Removal of Suleiman Pasha from the command of the army of the Soudan.
On the 13th May General Hicks telegraphed to Cairo requesting that he might be put in indisputable command of the army, as otherwise he could not be responsible for the success of the expedition to Kordofan. It was subsequently rumoured on several occasions that he had requested to be relieved of his post on account of the systematic obstructions he met with from native officials. These reports were always officially contradicted. However, on the 2nd August, Reuter’s agent at Alexandria announced that the Governor-General of the Soudan had been appointed to command the troops in that province, and that Suleiman Pasha had been recalled, and appointed Governor of the Red Sea Provinces. By this means it was expected that General Hicks would regain complete liberty of action, though Al-ed-Deen Pasha was to accompany the expedition to Kordofan.
During the absence of the latter, Hussein Bey, Lieutenant-colonel of the 2nd Regiment, was to act as his deputy at Kartoum. Rashid Pasha, who was then Governor of the Red Sea Provinces, was to be given the command of one of the brigades of the Expeditionary Force.
Position of The Mahdi.
1883.
The Mahdi only remained master of Kordofan. All reports from there tended to show that serious dissensions had broken out between him and his chiefs, and that the number of his adherents was daily diminishing. His position appeared to be getting critical. From the north he was threatened by the Egyptian army, and to the east the White Nile, which was constantly patrolled by Egyptian boats, would bar any attempt at escape in that direction. On the south King Adam of Takallé had sworn to kill the Mahdi if he attempted to pass through his country to Jebel Gedir, whither he had sent his family and most of the booty captured at El Obeyed. King Adam was also taking steps to arrange with Sheikh Asaker, chief of the Baggara Gimeh Arabs, inhabiting the desert from the island of Abba towards Takallé, a joint offensive movement against southern Kordofan. In the middle of July it was stated that the Mahdi had given up all hopes of resistance, and was only anxious about his personal safety; and that it was his intention to try to reach the copper mines in the south-west of Darfur, not far from Jebel Mara. In order to do this, however, he would have to make a long detour to avoid an encounter with the force under Slatin Bey, Governor of Darfur.
Operations in Darfur.
Very little news has been received of the real state of affairs in that far-off province. It appears that, on receipt of orders from Cairo, a messenger was despatched from Kartoum to El Fascher in April of the present year with the following instructions for Slatin Bey—viz., to concentrate the garrisons of Darfur at El Fascher, attempt to organise a national Government under a descendant of one of the former kings, and then withdraw from the country, either to Dongola or Bahr el Ghazel. Report states that Slatin Bey subsequently evacuated El Fascher, defeated a tribe of hostile Hamr Arabs, and then intrenched himself at Omchanga, in an important strategical position on the road to El Obeyed, where he awaited the arrival of the garrison of Foga before undertaking any further operations.
Letter from Slatin Bey, Governor of Darfur.
The above-mentioned orders do not appear to have reached Slatin Bey, for on the 30th June he wrote as follows to the Governor-General of the Soudan from Dara, 200 miles south of El-Fascher:—