On the 14th of March 1896 Major-General Sir H. Kitchener, who succeeded Sir Francis Grenfell as sirdar of the Egyptian army in 1892, received orders to reoccupy Akasha, 50 m. south of Sarras, and to carry the railway on from Sarras. Subsequent operations were to depend upon the amount of resistance he encountered. On the 20th of March Akasha was occupied without opposition by an advanced column of Egyptian troops under Major J. Collinson, who formed an entrenched camp there. The reserves of the Egyptian army were called out, and responded with alacrity. The troops were concentrated at Wadi Halfa; the railway reconstruction, under Lieutenant E. P. Girouard, R.E., pushed southward; and a telegraph line followed the advance. At the commencement of the campaign the Egyptian army, including reserves, consisted of 16 battalions of infantry, of which 6 were Sudanese, 10 squadrons of cavalry, 5 batteries of artillery, 3 companies of garrison artillery, and 8 companies of camel corps, and it possessed 13 gunboats for river work. Colonel H. M. L. Rundle was chief of the staff; Major F. R. Wingate was head of the intelligence department, with Slatin Bey as his assistant; and Colonel A. Hunter was in command of Sarras, and south. The 1st battalion of the North Staffordshire regiment moved up from Cairo to join the Egyptian army.
In the meantime the advance to Akasha had already relieved the pressure at Kassala, Osman Digna having withdrawn a considerable force from the investing army and proceeded with it to Suakin. To meet Osman Digna’s movement Lieutenant-Colonel G. E. Lloyd, the Suakin commandant, advanced to the Taroi Wells, 19 m. south of Suakin, on the 15th of April to co-operate with the “Friendlies,” and with Major H. M. Sidney, advancing with a small force from Tokar. His cavalry, under Major M. A. C. B. Fenwick, went out to look for Sidney’s force, and were surprised by a large number of dervishes. Fenwick, with some 40 officers and men, seized an isolated hill and held it through the night, repulsing the dervishes, who were the same night driven back with such heavy loss in attacking Lloyd’s zeriba that they retired to the hills, and comparative quiet again reigned at Suakin. At the end of May an Indian brigade arrived for garrison duty, and the Egyptian troops were released for service on the Nile.
The dervishes first came in contact with the Egyptian cavalry on the Nile near Akasha, on the 1st of May, and were repulsed. The army concentrated at Akasha early in June, and on the 6th Kitchener moved to the attack of Firket 16 m. away, where the amir Hamuda, with 3000 men, was encamped. The attack was made in two columns: one, under Colonel Hunter, marching along the river-bank, approached Firket from the north; while the other, under Major Burn-Murdoch, making a detour through the desert, approached it from the south. The co-operation of the two columns was admirably timed, and on the morning of the 7th the dervish camp was surrounded, and, after a sharp fight, Hamuda and many amirs and about 1000 men were killed, and 500 prisoners taken. The dash and discipline of the Egyptian troops in this victory were a good augury for the future.
By the end of June the railway was advanced beyond Akasha, and headquarters were at Kosha, 10 m. farther south. Cholera and fever were busy both with the North Staffordshire regiment at Gemai, whither they had been moved on its approach, and with the Egyptian troops at the front, and carried off many officers and men. The railway reached Kosha early in August; the cholera disappeared, and stores were collected and arrangements steadily made for a farther advance. The North Staffordshire moved up to the front, and in September the army moved on Kerma, which was found to be evacuated, the dervishes having crossed the river to Hafir. There they were attacked by the gunboats and Kitchener’s artillery from the opposite bank, and forced to retire, with their commander, Wad Bishara, seriously wounded. Dongola was bombarded by the gunboats and captured by the army on the 23rd of September. Bishara and his men retreated, but were pursued by the Egyptians until the retreat became a hopeless rout. Guns, small arms and ammunition, with large stores of grain and dates, were captured, many prisoners taken, while hundreds surrendered voluntarily, among them a brother of the amir Wad en Nejumi. The dervish Dongola army had practically ceased to exist. Debba was seized on the 3rd October, Korti and Merawi occupied soon after, and the principal sheiks came in and submitted to the sirdar. The Dongola campaign was over, and the province recovered to Egypt. The Indian brigade at Suakin returned to India, and was replaced by Egyptians. The North Staffordshire returned to Cairo. The work of consolidation began, and preparations were made for a farther advance when everything should be ready.
The railway up the right bank of the Nile was continued to Kerma, in order to evade the difficulties of the 3rd cataract; but the sirdar had conceived the bold project of cutting off the great angle of the Nile from Wadi Halfa to Abu The Sudan campaign, 1897. Hamed, involving nearly 600 m. of navigation and including the 4th cataract, by constructing a railway across the Nubian desert, and so bringing his base at Wadi Halfa within a few hours of his force, when it should have advanced to Abu Hamed, instead of ten days. Early in 1897 this new line of railway was commenced from Wadi Halfa across the great Nubian desert 230 m. to Abu Hamed. The first-mentioned line reached Kerma in May, and by July the second had advanced 130 m. into the desert towards Abu Hamed, when it became necessary, before it was carried farther, to secure that terminus by an advance from Merawi.
