1889.By the end of May, 1889, Nejumi had reached Sagiet el Abd with some 4,000 fighting men and 7,000 camp followers, the Egyptian frontier force being then about 6,000 men.
Battle of Argîn, 2nd July, 1889.On the 2nd July, Colonel Wodehouse, O.C.F.F.F., engaged the enemy at Argîn,[173] and, although with much inferior numbers, advanced with determination to the attack, and inflicted a loss of 1,400.
Battle of Toski, 3rd August, 1889.A British brigade was now being sent upstream, but General Grenfell (the Sirdar), who had previously concentrated his Egyptian forces at Toski, found Nejumi on the 3rd August attempting to cross his front, and was therefore obliged to attack him without waiting for the British, whose advance parties had reached Korosko.[174] He stopped him at Toski,[175] on the 3rd August, and with 2 Egyptian and 4 Sudanese battalions (besides cavalry and artillery) routed him completely. Wad el Nejumi was killed, and his forces were practically destroyed. Thus ended the Mahdi’s dream of the conquest of the world.
1890.The victory of Toski had the effect of crushing for several years any important movement northwards on the part of the Dervishes, and the recapture of Tokar in February, 1891 (vide [p. 258]), caused the Khalifa still more to draw in his horns.
1891.The Shilluks were meanwhile giving the Dervishes considerable trouble in the neighbourhood of Kodok, and in 1891 Zeki Tumal was sent against them. Two steamers had stuck in the sudd in the winter of 1888, and had been taken by the Shilluks; desperate efforts were now made by the Dervishes to effect their recapture (vide [p. 260]).
In August, 1891, the Nuers were used as allies by the Dervishes, and succeeded in killing the Mek of the Shilluks. Soon afterwards, however, the Nuers turned against their allies and expelled them from the country south of Kodok, whilst the Shilluks inflicted a severe defeat on their enemy near Kodok, in December, 1891, and again in January, 1893. The war was waged with indecisive results till 1894, when the Dervishes finally crushed the Shilluks and murdered their King’s wife. After that the Dervishes merely kept a small tax-collecting outpost at Kodok, and the riverain tribes remained fairly quiet.
During 1891 the Khalifa, alarmed at a rumour of an Egyptian advance, pretended to be desirous for peace, but in December of that year he showed his true hand. He had long been aiming at making the Khalifate a hereditary succession, and finding an excuse for quarrelling with the Khalifa Sherif, he threw him into prison and loaded him with chains.[176] He would, no doubt, have liked to do the same with the remaining Khalifa, Ali Wad Helu, but the latter Sheikh had too powerful a following of Degheim and Kenana, and Abdalla desisted. At the same time, however, he effected a clean sweep of all disaffected Emirs, and by executing some and exiling the majority he succeeded in consolidating his own dominion. His nearest relations were his brother, Yagub, and his son, Osman Sheikh el Din; of these two he intended his son to succeed him.
1892.In 1892 raids recommenced on the frontier, and in December a serious raid was only stopped by a fierce fight at Ambugol, in which Captain Pyne was killed, together with 26 of his men.
1893.In July, 1893, another big raid was made by Osman Azrak on the oasis of Beris, and 11 natives were taken prisoners. As the Kharga, Beris, and Dakhla oases were thus threatened, posts were established at these places. In November the Dervishes raided Murrat Wells, and killed Saleh Bey, Sheikh of a section of the Ababda.
1894.In 1894 little occurred of importance on the Nile, though the year was memorable for the capture of Kassala by the Italians (vide [p. 259]).