سقوط دنقلا كما ورد في صحيفة النيويورك تايمز يوم ٣٠ يوليو ١٨٩٦

AFTER FERKEH, DONGOLA: ENGLAND'S ARMY IN THE SOUDAN IS NOT RESTING ON ... New York Times (1857-1922); Jul 30, 1896; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times pg. 7 
 

 

AFTER FERKEB, DONGOIAA

ENGIAND'S ARMY IN THE SOUDAN IS NOT RESTING ON ITS LAURELS.

The Sirdar's Soldiers Are Hard at Work- Building a Railway to the Scene of Their Recent Victory, and Active Preparations Are Making for Another Advance on the Dervishes—Stirring Incidents of the Campaign

Writing under date of June 12, a few days after the great battle with the dervishes at Ferkeh, the Soudan correspondent of The London Chronicle says: "We are settling down at Sargun camp, and trying to make ourselves as comfortable as possible for the next month to come. Fatigue parties are at work everywhere building ' tukkuls,' marvelous structures, with a framework of branches, and roofs and walls of palm leafs and straw mats, only possible as habitations in a rainless country like this straw roofs are being put on the houses in the village. White tents show up brightly among the palms and along the lower slope of the river bank. " Our camels are at work bringing up stores from Akasheh camp and the rail-head at Ambigol Wells, working no longer under the escort of cavalry and infantry detachments, but marching safely with much the same kind of guard that would escort general stores at home in England. There is the same sense of peace and safety at our camp. We have our screen of outposts, a very thin one along a low ridge of sand and stones to the eastward, and a post south on the river, and the sentries are on the alert, but we all feel as safe as if we were at Aldershot. "The real guard of our camp is the Suarda garrison, some thirty-five miles away to the southward. The Twelfth Soudanese, under Townshend of Chitral fame, now holds the place, which is being fortified, and the Thirteenth, under Collinson, is going up to reinforce the garrison. There are also two squadrons and some of our camel men at Suarda, and these are scouting up the river, while the desert on either side is still patrolled by our Ababdeh and Kabbabish friends under the Sheiks Bishir, Abdul Azim, and Saleh. "Several battalions of infantry have been sent back to Akasheh and Okmeh, and yesterday most of the cavalry, the Camel Corps. and the horse battery, marched past our camp, going northward, en route for Ambigol ,camp, by way of Akasheh. These movements are meant to lighten the strain on the transport and facilitate the accumulation of supplies here at the front. The troops will concentrate again southward when the railway has got up to or past Akasheh, and we have more floating trans-port on the rising river. Meanwhile, in the very unlikely event of the Dervishes advancing against us from Dongola, we shall have timely warning from Suarda, and be able to bring up rapidly all the force we need. "The march of the mounted corps past Sargun camp yesterday was something like a triumphal procession. The troops here gathered in crowds along the land side of the camp, and as the guns went rattling by, and troop after troop of cavalry and camel-men rode past, each detachment was greeted with ringing cheers. The men, horses, and camels looked thoroughly fit after their long march. They led along with them a number of camels taken from the dervishes, and the poor beasts had evidently lived on hard and scanty fare for some time back. One camel carried four huge war drums, taken in the pursuit. " Nor were these the only trophies; here and there a trooper or a camel man held aloft a fluttering dervish standard, generally a pale blue flag, with an Arabic in-script on in white letters and a white border. The sight of these captured banners always called forth a louder cheer. Then, too, many of the men carried, besides their own weapons, long, broad-bladed spears taken in the pursuit, or long, cross-handled swords in dull red leather scabbards, the swords of the Soudan, hung at their saddles Bundled together on a camel were three suits of ancient chain-mail worn by the dervish Emirs not in battle, but at their reviews after prayers on the Friday morning. " The march seemed endless, and the excitement of the spectators rose steadily. After awhile the cheering ceased and gave place to a loud, monotonous song, accompanied with clapping of hands, while here and there some more enthusiastic soldier danced and shouted in front of his comrades. The Camel Corps cheered in return, rising in their saddles, waving their rifles, and the captured spears above their heads, and throwing showers of dates among the spectators, Calling out that they were from Suarda. Burn-Murdoch rode at the head o' the cavalry, and he and the other British