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The River War

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The strain and hardship had not, however, been without effect on the
constructors. Two of the Engineer subalterns--Polwhele and Cator--out of
the eight concerned in the laying of the Dongola and the Desert railways
had died. Their places were eagerly filled by others.

The completion of the line was accelerated by nearly a month through the
fortunate discovery of water. At the beginning of July a well was sunk in
what was thought to be a likely place at 'No. 4 Station,' seventy-seven
miles from Halfa. After five weeks' work water was found in abundance at a
depth of 90 feet. A steam-pump was erected, and the well yielded a
continual supply. In October a second well was sunk at 'No. 6 Station,'
fifty-five miles further on, whence water was obtained in still greater
quantity. These discoveries modified, though they did not solve, the water
question. They substantially increased the carrying capacity of the line,
and reduced the danger to which the construction gangs were exposed.
The sinking of the wells, an enterprise at which the friendly Arabs
scoffed, was begun on the Sirdar's personal initiative; but the chronicler
must impartially observe that the success was won by luck as much as by
calculation, for, since the first two wells were made, eight others of
greater depth have been bored and in no case has water been obtained.

As the railway had been made, the telegraph-wire had, of course,
followed it. Every consignment of rails and sleepers had been accompanied
by its proportion of telegraph-poles, insulators, and wire. Another
subaltern of Engineers, Lieutenant Manifold, who managed this part of the
military operations against the Arabs, had also laid a line from Merawi
to Abu Hamed, so that immediate correspondence was effected round the
entire circle of rail and river.

The labours of the Railway Battalion and its officers did not end with
the completion of the line to Abu Hamed. The Desert Railway was made.
It had now to be maintained, worked, and rapidly extended. The terminus at
Halfa had become a busy town. A mud village was transformed into a
miniature Crewe. The great workshops that had grown with the line were
equipped with diverse and elaborate machines. Plant of all kinds purchased
in Cairo or requisitioned from England, with odds and ends collected from
Ishmail's scrap heaps, filled the depots with an extraordinary variety of
stores. Foundries, lathes, dynamos, steam-hammers, hydraulic presses,
cupola furnaces, screw-cutting machines, and drills had been set up and
were in continual work. They needed constant attention. Every appliance
for repairing each must be provided. To haul the tonnage necessary to
supply the army and extend the line nearly forty engines were eventually
required. Purchased at different times and from different countries,
they included ten distinct patterns; each pattern needed a special reserve
of spare parts. The permutations and combinations of the stores were
multiplied. Some of the engines were old and already worn out. These broke
down periodically. The frictional parts of all were affected by the desert
sand, and needed ceaseless attention and repair. The workshops were busy
night and day for seven days a week.

To the complication of machinery was added the confusion of tongues.
Natives of various races were employed as operatives. Foremen had been
obtained from Europe. No fewer than seven separate languages were spoken
in the shops. Wady Halfa became a second Babel. Yet the undertaking
prospered. The Engineer officers displayed qualities of tact and temper:
their director was cool and indefatigable. Over all the Sirdar exercised
a regular control. Usually ungracious, rarely impatient, never
unreasonable, he moved among the workshops and about the line, satisfying
himself that all was proceeding with economy and despatch. The sympathy of
common labour won him the affection of the subalterns. Nowhere in the
Soudan was he better known than on the railroad. Nowhere was he
so ardently believed in.

It is now necessary to anticipate the course of events. As soon as the
railway reached Abu Hamed, General Hunter's force, which was holding that
place, dropped its slender camel communications with Merawi and drew its
supplies along the new line direct from Wady Halfa. After the completion of
the desert line there was still left seventeen miles of material for
construction, and the railway was consequently at once extended to Dakhesh,
sixteen miles south of Abu Hamed. Meanwhile Berber was seized, and military
considerations compelled the concentration of a larger force to maintain
that town. The four battalions which had remained at Merawi were floated
down stream to Kerma, and, there entraining, were carried by Halfa and
Abu Hamed to Dakhesh--a journey of 450 miles.

