And So It Came To Pass
That In This Last Scene In The Struggle With Mahdism The Stage Was Cleared
Of All Its Striking Characters, And Osman Digna Alone Purchased By Flight
A Brief Ignoble Liberty, Soon To Be Followed By A Long Ignoble Servitude.
Twenty-nine Emirs, 3,000 fighting men, 6,000 women and children
surrendered themselves prisoners.
The Egyptian losses were three killed
and twenty-three wounded.
. . . . . . . . . .
The long story now approaches its conclusion. The River War is over.
In its varied course, which extended over fourteen years and involved the
untimely destruction of perhaps 300,000 lives, many extremes and contrasts
have been displayed. There have been battles which were massacres,
and others that were mere parades. There have been occasions of shocking
cowardice and surprising heroism, of plans conceived in haste and emergency,
of schemes laid with slow deliberation, of wild extravagance and cruel
waste, of economies scarcely less barbarous, of wisdom and incompetence.
But the result is at length achieved, and the flags of England and Egypt
wave unchallenged over the valley of the Nile.
At what cost were such advantages obtained? The reader must judge
for himself of the loss in men; yet while he deplores the deaths of brave
officers and soldiers, and no less the appalling destruction of the valiant
Arabs, he should remember that such slaughter is inseparable from war,
and that, if the war be justified, the loss of life cannot be accused.
But I write of the cost in money, and the economy of the campaigns cannot
be better displayed than by the table below:
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