The British infantry division was under the command of Major-General Gatacre, and Colonels Wauchope and Lyttelton respectively commanded its two brigades. The first brigade was made up to nearly 3500 strong, and consisted of Camerons, Seaforths, Lincolns, and Warwicks, with a maxim battery. Four battalions, each over 1000 strong, of respectively 1st Northumberland Fusiliers, 2nd Lancashire Fusiliers, 2nd Rifle Brigade, and the 1st Grenadier Guards constituted the second brigade. The whole division was thus about 7500 strong.
The Egyptian Infantry division consisted of four brigades (in place of the three which had fought at the Atbara), and its first, second and third brigades respectively under the commands of Macdonald, Maxwell, and Lewis, were constituted as before. The fourth, under Collinson Bey, consisted of the 1st, 5th, 17th, and 18th Egyptian regiments. The total Egyptian Division numbered 12,000 men.
The cavalry numbered 1500 in all, of whom 500 were the 21st Lancers, under Colonel Martin, and the remainder Broadwood Bey’s Egyptian horse. Long Bey, of the Egyptian army, had supreme command of the artillery—forty-four guns and twenty maxims.
With camel corps and transport, the total land force numbered some 22,000 men of all arms.
On the 23rd August, 1898, the Sirdar held a general review of this imposing force at Wad Hamed, and company after company filed past the commander-in-chief, stirring the dust of the desert in dense clouds. Early on the 24th, the march south began. Rumours were rife in camp as to the Khalifa’s intentions and probable plan of action. It was thought by some that he would advance to meet our force in the open, by others that he would entrench himself in the fastness of Omdurman. His army was reported 45,000 strong.
Hajir was the first object of attainment by the British army, a distance of 40 miles from Omdurman, and thence the route lay by Kerreri, where a low range of sandstone hills inland led to the Khalifa’s city. The work of shifting quarters from point to point was characterised with the mechanical and infallible precision which marked every move of the Sirdar’s vast army. Writing from Wad Hamed about noon of the 26th August, the historian of the war says, “The camp is a wilderness of broken biscuit-boxes and battered jam tins”—where but a few hours before had been concentrated a force of 20,000 men.
Slowly the army marched south, and for a week its progress was uneventful. Moving in the form of a vast square, with sides a mile long, it crept nearer and ever nearer to Omdurman.
By the 28th, Gebel Royan, or Hajir, was reached, and from the hill overlooking the camp the Nile could be viewed almost up to Omdurman itself, and at this period the first dervish cavalry patrols were sighted. These, however, fell back without showing fight The same day the gunboat Zafir, the flagship of Captain Keppel, sprang a leak and sank within a few moments. The utmost coolness was displayed by all on board, Captain Keppel being the last to leave, and no lives were lost, but the Zafir was, of course, rendered useless, and the naval commander’s flag was transferred to the Sultan.
A striking example of the altered conditions of warfare in modern times is to be found in an observation of Mr. Steevens at this point. “The correspondents,” he says, “would find the chief disadvantage of rain (of which the army had had by this time considerable experience) in the possible interruption of the field telegraph, which has been brought here, and will probably advance further.” An admirably-equipped field telegraph formed a not unimportant adjunct to the army’s equipment. From now on, reconnaissances were of frequent occurrence, and on the 30th, some five Arab horsemen were overtaken and captured by Major Stuart-Wortley’s friendlies, and shortly afterwards the army reached Kerreri.
From this point Omdurman was clearly visible, “the Mahdi’s tomb forming the centre of a purple stain on the yellow sand, going out for miles and miles on every side, a city worth conquering.” Clearly visible, too, was the enemy’s army, a long white line stretching in front of the city wall with a front of three miles.