When the railway had been begun across the desert, it was believed that
the Nile was always navigable above Abu Hamed. In former campaigns it had
been reconnoitred and the waterway declared clear. But as the river fell
it became evident that this was untrue. With the subsidence of the waters
cataracts began to appear, and to avoid these it became necessary first of
all to extend the railway to Bashtinab, later on to Abadia, and finally to
the Atbara. To do this more money had to be obtained, and the usual
financial difficulties presented themselves. Finally, however, the matter
was settled, and the extension began at the rate of about a mile a day.
The character of the country varies considerably between Abu Hamed and the
Atbara River. For the first sixty miles the line ran beside the Nile,
at the edge of the riparian belt. On the right was the cultivable though
mostly uncultivated strip, long neglected and silted up with fine sand
drifted into dunes, from which scattered, scraggy dom palms and prickly
mimosa bushes grew. Between the branches of these sombre trees the river
gleamed, a cool and attractive flood. On the left was the desert, here
broken by frequent rocks and dry watercourses. From Bashtinab to Abadia
another desert section of fifty miles was necessary to avoid some very
difficult ground by the Nile bank. From Abadia to the Atbara the last
stretch of the line runs across a broad alluvial expanse from whose surface
plane-trees of mean appearance, but affording welcome shade, rise, watered
by the autumn rains. 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. In the Abu Hamed phase the supplies were so regulated that a
convoy travelling from Murat Wells along the caravan route arrived the day
after the fight; and thereafter communications were opened with Merawi.
The unexpected occupation of Berber, following Abu Hamed, created the most
difficult situation of the war. Until the railway was forced on to Berber
a peculiarly inconvenient line of supply had to be used; and strings
of camels, scattering never less than 30 per cent of their loads,
meandered through the rough and thorny country between Merawi and
Abu Hamed. This line was strengthened by other convoys from Murat and
the approaching Railhead, and a system of boats and camel portages
filtered the supplies to their destination.

Even when the railway had reached Dakhesh the tension was only slightly
relaxed. The necessity of supplying the large force at Berber, 108 miles
from Railhead, still required the maintenance of a huge and complicated
system of boat and camel transport. Of course, as the railway advanced,
it absorbed stage after stage of river and portage, and the difficulties
decreased. But the reader may gain some idea of their magnitude by
following the progress of a box of biscuits from Cairo to Berber in the
month of December 1897. The route was as follows: From Cairo to Nagh
Hamadi (340 miles) by rail; from Nagh Hamadi to Assuan (205 miles)
by boat; from Assuan to Shellal (6 miles} by rail; from Shellal to Halfa
(226 miles) by boat; from Halfa to Dakhesh (Railhead)--248 miles--
by military railway; from Dakhesh to Shereik (45 miles) by boat; from
Shereik by camel (13 miles) round a cataract to Bashtinab; from Bashtinab
by boat (25 miles) to Omsheyo; from Omsheyo round another impracticable
reach (11 miles) by camel to Geneinetti, and thence (22 miles) to Berber
by boat. The road taken by this box of biscuits was followed by every ton
of supplies required by 10,000 men in the field. The uninterrupted working
of the long and varied chain was vital to the welfare of the army and the
success of the war. It could only be maintained if every section was
adequately supplied and none were either choked or starved. This problem
had to be solved correctly every day by the transport officers, in spite
of uncertain winds that retarded the boats, of camels that grew sick or
died, and of engines that repeatedly broke down. In the face of every
difficulty a regular supply was maintained. The construction of the railway
was not delayed, nor the food of the troops reduced.

