Khartoum Campaign, 1898; or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan

by Bennet Burleigh

It was about 11.50 a.m. when the Sirdar wheeled his army about to resume the march upon Omdurman. The dervishes who had escaped slaughter had bent their bodies and run from the fatal field, going far off behind the western range of hills. Moving slowly and in échelon, as when we first set out, we passed over part of the battle-field. Groups of unwounded dervishes, who insisted on fighting and sniping the troops, had to be dealt with as well as all others who persisted in being truculent. Like everybody else at the head of the column, I was shot at repeatedly. All of the enemy, however, who showed the least disposition to surrender were left unmolested. Hundreds of dervishes who had been wounded hobbled on in front of our army. We could see the Khalifa's forces behind the hills watching us and streaming upon a parallel line towards Omdurman. But the dervishes were no longer in compact military array or ranged in division under chiefs. They were mostly scattered in small groups and bands spread over a very wide area. It was a rabble, and had lost semblance of being an army with power of concerted action. When Macdonald's fight was over, the Egyptian cavalry under Colonel Broadwood returned and formed up near the camelry. They, with the Camel Corps, moved forward on the right as before during the final advance upon the Khalifa's capital. Men and horses had done a week of the hardest kind of work, but both were yet willing and full of spirit. As for the 21st Lancers, the few mounts remaining fit for work scarcely counted as a cavalry force. The gunboats and the infantry saw to our left, which was not difficult, for upon that hand the country was quite bare. About 2 p.m. the army reached the northern outskirts of Omdurman, the British division upon the left. Gatacre's men were nearest the Nile, Maxwell and Lewis being almost opposite one of the main thoroughfares of the town. A halt for water—the great necessity—food, and rest was ordered. Parties were instantly detailed to fill water-bottles and fantasses, iron tanks. The cooks, too, got to work, and fires were kindled with wood torn from neighbouring huts, and a meal was prepared. Under the burning sunshine, down upon the loose dirt and gravel, officers and men sprawled to rest themselves. There was a very muddy creek or inset near, and thither went thousands, parched with thirst, to drink, not hesitatingly but gulping down copious draughts of water, tough and thick as from a clay puddle. I wandered with my horse a little way into the town, and ultimately down towards the main stream of the Nile, where the water was cleaner and cooler than by the halting-place. There were plenty of dervishes to be seen about, looking from lanes and walls, but they were far from being particularly aggressive at that part of the town. Indeed, several large groups of men, Arabs and negroes, came up bearing white rags on sticks in front of them. I went forward and met parties of them, and advised them to go into the British lines, where the soldiers would receive them as friends. Watering my horse, I let him feed on grass by the river's brink, filled my water-bottle, and then returned by a circuitous route. The natives were not all inclined to be friendly, for a few preferred shooting at the stranger. But their practice was very bad.

Returning to where the troops still lay, I found that a fresh movement was afoot. Report had been brought that hundreds of lesser sheikhs and leaders were in the town ready to surrender with their followers if their lives would be spared. The assurance sought was quickly conveyed to them. Slatin Pasha, who had been indefatigable on the battle-field, watching the course of events and locating the commands of the various important dervish chiefs, had received news that the Khalifa was still in the town. The Pasha, on passing over the field, had searched around the black flag and other noted leaders' banners to see who lay there. In the heaped dead about the Khalifa's flag he had seen Yacoub, Abdullah's brother, and many more leaders, but the arch head of Mahdism, the Sheikh Ed Din and Osman Digna were nowhere to be found. Amongst the dead Emirs identified were Osman Azrak, leader of the cavalry, Wad el Melik, Ali Wad Helu, Yunis, Ibrahim Khalil, Mahmoud's brother, el Fadl, Osman Dekem, Zaki Ferar, Abu Senab, Mousa Zacharia, and Abd el Baki. The Khalifa had come into action riding a horse. As that did not suit him he changed for a camel and, finding the latter position too dangerously conspicuous, rode off the field on donkey-back. Perhaps the most concise summing up of the battle fell from a "Tommy's" lips: "Them dervishes are good uns, and no mistake. They came on in thousands on thousands to lay us out, but we shifted them fast enough."

It was not quite four o'clock, afternoon. Slatin Pasha had got news from former friends that the fugitives and townspeople would gladly surrender, so the sooner the Sirdar marched in and took possession the better. True, the Khalifa with several hundreds of followers, or mayhap a thousand or more, was yet within the central part of Omdurman. Most of his Jehadieh, it was urged, would give in at once if an opportunity were afforded them, and Abdullah could be caught. With Maxwell's brigade, Major Williams' battery and several Maxims, the Sirdar and headquarters staff pushed along the wide thoroughfare that leads from the north past the west end of the great rectangular wall, towards the Mosque inclosure and Mahdi's tomb. The infantry, guns, and Maxims preceded but a few paces in front. Vile beyond description was Omdurman, its dwellings, streets, lanes, and spaces. Beasts pay more regard to sanitation than dervishes. Pools of slush and stagnant water abounded. Dead animals in all stages of decomposition lay there in hundreds and thousands. There were besides littering the place camels, horses, donkeys, dead and wounded fresh from the battle-field. And there were many other ghastly sights. Dead and wounded dervishes lay in pools of blood in the roadway. Several of the dying enemy grimly saluted the staff as we passed. An Emir who, horribly mauled by a shell, lay pinned under his dead horse waved his hand and fell back a corpse. Our guns and Maxims had opened once or twice to turn the armed fugitives from the town. The compounds and huts were full of wounded and unwounded dervishes, most of the latter having Remingtons and waist-belts full of cartridges, besides carrying spears and swords. In the open thoroughfares there were many bodies of women and children lying stark and stiff. The majority of these victims were young girls. Many of the poor creatures had evidently been running towards the river to try and escape when caught and killed by jealous and cruel masters or husbands. The scenes were shocking, the smells abominable and quite overpowering to many who sought to ride in with the General.