In the meantime the khalifa was not idle. He occupied Abu Klea wells and Metemma; recalled the amir Ibrahim Khalil, with 4000 men, from the Ghezira; brought to Omdurman the army of the west under Mahmud—some 10,000 men; entrusted the line of the Atbara—Ed Darner, Adarama, Asubri and El Fasher—to Osman Digna; constructed defences in the Shabluka gorge; and personally superintended the organization and drill of the forces gathered at Omdurman, and the collection of vast stores of food and supplies of camels for offensive expeditions.
Towards the end of June the chief of the Jaalin tribe, Abdalla wad Said, who occupied Metemma, angered by the khalifa, made his submission to Kitchener and asked for support, at the same time foolishly sending a defiant letter to the khalifa. The sirdar sent him rifles and ammunition across the desert from Korti; but before they arrived, Mahmud’s army, sent by the khalifa, swept down on Metemma on the 1st of July and massacred Abdalla wad Said and his garrison.
On the 29th of July, after several reconnaissances, Major-General Hunter, with a flying column, marched up the Nile from near Merawi to Abu Hamed, 133 m. distant, along the edge of the Monassir desert. He arrived on the 7th of August and captured it by storm, the dervishes losing 250 killed and 50 prisoners. By the end of the month the gunboats had surmounted the 4th cataract and reached Abu Hamed. Berber was found to be deserted, and occupied by Hunter on the 5th of September, and in the following month a large force was entrenched there. The khalifa, fearing an attack on Omdurman, moved Osman Digna from Adarama to Shendi. In the 23rd of October Hunter, with a flying column lightly equipped, left Berber for Adarama, which he burned on the 2nd of November, and after reconnoitring for 40 m. up the Atbara, returned to Berber. The Nile was falling, and Kitchener decided to keep the gunboats above the impassable rapid at Um Tuir, 4 m. north of the confluence of the Atbara with the Nile, where he constructed a fort. The gunboats made repeated reconnaissances up the river, bombarding Metemma with effect. The railway reached Abu Hamed on the 4th of November, and was pushed rapidly forward along the right bank of the Nile towards Berber.
The forces of the khalifa remaining quiet, the sirdar visited Kassala and negotiated with the Italian General Caneva for its restoration to Egypt. The Italians were anxious to leave it; and on Christmas day 1897 Colonel (afterwards General Sir Charles) Parsons, with an Egyptian force from Suakin, took it formally over, together with a body of Arab irregulars employed by the Italians. These troops were at once despatched to capture the dervish posts at Asabri and El Fasher, which they did with small loss.
On his return from Kassala to Berber the sirdar received information of an intended advance of the khalifa northward. He at once ordered a concentration of Egyptian troops towards Berber, and telegraphed to Cairo for a British Sudan campaign, 1898. brigade. By the end of January the concentration was complete, and the British brigade, under Major-General Gatacre, was at Dakhesh, south of Abu Hamed. Disagreement among the khalifa’s generals postponed the dervish advance and gave Kitchener much-needed time. But at the end of February, Mahmud crossed the Nile to Shendi with some 12,000 fighting men, and with Osman Digna advanced along the right bank of the Nile to Aliab, where he struck across the desert to Nakheila, on the Atbara, intending to turn Kitchener’s left flank at Berber. The sirdar took up a position at Ras el Hudi, on the Atbara. His force consisted of Gatacre’s British brigade (1st Warwicks, Lincolns, Seaforths and Camerons) and Hunter’s Egyptian division (3 brigades under Colonels Maxwell, MacDonald and Lewis respectively), Broadwood’s cavalry, Tudway’s camel corps and Long’s artillery. The dervish army reached Nakheila on the 20th of March, and entrenched themselves there in a formidable zeriba. After several reconnaissances in which fighting took place with Mahmud’s outposts, it was ascertained from prisoners that their army was short of provisions and that great leakage was going on. Kitchener, therefore, did not hurry. He sent his flotilla up the Nile and captured Shendi, the dervish depôt, on the 27th of March. On the 4th of April he advanced to Abadar. A final reconnaissance was made on the 5th. On the following day he bivouacked at Umdabia, where he constructed a strong zeriba, which was garrisoned by an Egyptian battalion, and on the night of the 7th he marched to the attack of Mahmud’s zeriba, which, after an hour’s bombardment on the morning of the 8th of April, was stormed with complete success. Mahmud and several hundred dervishes were captured, 40 amirs and 3000 Arabs killed, and many more wounded; the rest escaped to Gedaref. The sirdar’s casualties were 80 killed and 472 wounded.