The line continued to grow rapidly, and as it grew the difficulties of
supply decreased. The weight was shifted from the backs of the camels and
the bottoms of the sailing-boats to the trucks of the iron road. The strong
hands of steam were directed to the prosecution of the war, and the
swiftness of the train replaced the toilsome plodding of the caravan.
The advance of the Dervishes towards Berber checked the progress of the
railway. Military precautions were imperative. Construction was delayed by
the passage of the 1st British Brigade from Cairo to the front, and by the
consequently increased volume of daily supplies. By the 10th of March,
however, the line was completed to Bashtinab. On the 5th of May it had
reached Abadia. On the 3rd of July the whole railway from Wady Halfa
to the Atbara was finished, and the southern terminus was established in
the great entrenched camp at the confluence of the rivers. The question
of supply was then settled once and for all. In less than a week stores
sufficient for three months were poured along the line, and the exhausting
labours of the commissariat officers ended. Their relief and achievement
were merged in the greater triumph of the Railway Staff. The director and
his subalterns had laboured long, and their efforts were crowned with
complete success. On the day that the first troop train steamed into the
fortified camp at the confluence of the Nile and the Atbara rivers the doom
of the Dervishes was sealed. It had now become possible with convenience
and speed to send into the heart of the Soudan great armies independent of
the season of the year and of the resources of the country; to supply them
not only with abundant food and ammunition, but with all the varied
paraphernalia of scientific war; and to support their action on land by a
powerful flotilla of gunboats, which could dominate the river and command
the banks, and could at any moment make their way past Khartoum even to
Sennar, Fashoda, or Sobat. Though the battle was not yet fought,
the victory was won. The Khalifa, his capital, and his army were now within
the Sirdar's reach. It remained only to pluck the fruit in the most
convenient hour, with the least trouble and at the smallest cost.




CHAPTER IX: ABU HAMED



The last chapter carried the account of the war forward at express speed.
The reader, who had already on the railway reached the Atbara encampment
and was prepared for the final advance on Khartoum, must allow his mind to
revert to a period when the Egyptian forces are distributed along the river
in garrisons at Dongola, Debba, Korti, and Merawi; when the reorganisation
of the conquered province has been begun; and when the Desert Railway is
still stretching steadily forward towards Abu Hamed.

The news of the fall of Dongola created a panic in Omdurman.
Great numbers of Arabs, believing that the Khalifa's power was about to
collapse, fled from the city. All business was at a standstill. For several
days there were no executions. Abdullah himself kept his house, and thus
doubtfully concealed his vexation and alarm from his subjects. On the fifth
day, however, having recovered his own confidence, he proceeded to the
mosque, and after the morning prayer ascended his small wooden pulpit and
addressed the assembled worshippers. After admitting the retreat of the
Dervishes under Wad Bishara, he enlarged on the losses the 'Turks' had
sustained and described their miserable condition. He deplored the fact
that certain of the Jehadia had surrendered, and reminded his listeners
with a grim satisfaction of the horrible tortures which it was the practice
of the English and Egyptians to inflict upon their captives. He bewailed
the lack of faith in God which had allowed even the meanest of the Ansar
to abandon the Jehad against the infidel, and he condemned the lack of
piety which disgraced the age. But he proclaimed his confidence in the
loyalty of his subjects and his enjoyment of the favour of God and the
counsels of the late Mahdi; and having by his oratory raised the fanatical
multitude to a high pitch of excitement, he thus concluded his long
harangue: 'It is true that our chiefs have retired from Dongola. Yet they
are not defeated. Only they that disobeyed me have perished. I instructed
the faithful to refrain from fighting and return to Metemma. It was by my
command that they have done what they have done. For the angel of the Lord
and the spirit of the Mahdi have warned me in a vision that the souls of
the accursed Egyptians and of the miserable English shall leave their
bodies between Dongola and Omdurman, at some spot which their bones shall
whiten. Thus shall the infidels be conquered.' Then, drawing his sword,
he cried with a loud voice: 'Ed din mansur! The religion is victorious!
Islam shall triumph!' Whereupon the worshippers, who to the number of
20,000 filled the great quadrangle--although they could not all hear his
voice--saw his sword flashing in the sunlight, and with one accord
imitated him, waving their swords and spears, and raising a mighty shout
of fury and defiance. When the tumult had subsided, the Khalifa announced
that those who did not wish to remain faithful might go where they liked,
but that he for his part would remain, knowing that God would vindicate
the faith. Public confidence was thus restored.

