The battles of the British Army

by Robert Melvin Blackwood

On September 1 an admirable and final reconnaissance was effected, and the enemy’s exact position and strength located. On the night of September 1st, the British army bivouacked under arms at the village of Agaiga, fully expecting the Dervish attack, but not until the morning of the 2nd did our scouts report the entire dervish army to be advancing against the British position. Their front was estimated at between three and four miles. Countless banners fluttered over their serried masses, and they chanted war-songs as they came steadily on.

Short and sharp came the orders from headquarters, and in a very short time the British army had taken up its appointed position in front of its camp at Agaiga. On the left were the 2nd battalion Rifle Brigade, the Lancashire Fusiliers, the Northumberland Fusiliers, and the 1st battalion Grenadier Guards, with the maxim battery manned by the Irish Fusiliers. Then came the 1st battalion Royal Warwickshire regiment, the Cameron and Seaforth Highlanders, and the 1st battalion Lincolns in the order named, with a battery of maxims directed by the Royal Artillery. The Soudanese brigades, under Generals Maxwell and Macdonald continued the fighting line, with the Egyptian brigades, under Generals Lewis and Collinson, in reserve. Captain Long had his maxim nordenfelt batteries on both flanks. The British fighting line formed a large obtuse angle, with its convex side towards the enemy. Facing either flank of it were, on the British right, the heights of Kerreri, on their left the hill of Gebel Surgham. Between these two the enemy was now seen to be advancing.

About 6.30 a.m. the British opened fire with a suddenness which must have startled the advancing foe. Frightful was the execution done during these first few moments of Omdurman. The foe were mown down in handfuls, yet fresh men ever rushed forward to fill their places, and still for a time they pressed forward.

“No white troops,” says Steevens, “could have faced that torrent of death for five minutes, but the Baggara and the blacks came on. The torrent of lead swept into them, and hurled them down in whole companies. You saw a rigid line gather itself up and rush on evenly; then, before a shrapnel shell or maxim the line suddenly quivered and stopped. The line was yet unbroken, but it was quite still. Sometimes they came near enough to see single figures quite plainly. One old man with a white flag started with five comrades; all dropped, but he alone came bounding forward to within 200 yards of the 14th Soudanese. Then he folded his arms across his face, and his limbs loosened, and he dropped sprawling to earth beside his flag.” In such manner did the Mahdists fight their last great fight, but the issue of this, the first stage of the battle, was not long held in the balance. By eight o’clock firing ceased, the Dervishes being by this time all out of range, and leaving scores of dead upon the field.

Half an hour later the advance was sounded, and in the order known as “echelon of brigades” the troops moved off towards Omdurman. As they approached the hill of Gebel Surgham a heavy dervish fire broke out, and it was then apparent that the Khalifa had divided his army into three. The first portion had attacked the British camp at Agaiga in front; the second, under Ali Wad Helu and the Sheik el Din, had moved towards Kerreri to envelop the British right; the third, under the Khalifa himself, lay in wait behind Gebel Surgham, where they had bivouacked the previous night.

Both flanks were soon hotly engaged, and former scenes repeated. When the Dervishes drew off behind the ridge in front of their camp, the Sirdar detailed General Lewis’s and General Collinson’s Egyptian brigades, which up to this point had been held in reserve, to watch the attempt which the dervishes made to overwhelm our left, and meanwhile the cavalry were sent on in advance.

Just as the brigades reached the crest adjoining the Nile, the right, comprising the Egyptian brigades, marched out of camp and became engaged with the enemy. The action was now general. It was found that the Dervishes had re-formed under cover of the rocky eminence two miles from camp, and had marched under the black standard of the Khalifa in order to make a supreme effort to retrieve the fortunes of the day. Meanwhile a mass of about 15,000 strong bore down upon the two Egyptian brigades on our right. These, supported by a battery of maxims, succeeded in forming up steadily in order to face the Dervish attack. The Sirdar swung round his centre and left, leaving the 1st British Brigade with General Wauchope with the transport. General Maxwell’s Soudanese brigade seized the rocky eminence, and General Macdonald’s brigade joined the firing line.

In ten minutes—before the attack could be driven home—the flower of the Khalifa’s army was caught in a depression, and came under the withering cross-fire of three brigades and their attendant artillery. Manfully the devoted Mahdists strove to make headway, but their rushes were swept away, and their main body mown through and through by the sustained and deadly fire of the Sirdar’s troops. Defiantly the Dervishes planted their standards and died by them. It was more than human nature could bear, and after the dense mass had melted to companies, and companies to driblets, they broke and fled, leaving the field white with jibbah-clad corpses, like a meadow dotted with snowdrifts.

Meanwhile on the left was taking place the great incident of the battle of Omdurman—the fine charge of the 21st Lancers against enormous odds. Colonel Martin’s orders were to prevent the broken enemy from returning to Omdurman, five miles away from the field of battle. The 21st Lancers unexpectedly came upon the enemy’s reserves behind Gebel Surgham, who were 2000 strong, but whose precise strength could not be ascertained owing to the nature of the ground. The cavalry were then in column of troops. They deployed into line for the attack, and charged. When they were within thirty yards of the enemy they found the latter, who had been ensconced in a nullah, and had been concealed by a depression of the ground.

Wild with excitement, coming on to the attack, the Lancers had not a single moment for hesitation. They charged gallantly home, the brunt of the business falling on No. 2 Squadron, who absolutely had to hack their way through the enemy, twenty deep, exposed as they were to a withering infantry fire. They struggled through, but every man who fell was immediately hacked to pieces by the swords of the fanatic foe. The men of the British cavalry rallied, bleeding and blown, on the far side of the lanes which they had cut for themselves in the enemy’s ranks, and with admirable fortitude they re-formed as coolly as if they had been on parade.