The Mahdi will be furious.
I do not think the resources of this place are known. We can turn out 50,000 rounds of Remington ammunition a week, there are some 10,000 rounds of mountain-gun ammunition in store, and if the Mahdi takes Kartoum (which will entail the fall of every town in Soudan) it will need a large force to stay his propaganda. According to the Greek he meditates an invasion of Egypt and Palestine, where they are all ready to rise.[54] All the steamers on the Nile, even below Assouan, are but crockery, if struck by a mountain-gun shell; consequently, if the people rose at Esneh they could, by the Mahdi sending down two guns, stop the river. The further the Mahdi is off from the people who rise, the stronger he is; here we are near him, and hear all about his festivities and pepper business; at Esneh this would be lost in the mists of distance, still more so at Cairo and in Palestine. What have we done in Lower Egypt to make them like us? Not a single thing. We have foisted Europeans on them to the extent of £450,000 a year; we have not reduced taxes, only improved the way of extorting those taxes. The Mahdi says, “I will take one-tenth of your produce, and I will rid you of the ‘dogs’”—a most captivating programme! If well led, and once he takes Kartoum, the combined forces of France and England will not be able to subdue him, unless they go at his nest. From a professional military point of view, and speaking materially, I wish I was the Mahdi, and I would laugh at all Europe. Query (believing all the above as I do)—would I be justified in coming to terms with Mahdi, on the understanding that he should let down all refugees (on the Egerton contract arrangement), while I should give over to him, unhurt, all warlike material in Kartoum?
Certainly, according to the letter, I would be justified in so doing; and then what! of what I feel sure will happen, i.e., a rising in Egypt occurs, what will my nation say? (for Egerton will disappear by some appointment in Chili) they will say it is my fault; but (D. V.) they shall not say so, for I will not give up the place except with my life. It cannot be too strongly impressed on the public that it is not the Mahdi’s forces which are to be feared, but the rising of the populations by his emissaries. I do not believe he had four thousand men when he defeated Hicks. We have to think what would a garrison of ten thousand men do in Cairo if the population rose.
Had Zubair Pasha been sent up when I asked for him, Berber would in all probability never have fallen, and one might have made a Soudan Government in opposition to the Mahdi. We choose to refuse his coming up because of his antecedents in re slave trade; granted that we had reason, yet as we take no precautions as to the future of these lands with respect to the slave trade, the above opposition seems absurd. I will not send up A. because he will do this, but I will leave the country to B., who will do exactly the same.
September 18.—Men came to Halfeyeh from Shendy, and report in further detail, the attack on the market of Metemma,[55] and capture of a lot of things. They report also the arrival of troops at Dongola, and their advance towards Berber (saying that a reconnaissance was just pushed out to ascertain if Kartoum had fallen or not). Three escaped soldiers came in from Arabs; they report that a lot of troops are at Fashoda.[56] I suppose those from Equator or Bahr Gazelle; it appears they have been at Fashoda some little time, and have lots of cows, &c. They did not like to come on, for they did not know if Kartoum existed.
10 a.m.—A fight is going on between the Towfikia steamer and five hundred of our men and the Arabs, near Giraffe. The Arabs are retiring towards the White Nile. I sent out the men to get wood, &c. The Arabs did ditto, thence the collision.
The three men who came in to-day, say the Arabs, seeing the numbers who desert them, take the rifles from the men at night, and give them out by day.
These men say the Mahdi knows of the advance of the troops on Berber, and is in a way about it.
Yesterday, previous to hearing the news of to-day, I had arranged for the departure of the Greek Consul and subjects to the Equator, and then their retreat, viâ Zanzibar, but it will now be held in abeyance, till we see the corroboration or not, of this advance of troops to Berber.
The following meditations as to the future, may save a good deal of talking: therefore I write them. Supposing it to be true, an expeditionary force comes to Berber, composed of partly British troops. What will result? The Mahdi’s people will retire still further into the interior, and some of his people will come in. The chief of the expeditionary force will say “Now the road from Kartoum to Berber is open, retire the garrison.” He may say, “I will give you three months to do it in.” Well, we send up steamers to the Equator and Bahr Gazelle, and the garrison of Kartoum marches on Sennaar and we get down the refugees, and garrisons from those places. Of course the moment it is known we are going to evacuate, we drive all neutrals, and even friendlies of the country into the arms of the Mahdi, for they will calculate “We are going to be left, and consequently we must, for our own interests, do something for the Mahdi, in order to hedge our position.” This means that arrayed against our evacuation will be the mass of those living in our midst, and who are now with us. This is disagreeable, but one cannot help seeing that it is quite impossible to keep British troops after January. Therefore I maintain we must install Zubair with a subsidy or give over country to the Sultan with a subsidy. There is no option. If it is determined to do neither, but to evacuate purely and simply, then when the Sennaar garrison is brought down, give me the steamers, and the black troops, who are willing to go, and let me take them up to Equator, while the expeditionary force goes down to Berber. I must say I think this will be a mistake, to leave the prisoners in Obeyed, and to let the Mahdi gain Kartoum.