In order that the divine favour might be assisted by human effort,
Abdullah adopted every measure or precaution that energy or prudence could
suggest. At first he seems to have apprehended that the Sirdar's army
would advance at once upon Omdurman, following the route of the Desert
Column in 1885 from Korti to Metemma. He therefore ordered Osman Azrak--
in spite of his severe wound--to hold Abu Klea Wells with the survivors of
his flag. Bishara, who had rallied and reorganised the remains of the
Dongola army, was instructed to occupy Metemma, the headquarters of the
Jaalin. Messengers were despatched to the most distant garrisons to arrange
for a general concentration upon Omdurman. The Emir Ibrahim Khalil was
recalled from the Ghezira, or the land between the Blue and White Niles,
and with his force of about 4,000 Jehadia and Baggara soon reached
the city. Another chief, Ahmed Fedil, who was actually on his way to
Gedaref, was ordered to return to the capital. Thither also Osman Digna
repaired from Adarama. But it appears that the Khalifa only required the
advice of that wily councillor, for he did not reduce the number of
Dervishes in the small forts along the line of the Atbara--Ed Darner,
Adarama, Asubri, El Fasher--and after a short visit and a long consultation
Osman Digna returned to his post at Adarama. Last of all, but not least in
importance, Mahmud, who commanded the 'Army of the West,' was ordered to
leave very reduced garrisons in Kordofan and Darfur, and march with his
whole remaining force, which may have numbered 10,000 fighting men,
to the Nile, and so to Omdurman. Mahmud, who was as daring and ambitious
as he was conceited and incapable, received the summons with delight,
and began forthwith to collect his troops.

The Khalifa saw very clearly that he could not trust the riverain tribes.
The Jaalin and Barabra were discontented. He knew that they were weary of
his rule and of war. In proportion as the Egyptian army advanced, so their
loyalty and the taxes they paid decreased. He therefore abandoned all idea
of making a stand at Berber. The Emir Yunes--who, since he had been
transferred from Dongola in 1895, had ruled the district--was directed to
collect all the camels, boats, grain, and other things that might assist
an invading army and send them to Metemma. The duty was most thoroughly
performed. The inhabitants were soon relieved of all their property and of
most of their means of livelihood, and their naturally bitter resentment at
this merciless treatment explains to some extent the astonishing events
which followed the capture of Abu Hamed. This last place Abdullah never
regarded as more than an outpost. Its garrison was not large, and although
it had now become the most northerly Dervish position, only a slender
reinforcement was added to the force under the command of Mohammed-ez-Zein.

The power of the gunboats and their effect in the Dongola campaign
were fully appreciated by the Arabs; and the Khalifa, in the hopes of
closing the Sixth Cataract, began to construct several forts at the
northern end of the Shabluka gorge. The Bordein, one of Gordon's old
steamers, plied busily between Omdurman and Wad Hamed, transporting guns
and stores; and Ahmed Fedil was sent with a sufficient force to hold the
works when they were made. But the prophecy of the Mahdi exercised a
powerful effect on the Khalifa's mind, and while he neglected no detail
he based his hopes on the issue of a great battle on the plains of Kerreri,
when the invaders should come to the walls of the city. With this prospect
continually before him he drilled and organised the increasing army at
Omdurman with the utmost regularity, and every day the savage soldiery
practised their evolutions upon the plain they were presently to strew
with their bodies.

But after a while it became apparent that the 'Turks' were not advancing.
They tarried on the lands they had won. The steamers went no further than
Merawi. The iron road stopped at Kerma. Why had they not followed up their
success? Obviously because they feared the army that awaited them at
Omdurman. At this the Khalifa took fresh courage, and in January 1897 he
began to revolve schemes for taking the offensive and expelling the
invaders from the Dongola province. The army drilled and manoeuvred
continually on the plains of Kerreri; great numbers of camels were
collected at Omdurman; large stores of dried kisru or 'Soudan biscuit,'
the food of Dervishes on expeditions, were prepared.

The Sirdar did not remain in ignorance of these preparations.
The tireless enterprise of the Intelligence Branch furnished the most
complete information; and preparations were made to concentrate the troops
in Dongola on any threatened point, should the enemy advance. Regular
reconnaissances were made by the cavalry both into the desert towards
Gakdul Wells and along the river. Towards the end of May it was reported
that the Emir Yunes had crossed the Nile and was raiding the villages on
the left bank below Abu Hamed. In consequence the Sirdar ordered a
strong patrol under Captain Le Gallais, and consisting of three squadrons
of cavalry under Captain Mahon, three companies of the Camel Corps, and 100
men of the IXth Soudanese on camels, with one Maxim gun, to reconnoitre up
the Nile through the Shukuk Pass and as far as Salamat.

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