Abdel Kader then proposed marching south up the Blue Nile, and pacifying the country as far as Karkoj, after which he intended to cross the river, and advance eastward against the revolted Rufaa-el-Sherk and Kawakli tribes in the country between the rivers Dinder and Rahad. But, as will be seen further on, he was superseded before he had time to carry out these plans.
20th Feb.
Arrival of Pashas Al-el-din and Suleiman.
1883.
Nyasi at Kartoum.
On the 20th February, the Pashas Al-ed-Din and Suleiman Nyasi reached Kartoum. The latter was to take command of the troops, but the mission of the former was kept secret, though it was rumoured that he was to be appointed Governor-General of the Soudan.
4th March Arrival of Colonel Hicks at Kartoum.
On the 4th March Colonel Hicks[311] reached Kartoum, and with him the undermentioned English Officers, viz.:—Lieut.-Colonel Hon. J. Colborne,[312] Lieut.-Colonel de Coetlogon,[313] Major Martin,[314] Major Farquhar,[315] Captain Warner, Captain Massey,[316] Captain Evans, Captain Walker,[317] and Surgeon-Major Rosenberg.
Colonel Hicks had been appointed Chief of the Staff of the Army of the Soudan, with local rank of Major-General, but it was intended that he should direct, and be responsible for, all preparations and operations—in fact, that he should in reality be the Commander-in-Chief, while nominally holding a subordinate post.
The Mahdi’s movement being, at any rate ostensibly, a religious one, it was deemed inadvisable to place at the head of the Egyptian Army of the Soudan a foreigner and a non-Mussulman, lest the insurgent leader might make capital out of this to arouse still further the fanaticism of his followers.