozen capable officers. The two who were the
most notable of these few - General Hicks, who commanded, and Colonel
Farquhar, the Chief of the Staff - must be remarked.
El Obeid had fallen before the ill-fated expedition left Khartoum;
but the fact that Slatin Bey, an Austrian officer in the Egyptian service,
was still maintaining himself in Darfur provided it with an object. On the
9th of September Hicks and his army (the actual strength of which was
7,000 infantry, 400 mounted Bashi Bazuks, 500 cavalry, 100 Circassians,
10 mounted guns, 4 Krupps, and 6 Nordenfeldt machine guns) left Omdurman
and marched to Duem. Although the actual command of the expedition was
vested in the English officer, Ala-ed-Din Pasha, the Governor-General who
had succeeded Raouf Pasha, exercised an uncertain authority. Differences
of opinion were frequent, though all the officers were agreed in taking
the darkest views of their chances. The miserable host toiled slowly
onward towards its destruction, marching in a south-westerly direction
through Shat and Rahad. Here the condition of the force was so obviously
demoralised that a German servant (Gustav Klootz, the servant of Baron
Seckendorf) actually deserted to the Mahdi's camp. He was paraded
in triumph as an English officer.
On the approach of the Government troops the Mahdi had marched
out of El Obeid and established himself in the open country, where he
made his followers live under military conditions and continually
practised them in warlike evolutions. More than forty thousand men
collected round his standard, and the Arabs were now armed with several
thousand rifles and a few cannon, as well as a great number of swords
and spears. To these proportions had the little band of followers who
fought at Abba grown! The disparity of the forces was apparent before
the battle. The Mahdi thereupon wrote to Hicks, calling on him to
surrender and offering terms. His proposals were treated with disdain,
although the probable result of an engagement was clear.
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