The Fact That The Railway Was Approaching Regions
Where Rain Is Not An Almost Unknown Phenomenon Increased The Labour Of
Construction.
To prevent the embankments from being washed away in the
watercourses, ten bridges and sixty culverts had to be made; and this
involved the transport over the railway of more than 1,000 tons of material
in addition to the ordinary plant.
By the arrival of the reinforcements at Berber the fighting force at the
front was doubled: doubled also was the business of supply. The task of
providing the food of an army in a desert, a thousand miles from their
base, and with no apparent means of subsistence at the end of the day's
march, is less picturesque, though not less important, than the building
of railways along which that nourishment is drawn to the front. Supply and
transport stand or fall together; history depends on both; and in order to
explain the commissariat aspect of the River War, I must again both repeat
and anticipate the account. The Sirdar exercised a direct and personal
supervision over the whole department of supply, but his action was
restricted almost entirely to the distribution of the rations. Their
accumulation and regular supply were the task of Colonel Rogers, and this
officer, by three years of exact calculation and unfailing allowance for
the unforeseen, has well deserved his high reputation as
a feeder of armies.
The first military necessity of the war was, as has been described,
to place the bulk of the Egyptian army at Akasha. In ordinary circumstances
this would not have been a serious commissariat problem. The frontier
reserves of food were calculated to meet such an emergency. But in 1895
the crops in Egypt had been much below the average. At the beginning of
1896 there was a great scarcity of grain. When the order for the advance
was issued, the frontier grain stores were nearly exhausted. The new crops
could not be garnered until the end of April. Thus while the world regarded
Egypt as a vast granary, her soldiers were obliged to purchase 4,000 tons
of doura and 1,000 tons of barley from India and Russia on which to begin
the campaign.
The chief item of a soldier's diet in most armies is bread. In several of
our wars the health, and consequently the efficiency, of the troops has
been impaired by bad bread or by the too frequent substitution of hard
biscuit. For more than a year the army up the river ate 20 tons of flour
daily, and it is easy to imagine how bitter amid ordinary circumstances
would have been the battle between the commissariat officers, whose duty
it was to insist on proper quality, and the contractors - often, I fear,
meriting the epithet 'rascally' - intent only upon profit. But in the
well-managed Egyptian Service no such difficulties arose. The War
Department had in 1892 converted one of Ismail Pasha's gun factories near
Cairo into a victualling-yard. Here were set up their own mills for
grinding flour, machinery for manufacturing biscuit to the extent of 60,000
rations daily, and even for making soap. Three great advantages sprang from
this wise arrangement. Firstly, the good quality of the supply was assured.
Complaints about bread and biscuit were practically unknown, and the soap -
since the soldier, in contrast to the mixture of rubble and grease with
which the contractors had formerly furnished him, could actually wash
himself and his clothes with it - was greatly prized. Secondly, all risk of
contractors failing to deliver in time was avoided. Lastly, the funds
resulting from the economy had been utilised to form a useful corps of 150
bakers. And thus, although the purchase of foreign grain added to the
expense, the beginning of the war found the commissariat of the Egyptian
Army in a thoroughly efficient state.
Vast reserves of stores were quickly accumulated at Assuan. From these
not an ounce of food was issued without the Sirdar's direct sanction.
At the subsidiary depot, formed at Wady Halfa, the same rule prevailed.
The man who was responsible to no one took all the responsibility;
and the system whereby a Chief of the Staff is subjected to the continual
bombardment of heads of departments was happily avoided. Sufficient
supplies having been accumulated at Akasha to allow of a forward movement,
Firket was fought. After Firket the situation became difficult, and the
problem of the supply officers was to keep the troops alive without
delaying the progress of the railway with the carriage of their food.
A small quantity of provisions was painfully dragged, with an average
loss of 50 per cent from theft and water damage, up the succession of
cataracts which obstruct the river-way from Halfa to Kosheh. Camel convoys
from Railhead carried the rest. But until the line reached Kosheh the
resources of the transport were terribly strained, and at one time it was
even necessary to send the mounted troops north to avoid actual famine.
The apparent inadequacy of the means to the end reached a climax when
the army moved southward from Dulgo. The marches and halts to Dongola were
estimated to take ten days, which was the utmost capacity of camel and
steam transport, A few boat-loads of grain might be captured; a few
handfuls of dates might be plucked; but scarcely any local supplies would
be available. The sailing-boats, which were the only regular means of
transport, were all delayed by the adverse winds. Fortune returned at the
critical moment. By good luck on the first day of the march the north wind
began to blow, and twelve days' supplies, over and above those moved by
camel and steamer, reached Dongola with the troops. With this reserve in
hand, the occupation of the province was completed, and although the army
only existed from hand to mouth until the railway reached Kerma, no further
serious difficulty was experienced in supplying them.
The account of the commissariat is now complete to the end of the Dongola
Expedition; but it may conveniently be carried forward with the railway
construction.
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