officers were everywhere wildly cheered by the troops. " Prisoners are still coming in- from the south, forty or fifty at a time, and from them and from the returning cavalry have gathered some details of the fight as seen from the dervish point of view, and of the flight and pursuit. One told how, when the first shots were fired, the Baggaras at once rushed to their posts, but the Jaalin and Donagla tribesmen (the minority of the Ferkeh force) hesitated. Some wished to retire, others were looking for an opportunity to surrender, but the Baggara Emirs, who had the disciplined Jehadia of their own tribesmen at their command, threatened all who 'hesitated 'with death. It is even said two or three of the Jaalin were speared by the Baggaras. One Emir sent his reluctant soldiery into action riding after them, sword in hand, swearing he would cut down the first spearsman who turned. It would seem that the real fighting was done by about 2,000 Baggaras, and of these very few survived the flight and pursuit. " The surprise was complete. The soldiers of the Government were innumerable, and came upon us suddenly from all directions.... The fight was severe; the slaughter 'terrible.' This was the brief story of the fight 'told by one of the first fugitives to reach Suarda. From Amara onward the villagers told the pursuers how the beaten dervishes had passed, by in small parties on Sunday afternoon and evening and during the night. Many of them were wounded, some had thrown away their arms, others were carrying on their camels three or four rifles, anxious to save the weapons for an-other day. Most of them seemed tired out and utterly depressed Some four or five of the Emirs reported dead were being carried along badly wounded on camels. Osman Azrak was recognized by many. He was unwounded, and carried a Martini-Henry rifle and a revolver on his camel. Most of the dervishes rode through the villages without saying anything, but some said: We are going away for the present, but we shall come back and retake all this country.' " Among the prisoners brought in is the Emir Ismail Wad Khetar, who for four years before Mohammed Wad Bishara took command was keeper of the Belt-el-Mal, at Dongola, or, in other words, the Mandist Treasurer of the province. As he was in office till the present Spring he must possess most valuable information, and Slatin Pasha, an old acquaintance of his in the days of his stay at Omdurman, has taken him in hand, and will certainly get out of him everything he knows. The Emir has a bullet wound in the arm, but is able to move about, and is doing well. " Slatin tells me that the number of prominent Emirs at Ferkeh was remarkable, but he adds the Mandists always put their best men to the front, and mile thinks it very likely that in the destruction of his vanguard, Wad Bishara has lost the very pick of the force available to oppose our advance. I hear that at Dongola the Mandists have four of Gordon's Krupp guns and a machine gun. They have also a steamer on the river. An incident told me by an officer of the Third Battalion shows what good stuff the Egyptian soldiers are made of. Two soldiers of the Second Egyptians, with their rifles slung at their backs, were carrying off a wounded comrade on a stretcher, when they were suddenly charged by three Malidist horsemen, Who had been lurking in a hollow among the rocks. They halted, laid down the stretcher, unslung and loaded their Martinis and shot down two of the dervishes. The third turned and galloped off, on which the two plucky fellows coolly reslung their rifles, took up the stretcher, and tramped on to the field hospital. A cool, matter-of-fact, disciplined courage is that of the Egyptians of the new army, and it will carry them as far as the dashing valor of the Soudanese. Both elements are of the highest value to an army, and the combination of the two makes a splendid fighting machine of the Sirdar's little army. " One officer commanding an Egyptian battalion told me he was struck by the way in which, after halting under cover of the rocks at 150 yards from the enemy to pour in a final shower of bullets, when word was given to advance all the men sprang up and left cover without a moment's hesitation. .A belt of lead four feet from the ground on the walls of the village at the north end shows how well the Egyptians fired as they attacked at that point. As to the fire discipline of the force generally, the whistle for the cease fire ' was always instantly obeyed the volleys were all good, and the consumption of ammunition was small, the average being between fifteen and sixteen cartridges per man. This shows that there was no wild firing. " I have already remarked the perfect silence of the night march on Ferkeh, and the absence of smoking. As to this last