The Dongola Expedition took place in 1896, resulting in the capture of Dongola and the dispersal of the Arabs in that quarter. In 1897 the Government at last came to a practical decision, and determined to crush for ever the power of the Khalifa, and for that purpose despatched an army in which were included the Seaforth Highlanders and the Camerons. It was no unexpected event for Kitchener. More truly was it the last mile of the journey. His organisation was complete, his troops were efficient, he could take his own time, and the result was certain.
The Khalifa’s army was roughly estimated at 60,000 men, and divided into one division of 40,000 at Omdurman and another of 20,000 at Metammeh. The Sirdar, accompanied by General Gatacre and General Sir Archibald Hunter, was in command of a force of some 12,000 men perfectly equipped, and with some eight squadrons of Egyptian cavalry. The Camerons and Seaforths were brigaded under General Gatacre.
Mahmoud, who commanded the Khalifa’s troops at Metammeh, left that place and marched towards the River Atbara, where he settled down in a zeriba, and calmly awaited the British advance. This was a new turn in Dervish tactics; formerly they had been only too ready to rush upon the British bayonet. But Mahmoud had learnt with native shrewdness the foolishness of throwing men upon the British square. He also knew who best could play a waiting game. It was imperative that Kitchener should act, and act quickly, and so, on the night of April 7 he advanced to open the conflict. As the late G. W. Steevens has so graphically written: “All England and all Egypt and the flower of the black lands beyond, Birmingham and the West Highlands, the half-regenerated children of the earth’s earliest civilisation, and grinning savages from the uttermost swamps of Equatoria, muscle and machinery, lord and larrikin, Balliol and Board School, the Sirdar’s brain and the camel’s back—all welded into one, the awful war machine went forward into action.”
The Dervish zeriba lay some twenty miles distant. At about a quarter to four in the morning the advance guard came in sight of the enemy, and instantly the British force halted. It was, indeed, a formidable position that faced them. Mahmoud had studied the lie of the ground very carefully, and sheltered himself from artillery fire by a ridge of rising country. All around his camp was knotted and twisted together an entanglement of desert thorn some 10 feet high, and as much as 20 feet broad in some places. Behind these were trenches and bomb-proof shelters. Without the help of heavy artillery a frontal attack was the only possible way to gain the victory. And so in two ranks the British began their advance on the zeriba, headed by the Camerons and the Seaforth Highlanders. It has been said that General Gatacre was the first man to reach the formidable entanglement of desert thorn. At his heels came the Camerons, who, forcing a way through, managed to enter the zeriba. One of their pipers, standing upon a height of earth, began to play ‘The March of the Cameron Men,’ and fell almost at once, riddled with bullets. In the fierce conflict that followed none fought more staunchly than Lewis’s half brigade of Egyptians. That in itself was worth as much as half a dozen minor victories.
The fire of the Dervishes from their trenches rained thick and fast upon the Highlanders as they came through the break in the hedges, but when they had gained a real foothold inside the zeriba, the Dervishes lost heart, and made away towards the Atbara River. The fine strategy of Kitchener forcing an engagement at this point was now apparent. The enemy were faced with thirty miles of waterless desert, at the end of which it was probable they would encounter the British gunboats. It was more than a victory in arms; it struck the first devastating blow at the power of the Khalifa.
In answer to Kitchener’s despatch, Queen Victoria replied: “Anxious to know how the wounded British and Egyptians are going on. Am proud of the gallantry of my soldiers. So glad my Cameron Highlanders should have been amongst them.”
A writer in Blackwood’s Magazine relates the following striking incident, doubly pregnant with meaning to-day. “After Atbara,” he says, “and as we rode through the ‘dem,’ Lord Cecil joined us, and presently K. pulled up among the charred corpses on the burning ground to make some enquiries. Cecil made a grimace and pointed to the ground; it was strewn with Dervish shells lying about under our horses’ hoofs and the hoofs of the chief’s horse, with the grass on fire all around them. Neither of us spoke, but Kismet, destiny, or whatever it is that sits behind the crupper, impelled K. to move on, and a few minutes later a column of smoke shot up into the air—the shells had exploded. But K. had passed on—destiny had need of him still.”
In July 1898 began the advance on Omdurman, in which the Camerons and Seaforths took part. The battle was fought on September 2nd. The Khalifa’s army numbered some 50,000 men, and the fight that was to end in the utter defeat of Mahdism extended over five hours. The Highlanders did not take as prominent a part here as at Atbara, and the chief battle honours lie with Brigadier-General Hector Macdonald, whose Soudanese troops were handled with much brilliancy, and the 21st Lancers, the glory of whose charge rang throughout England and the Empire.
The Dervishes, trusting to their overwhelming superiority in numbers, advanced in dense hordes against the British lines, and at this point of the engagement the Camerons and Seaforths withstood the fury of the opening attack with magnificent steadiness. The enemy were met with a murderous fire; whole lines and ranks were simply mown down by our shrapnel: attack upon attack was launched with reckless gallantry, always to be repulsed.
In one portion of this campaign it has been related that for two hours a company of the Seaforths were engaged with a great number of the Dervishes, and as their ammunition had run short, they were compelled to use the bayonet. “Not one shot was fired,” says an eye-witness, “for two hours, and yet the greatest and most serious losses amongst the enemy occurred during the time when the Seaforths were getting in with the bayonet.” At Omdurman, in that great charge of the Dervishes, it became impossible to check them altogether, and so heavy was the fire that the rifles of the Cameron Highlanders became too hot to hold. To avert a repulse the curious spectacle was seen of men carrying and exchanging rifles with the reserve lines behind.