There was something like a reception for the Sirdar on his entering the town. The women and children, mostly slaves, filled the thoroughfares, and in their peculiar guinea-fowl cackling fashion cheered the troops. Notables in jibbehs, which they had not yet had time to turn inside out, as nearly every native did afterwards, came and salaamed, smote their breasts, and kissed the hands and even the garments' hem of the Sirdar and his staff. In truly Oriental fashion they completed the ceremonial of obeisance and fealty by throwing dust upon their already frowsy enough heads. It was curious to watch the various recognitions extended to Slatin, and how the latter did not forget his old friends, who had been kind to him, or his Eastern manners in exchanging courtesies. When they realised that we were not cannibals, which they did very quickly, and that the Khalifa and others must have deceived them, they ran about amongst the troops. It was with difficulty at times the ranks were kept clear of them. Our Western leniency surprised them. The Sirdar shook hands with certain of the notables, including several of the Greeks and Jaalin. One of the most extraordinary incidents was the appearance of the Khalifa's own band with drums and horns to play in the 13th Soudanese. Evidently it was a case of black relations, for they played the battalion, Major Smith-Dorian's, out as well as into town on the following day.

The people were ordered to carry the good news about that none who gave up their arms would be killed or hurt, and that there was no intention on our part to sack the town or injure anybody. What? A captured city in the Soudan not to be given over to the victorious troops to do with as they liked! I am sure the natives of both sexes were amazed. And I cannot say all looked quite satisfied at the announcement. The crowd in the streets quickly increased; they evidently believed that we meant them no harm, and that they could do as they liked. In the bombardment the Lyddite shells had knocked down a gateway leading into the buildings and square mile of town enclosed by the great rectangular stone wall built by the Khalifa. For a space of fifty yards, several big holes had been blown in the structure, which was fourteen feet high and over four feet in thickness. Some of these breaches led into the beit-el-mal, or public granary. A few wretched, hungry slaves ventured to help themselves to the grain, chiefly dhura, that had partly poured out into the street. No one interfered with them. Within half an hour all the women and children in the town apparently, to the number of several thousands, were running pell-mell to loot the granary. Men also joined in plundering the Khalifa's storehouse. They ran against our horses, tripped over each other and fell in their crazy haste to fill sacks, skins, and nondescript vessels of all sorts—metal, wood and clay—with grain. Women staggered under burdens that would assure their households of food for months. It became a saturnalia and jubilee for the long, half-starved slaves, men and women. By-and-by looting became more general. The houses of Emirs who had run away or been killed were entered and plundered by the populace. Donkeys were caught and loaded with spoils of war, and driven off to huts on the outskirts near where the troops bivouacked after their long and fatiguing day. During the earlier part of that night there was much noise and hubbub in Omdurman with constant firing of rifles. Maxwell's men, however, assisted by numbers of friendly Jaalin, finally succeeded in enforcing something like order and peace.

Khalifa's House.

After the reception near the centre of the town the Sirdar proceeded with part of Colonel Maxwell's brigade along the west side of the big wall. Osman Digna's house was passed on the way. We got as far as the south-west corner into full view of the Mahdi's tomb, which was about 400 yards to the east. In the same direction and equidistant was the Khalifa's house. Beside us was the Praying Square or Mosque, a space of bare ground of about ten acres or so in extent. As soon as the troops got beyond the big wall and in sight of the tomb and Khalifa's house, a brisk fusilade from Remingtons by the Jehadieh body-guard protecting Abdullah was opened against us. Fortunately, the big stone wall was not loopholed on either side. Indeed there appeared to be no provision for its defenders to fire from it unless they mounted to the top. The Sirdar and staff fell back, and the guns and Maxims went forward a little. Maxwell's men then dealt with the enemy, and the Sirdar, still led by Slatin Pasha, whom the dervishes called "Saladin," turned back to try and make his way through the breaches in the north wall. Troops were sent in to clear the compound of dervishes, most of whom surrendered at once. But exit upon the south side was barred by interior walls and gates. Then the Sirdar essayed going along by the river's margin between the wall, the Nile, and the forts, to turn the south-east angle. A sharp and accurate fire from the Jehadieh stopped that advance for a time. Gunboats were ordered forward to drive the dervishes from their cover. The soldiers pushed farther through the compound, and the gunboats swept the Jehadieh with Maxims and quick-firing cannon. About 5 p.m., with the shadows rapidly lengthening, the rough way between the river and the great wall was partly cleared of the enemy. Thereupon the Sirdar and staff forded a dirty, wide creek, the crossing being girth high, and trotted a few hundred yards up stream. With double teams, four guns of the 32nd Battery, Major Williams', were got across the pool, accompanying the headquarters.

Entering a gateway through the outer rectangular wall, the force moved towards the Mahdi's tomb and the Khalifa's chief residence or palace. The Sirdar and staff reined up before Abdullah's doorway, for the dervish leader's house was surrounded by an inner wall and various small buildings. We were in a higgledy-piggledy looking corner, surrounded by rough shelters or stables for animals, horses and camels, and the unfinished but covered approaches to the Mahdi's tomb. The staff sat on horseback facing the doorway and dwelling; I pulled in opposite beside an angle of the wall. Upon the Sirdar's right were some corrugated iron roofed sheds, and a little in front the Praying Square. Behind was the Mahdi's tomb, and at no great distance various important dervish buildings. Abdullah had so planted himself that he had easy and private access to all places of public resort as well as the official quarters.