point, 1 have since heard that Hunter, who commanded the infantry division, passed the word that any soldier caught smoking or striking a light would be tried by summary court-martial after the battle and shot. The flare of a light on the march or in the bivouac might have betrayed the secret of the coming attack to some watchful scout of the enemy. "The prisoners have nearly all been sent down to Halfa, carrying on litters their more slightly wounded comrades. As a rule the men who surrendered seemed glad to be out of the dervish camp, and under an Egyptian guard. Two desperadoes, how-ever, tried to murder Egyptian soldiers after their lives had been spared. They were tried and shot. We are still discovering dead dervishes in the hills, and one was found in the river on Friday. There is also a lot of arms in the river bed and on the islands. In all more than 1,000 rifles have been taken on the field, besides what were carried off. This shows the strength of the Jehadia. "The Nile is steadily rising—every morning one can see some little creek or bay that has filled during the night among the rocks on the shelving river bank below our camp. But so far for some days to come the rise will be measured by inches. The heavy flood cannot be expected until the end of the month. Even a daily rise of inches makes a considerable difference in a week or so, and we hope in a few days to see the first of the light sailing boats coming up. " But we shall have to wait till near the middle of July before there will be any chance of the stern-wheel steamers and gun-boats making their way here up the long stairway of cataracts, which begins with the second cataract between Wady Halfa and Ginnis, and ends with the Dal Cataract the long cataract of Tanjor, and the minor obstructions on the river of Semneh, Wady Atrieh, Ambigol, Okmen, and Akasheh, making in all some twenty miles of rock-broken rapids. " Another thing we are waiting for is the railway. But for accidents and interruptions at the end of May, the railway would now be at Akasheh. Work has, however, been resumed this side of Ambigol Wells by the railway battalion of the Seventh, arc: the line will reach Akasheh before the end of the month. But it is not to stop there. From Akasheh to Ferkeh a railway of smaller gauge will be laid very rapidly along the desert route, on the line surveyed by the Messrs. Fowler for the Khedive Ismail in the seventies. The ground is very favor-able; the wheeled guns of the horse battery came over it on the night before the battle of Ferkeh. " The distance from Akasheh to Ferkeh is sixteen miles on this route, and for six and a half miles the roadbed of the railway was prepared in 1884-5 and is still in good condition. Girouard came up here on Friday to mark out a further extension of the rail-way from Ferkeh along the river bank to Kosheh, (between Mograka and Ginnis,) This will make an additional eight miles, all on level ground. This morning the five battalions here are all furnishing strong, fatigue parties to start the work of preparing the roadbed. " I understand that the line south of Akasheh will be a light railway of a type that can be laid at the rate of several miles a day. It will be a useful pioneer line for the full-gauge railway which is soon to be carried to Abu Fatmeh, at the head of the Hannek Cataract, a point from which there are about 200 miles of open water up to be yond Korti and Debbeh. At the very earliest it will be the middle of July before we can hope for the steamers, the gunboats, and the railway to reach our camp here. Till then, you must not expect' any great events; but once we have the steam whistle sounding on the river and the shore the march on Dongola and the close of the campaign will be near at hand. Meanwhile, the camel convoys come and go between railhead and the front, accumulating stores, and Suarda has become the starting point from which our far-ranging scouting parties start to glean intelligence of the enemy. So far as we can ascertain, he has abandoned in panic all his small posts north of Kedden and Kedurma, villages on this side of the Kaibar Cataract, in both of which the dervishes, according to information gathered from the prisoners, I had accumulated considerable supplies—supplies intended to be sent down the river to the force we destroyed at Ferkeh. "The important post on the bend of the Nile at Said Fanti has been evacuated. The nearest Mandist post is now more than forty miles south of Suarda, and only about sixty miles from Dongola. All the Dar Sukkot district, one of the richest in date palms on the Upper Nile, has been abandoned to us and the northern part of the Dar Mahass  is also clear of the enemy-Such are the latest results of the crushing blow struck only a week ago at Ferkeh."