The Officers Were Compelled To Fight For Their Lives.
Several Were Killed.
A year was consumed in suppressing the mutiny and the
revolt which arose out of it.
If the object of the expedition was to reach
the Upper Nile, it was soon obviously unattainable, and the Government were
glad to employ the officers in making geographical surveys.
At the beginning of 1898 it was clear to those who, with the fullest
information, directed the foreign policy of Great Britain that no results
affecting the situation in the Soudan could be expected from the Macdonald
Expedition. The advance to Khartoum and the reconquest of the lost
provinces had been irrevocably undertaken. An Anglo-Egyptian force was
already concentrating at Berber. Lastly, the Marchand Mission was known
to be moving towards the Upper Nile, and it was a probable contingency
that it would arrive at its destination within a few months. It was
therefore evident that the line of advance of the powerful army moving
south from the Mediterranean and of the tiny expedition moving east from
the Atlantic must intersect before the end of the year, and that
intersection would involve a collision between the Powers of Great Britain
and France.
I do not pretend to any special information not hitherto given to
the public in this further matter, but the reader may consider for himself
whether the conciliatory policy which Lord Salisbury pursued towards Russia
in China at this time - a policy which excited hostile criticism in England
- was designed to influence the impending conflict on the Upper Nile and
make it certain, or at least likely, that when Great Britain and France
should be placed in direct opposition, France should find herself alone.
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